Volume 10 — SALUS PUBLICA—BISMARCK'S ONLY LODE-STAR (continued 2)

In 1865 it faced about, and the preparations for the war of 1866 were beginning. I only remember a meeting of the Prussian cabinet which took place in Regensburg in 1865 with a view to procuring the necessary money, but which was rendered futile by the agreement of Gastein. In 1866, however, the war broke out in full force, as you know. A circumspect use of events alone enabled us to ward off the existing danger of turning this duel between Prussia and Austria into a fierce European war of coalition, when our very existence, our life and all we had, would have been at stake.

This was in 1866, and in 1867 the Luxembourg problem arose, when only a somewhat firmer reply was needed to bring about the great French war in that year,—and we might have given it, if we had been so strong that we could have counted on sure success. From then on, during 1868, 1869, and up to 1870 we were living in constant apprehension of war, and of the agreements which in the time of Mr. von Beust were being made in Salzburg and other places between France, Italy, and Austria, and which, we feared, were directed against us. The apprehension of war was so great at that time that I received calls—I was the President of the cabinet—from merchants and manufacturers, who said: "The uncertainty is unbearable. Why don't you strike the first blow? War is preferable to this continued damper on all business!" We waited quietly until we were struck, and I believe we did well to arrange matters so that we were the nation which was assailed and were not ourselves the assailants.

Now, since the great war of 1870 was waged, has there been a year, I ask you, without the danger of war? In the first years of the seventies—the very moment we came home, the question arose: "When will be the next war? When will revenge be given? Within five years at the latest, no doubt?" We were told: "The question whether we shall have to fight and with what success surely rests with Russia now-a-days. Russia alone holds the hilt." It was a representative of the Catholic party who thus remonstrated with me in the Reichstag. I may possibly revert to this subject later. In the meanwhile I wish to complete the picture of the forty years by saying that in 1876 the clouds of war again began to gather in the south. In 1877 the Balkan War was waged, which would have led to a conflagration of the whole of Europe, if this had not been prevented by the Congress gathered in Berlin. After the Congress an entirely new eastern picture presented itself to us, for Russia was offended by our attitude in the Congress. I may revert to this later, if my strength permits.

Then there followed a period when we felt the results of the intimate relations of the three emperors, which for some time permitted us to face the future with greater placidity. But at the first symptoms of any instability in the relations of the three emperors or of the termination of the agreements which they had made with one another, public opinion was possessed by the same nervous and, I believe, exaggerated excitement with which we have had to contend these last years, and which I consider especially uncalled for today.

From my belief that this excitement is uncalled for I am far from drawing the conclusion that we do not need an increase in our armaments. The very opposite is my view, and this may explain the tableau of forty years which I have just exhibited before you, possibly not for your enjoyment, and I ask your pardon. [Illustration: THE BISMARCK MONUMENT AT HAMBURG LEDERER]

But if I had omitted even one of those years, which you yourselves have lived through with trembling, you would not have received the impression that the state of apprehension of great wars is permanent with us. Great complications and all kinds of coalitions, which no one can foresee, are constantly possible and we must be prepared for them. We must be so strong, irrespective of momentary conditions, that we can face any coalition with the assurance of a great nation which is strong enough under circumstances to take her fate into her own hands. We must be able to face our fate placidly with that self reliance and confidence in God which are ours when we are strong and our cause is just. And the Government will see to it that the German cause will be just always.

We must, to put it briefly, be as strong in these times as we possibly can be, and we can be stronger than any other nation of equal numbers in the world. I shall revert to this later—but it would be criminal if we were not to make use of our opportunity. If we do not need our full armed strength, we need not summon it. The only problem is the not very weighty one of money—not very weighty I say in passing, because I have no wish to enter upon a discussion of the financial and military figures, and of the fact that France has spent three milliards for the improvement of her armaments these last years, while we have spent scarcely one and one half milliards, including what we are asking of you at this time. But I leave the elucidation of this to the minister of war and the representatives of the treasury department.

When I say that it is our duty to endeavor to be ready at all times and for all emergencies, I imply that we must make greater exertions than other people for the same purpose, because of our geographical position. We are situated in the heart of Europe, and have at least three fronts open to an attack. France has only her eastern, and Russia only her western frontier where they may be attacked. We are also more exposed to the dangers of a coalition than any other nation, as is proved by the whole development of history, by our geographical position, and the lesser degree of cohesiveness, which until now has characterized the German nation in comparison with others. God has placed us where we are prevented, thanks to our neighbors from growing lazy and dull. He has placed by our side the most warlike and restless of all nations, the French, and He has permitted warlike inclinations to grow strong in Russia, where formerly they existed to a lesser degree. Thus we are given the spur, so to speak, from both sides, and are compelled to exertions which we should perhaps not be making otherwise. The pikes in the European carp-pond are keeping us from being carps by making us feel their teeth on both sides. They also are forcing us to an exertion which without them we might not make, and to a union among us Germans, which is abhorrent to us at heart. By nature we are rather tending away, the one from the other. But the Franco-Russian press within which we are squeezed compels us to hold together, and by pressure our cohesive force is greatly increased. This will bring us to that state of being inseparable which all other nations possess, while we do not yet enjoy it. But we must respond to the intentions of Providence by making ourselves so strong that the pikes can do nothing but encourage us.

Formerly in the years of the Holy Alliance—I am just thinking of an American song which I learned of my late friend Motley: "In good old colonial times, when we lived under a King"—well those were the good old patriarchal times when we had many posts to guide us, and many dikes to protect us from the wild floods of Europe. There were the German Union, and the real support and consummation of the German Union, the Holy Alliance. We had support in Russia and in Austria, and, above all, the guaranty of our diffidence that we should never express an opinion before the others had spoken.

All this we have lost; we must help ourselves. The Holy Alliance was wrecked in the Crimean War—not through our fault. The German Union has been destroyed by us, because the existence which we were granted within it was unbearable in the long run for ourselves and the German people as well. After the dissolution of the German Union and the war of 1866, Prussia, as it was then, or North Germany, would have become isolated, if we had been obliged to count with the fact that nobody would be willing to pardon our new successes—the great successes which we had won. No great power looks with favor on the successes of its neighbors.

Our relations with Russia, however, were not disturbed by the experience of 1866. In that year the memory of Count Buol's policy and of the policy of Austria during the Crimean War was too fresh in Russia to permit the rise of the thought that Russia could assist the Austrian monarchy against the Prussian attack, or could renew the campaign, which Emperor Nicholas had fought for Austria in 1849—ask your pardon, if I sit down for a moment. I cannot stand so long.

Our most natural support, therefore, still remained with Russia, due very properly to the policy of Emperor Alexander I. in this century—not to speak of the last century at all. In 1813 he might well have turned back at the Polish frontier, and have made peace, and later he might have dropped Prussia. We certainly owed our reëstablishment on the old basis at that time to the benevolence of Emperor Alexander I.—or, if you wish to be sceptical, you may say to the Russian policy, which was such as Prussia needed. Gratitude for this dominated the reign of Frederick William III. The credit, however, which Russia had in the Prussian accounts was used up by the friendship, I may even say servility, of Prussia during the entire reign of Emperor Nicholas, and was, I own, wiped out at Olmütz. There Emperor Nicholas did not take the part of Prussia, nor did he keep us from evil experiences or certain humiliations, for Emperor Nicholas really preferred Austria to Prussia. The idea that we owed Russia any thanks during his reign is a historical myth.

We did, nevertheless, not break our traditional relations with Russia while he lived; and in the Crimean War we remained true, as I said before, to our Russian duty, in spite of many threats and great dangers. His Majesty, the late King, had no desire to play a decisive part in the war by a great levy of troops, as I believe we could have done. We had made certain treaties requiring us to put in the field 100,000 men after the lapse of a stated time; and I proposed to His Majesty to levy not 100,000 but 200,000 men, and mounted at that, whom we could use as well toward the right as toward the left, in which case, I said, Your Majesty will be the arbiter of the Crimean War. But the late King did not cherish warlike enterprises, and the people ought to be grateful to him. I was younger then, and less experienced than I am today. At any rate we harbored no resentment for Olmütz during the Crimean War. We came out of this war as the friends of Russia, and I was enabled to enjoy the fruit of this friendship, when as ambassador I was most kindly received in St. Petersburg, both at court and in society at large. Even our espousing the cause of Austria in the Italian War, while not to the liking of the Russian cabinet, showed no harmful effects. Our war of 1866 was regarded in Russia with a certain amount of satisfaction, for the Russians were glad to see Austria suffer. In our French war of 1870 we were fortunate enough to be able to serve the Russian interests in the Black Sea at the same time that we were successful in defending and guarding our own. The contracting parties probably would not have removed their restrictions from the Black Sea, if the victorious German troops had not been standing near Paris. If we had been beaten, the London agreement in the interest of Russia would not have been made so easily, I believe. Thus also the war of 1870 carried in its train no disagreement between us and Russia. I mention these matters in order to explain to you the origin of our treaty with Austria, which was published a few days ago, and to defend the policy of His Majesty against the reproach of having enlarged the possibilities of war for the German empire, by adding to them the chances which may befall Austria without any fault of her own. I am, therefore, going to describe to you how it happened that our traditional relations with Russia, which I had always and very gladly fostered, became so altered that we were induced to conclude the treaty published day before yesterday.

The first years after the French war passed in the best of friendship. In 1875 there suddenly appeared the inclination of my Russian colleague, Prince Gortschakoff, to work for popularity with France rather than with us, and to make the world believe, by means of certain artificially created events and an interpolated telegram, that we had harbored the idea, however remote, of invading France, and that his intercession alone had saved France from this danger. This occasioned the first estrangement between us, and led to a serious discussion between me and my former friend and later colleague. All this time and subsequently we were still clinging to the task of maintaining peace among the three emperors, and of continuing the relationship begun by the visits of the emperors of Russia and Austria here in Berlin in 1872, and the subsequent return visits. We were succeeding in this, when in 1876, before the Turkish War, pressure was brought to bear upon us to choose between Russia and Austria. This we refused to do. I do not deem it advantageous to discuss the details. They will be known some time. The result of our refusal was that Russia turned to Vienna directly, and entered into an agreement with Austria—I believe it was in January, 1877—concerning the possibilities of an Oriental crisis, granting her, if The crisis should take place, the occupation of Bosnia, etc. Then the war took place, and we were very glad that the storm raged further south than it had threatened at first. The war was definitely concluded here in Berlin by the Congress, after the preliminaries had been settled by the peace of San Stefano. The peace of San Stefano, I am convinced, was not more risky for the anti-Russian powers nor much more favorable for Russia than the subsequent congressional treaty. The stipulations of San Stefano were realized, one may say, of their own accord later on, when the little state of East Rumelia, with only 800,000 souls I believe, joined Bulgaria and thereby reestablished on its own responsibility the old San Stefano frontier, although not quite exactly. The damage, therefore, which the Congress inflicted on the agreements of San Stefano was not very considerable. Whether these agreements were masterpieces of diplomacy I leave undecided. We had then very little desire to mix in Oriental affairs, just as we have today.

I was seriously ill in Friedrichsruh when I was officially notified of the Russian wish to call a Congress of the great powers in Berlin for the definite settlement of the war. I was at first not favorably inclined, because I was physically incapacitated, and because I did not wish to involve ourselves in these matters to the extent which the presidency of a Congress necessitates. My final compliance was partly due to the German sense of duty, which does anything in the interest of peace, and partly to the grateful memory of the favors of Alexander I., which I have always remembered, and which induced me to grant also this request. I declared my willingness, provided we could secure the acceptance of England and Austria. Russia undertook to secure the consent of England, and I agreed to recommend the plan in Vienna. We were successful, and the Congress took place.

During the Congress, I may well say, I played my part—without hurting the interests of my country or of our friends—just as if I had been the fourth Russian plenipotentiary—I may almost say the third, for I can hardly accept Prince Gortschakoff as a representative of the then Russian policy, which was more truly represented by Count Schuwaloff.

During the whole course of the congressional deliberations I heard of no Russian wish which I did not recommend and push through. Thanks to the confidence which Lord Beaconsfield—unfortunately dead now—reposed in me, I called at his sickbed in the middle of the night during the most difficult and critical moments of the Congress, when disruption seemed near, and obtained his consent. In short my behavior in the Congress was such that I said to myself when it was over: "If the highest Russian decoration set in diamonds had not been bestowed upon me long ago, I should surely receive it now." I had the feeling of having done something for a foreign power which is rarely vouchsafed to a foreign minister to do.

What, then, were my surprise and natural disappointment, when gradually a sort of newspaper campaign began in St. Petersburg, attacking the German policy, and casting suspicion on my personal intentions. These attacks increased in the following year to the strong request, in 1879, for pressure to be exerted by us on Austria in matters where we could not attack the Austrian rights as such. I could not consent, for, if we should have been estranged from Austria, we should necessarily have fallen into a dependence on Russia, unless we were satisfied with standing entirely alone in Europe. Would such a dependence have been bearable? Formerly I had believed it might be, when I had said to myself: "We have no conflicting interests at all. There is no reason why Russia should ever cancel our friendship." At least I had never contradicted my Russian colleagues when they expounded such theories to me. The Russian behavior concerning the Congress disappointed me and told me that we were not protected from being drawn into a conflict with Russia against our wishes, even if we placed our policy (for a time) completely at her disposal. The disagreement concerning instructions which we had given or had not given to our representatives in the south grew, until threats resulted, threats of war from the most authoritative quarter.

This is the origin of our Austrian Treaty. By these threats we were compelled to choose between our two former friends, a decision which I had avoided through several decades. At that time I negotiated in Gastein and in Vienna the treaty which was published day before yesterday and which is in force between us today.

The publication has been partly misunderstood in the newspapers, as I read yesterday and the day before. People have wanted to see in it an ultimatum, a warning, and a threat. A threat could not possibly be contained in it, since the text of the treaty has been known to Russia for a long while, and not only since November of last year. We considered it due to the sincerity of so loyal a monarch as the Emperor of Russia not to leave a doubt concerning the actual state of affairs.

Personally I see no chance for us not to have concluded this treaty. If we had not done it, we should have to do it now. It possesses the finest quality of an international treaty, in that it is the expression of the lasting interests of both parties, Austria as well as ourselves. No great power can for any length of time cling to the wording of a treaty against the interests of its own people; it will at last be forced to declare openly: "Times have changed; we can no longer do this;" and will have to defend its action as best it can before its own people and the other contracting party. But no power will approve a course which leads its own people to destruction, for the sake of the letter of a treaty signed under different conditions. Nothing of this kind, however, is contained in these treaties. The treaty concluded with Austria, as well as other similar ones existing between us and other powers, notably some agreements into which we have entered with Italy, are the expression of common interests in mutual aspirations and dangers. Italy, like ourselves, has been obliged to fight against Austria for her right to establish her national union. At present both of us are living in peace with Austria, sharing with her the wish to ward off the dangers which are threatening all alike. Together we wish to preserve the peace, which is as dear to the one as to the other, and to protect our home—developments to which all of us are determined to devote ourselves. It is these aims and the mutual confidence that the treaties will be kept, and that no one will grow more dependent by them than their own interests permit, which make these treaties firm, durable and permanent!

The extent to which our treaty with Austria is the expression of our mutual interests was shown at Nikolsburg, and in 1870. Already during the negotiations of Nikolsburg we were of the opinion that we could not do for any length of time without Austria in Europe—a strong and vigorous Austria. In 1870, when the war between ourselves and France broke out, many sensitive Austrians whom we had hurt were naturally tempted to make use of this opportunity and to take revenge for 1866. The thoughtful and far seeing diplomats, however, of the Austrian cabinet had to ask themselves: "What will be the result? What will be our position, if today we assist the French, and help them to beat Prussia, or even Germany?" What would have been the result if France with the help of Austria had been victorious over us? If Austria had followed such a policy, she could have had no other aim than to resume her former position in Germany: for this was really the only thing she had given up in 1866. There had been no other important conditions, and the pecuniary ones had been insignificant. Well then, what would have been the position of Austria as the presiding power in the German Union, if she had to confess that in alliance with France she had taken from Germany the left bank of the Rhine, that she had reduced the south German states to a renewed dependence on France in the shape of a Rhenish Federation, and had condemned Prussia to an irrevocable dependence on Russia, subject in future to Russian policies? Such a position was unacceptable to all Austrian statesmen not completely blinded by wrath and vengeance. The same is also true with us in Germany. Imagine Austria struck from the map of Europe. Then we and Italy would be isolated on the continent, hemmed in between Russia and France, the two strongest military powers next to Germany, either continually one against two—and this would be most probable—or alternately dependent on one or the other. But this will not be the case. It is impossible to imagine Austria away, for a State like Austria does not disappear. It is estranged if it is jilted, as was proposed in the Villafranca negotiations, and will be inclined to offer the hand to him who, on his part, has been the opponent of an unreliable friend.

In short, if we wish to avoid being isolated, which is especially dangerous for Germany in our assailable position, we must have a reliable friend. Thanks to the similarities of our interests, and this treaty before you, we have two such friends. It is not love which makes them reliable, for nations may make war one upon the other because they hate, but it has never yet happened that one nation has sacrificed itself for the other for mere love. Nor do they always fight when they hate each other, for, if this were the case, France would have to be fighting incessantly, not only with us, but also with England and Italy. She hates all her neighbors. I also believe that the Russian hatred of us, which has been artificially fanned, will not last. We are united with our allies in love of peace, not only by inclination and friendship, but also by the most cogent interests of a European equilibrium and of our own future.

For these reasons I believe you will approve the Emperor's policy that has concluded the published treaty, although it increases the possibility of war.

There can be no doubt that the passage of the pending bill will add much weight to the alliance which we have joined, and that the member which is represented by the German empire will be immeasurably strengthened. The bill gives us an increase of trained troops, a possible increase of troops, which we need not summon, if we do not need them. We can leave the men at home. But, having them in reserve, we shall also have the arms for them, and this is the all-important thing. I remember the old blunderbuses furnished in 1813 for our Landwehr by England, with which I was drilled in the chasseurs. They were no weapons for war—such we cannot furnish at a moment's notice. But, when once we have the proper weapons, this new bill means an increase of the guarantees of peace, and as strong an increase of the league of peace as if a fourth great power had joined it with 700,000 men, which as you know used to be the maximum figure of a national army. This tremendous increase will also have a quieting effect, I believe, on our own people, and will somewhat alleviate the nervousness of our public opinion and of our bankers and editors. I hope you will be relieved when you realize that after this increase, and from the very moment this bill is signed and published, the men will be ready. A scanty supply of arms for them might even now be at hand, but we must secure better ones, for if we form an army of triarians, of the best human material which we have among our people, men over thirty years of age and fathers of families, then we must have for them also the best arms that can be secured. We should not send them into battle with arms which we do not deem good enough for our regular troops. These staunch men, fathers of families, and gigantic figures, as we remember them from the time when they held the bridge of Versailles, should carry on their shoulders the best of guns, and have the most complete armor and necessary clothing to ward off the hardships of the weather and other ills. In such matters we must not be saving.

After listening to the survey of forty years which I have just given it is natural that our fellow-citizens should realize the ever-present danger of a coalition against us and the possibility of a double attack, in which I, to be sure, do not believe. The thought, however, that in such a case we can have one million good soldiers for our defense on either frontier will be most reassuring to them. In addition, we can keep at home reserves of half a million and more, or even a million, sending them to the front as they may be needed. I have been told: "The result will be that the others will also increase their strength." This they cannot do, for they long ago reached their highest figure. We decreased our figures in 1867, because we believed that we could take things easy, with the North German Alliance at our disposal, and could release from service all men over thirty-two years of age. Our neighbors subsequently adopted a longer period of service, many one as long as twenty years. The minister of war will be able to explain this to you more in detail, if he will address you. In figures the others are as strong as we, but in quality they cannot equal us. Courage is the same with all civilized nations, the Russian or the Frenchman fights as bravely as the German; but our people, our 700,000 men, are experienced, rompus au métier, trained soldiers who have not forgotten anything.

In addition, no nation in the world can equal us in our material of officers and subalterns to direct such a huge army. This means the remarkable degree to which popular education has spread in Germany, and which appears in no other country. The degree of education which is needed to qualify an officer and a subaltern to command according to what the soldiers expect of them, is found with us far more extensively than elsewhere. We have more of the material out of which officers, and more out of which subalterns are made, than any other country, and we have a body of officers which no country in the world can equal.

This, and the excellence of our subalterns, who are the pupils of our officers, constitute our superiority. The other nations cannot equal us in the amount of education which qualifies an officer to fulfil the severe requirements of his station, and of good comradeship to bear all the necessary privations, and at the same time to satisfy the exceedingly difficult social demands which must be met, if the feeling of good fellowship between officers and men, which thank God exists in our army to a high and often stirring degree, is to be established without detracting from the authority of the officers. The relations existing, especially in war time, between our officers and men are inimitable,—with few evil exceptions which only prove the rule, for on the whole we may say: No German officer forsakes his men under fire; he saves them at the risk of his life, and they do the same; no German soldier forsakes his officer—we have experienced this.

If other nations are obliged to furnish with officers and subalterns equally large troops as we are intending to create by this bill, they may be forced by circumstances to appoint officers who will not succeed in guiding a company through a narrow gate, and even less in meeting the heavy obligations of the officer who is to retain the esteem and love of his men. The amount of education which is needed for this, and the amount of camaraderie and sense of honor which we find among our officers, can be elicited from no other body of officers anywhere in the world, either by rules or injunctions. In this we are superior to everybody, and that is why they cannot imitate us. I am, therefore, not at all afraid of it.

Then there is another advantage if this bill is passed. The very strength at which we are aiming necessarily renders us pacific. This sounds like a paradox, but it is not.

With the powerful engine into which we are transforming the German army one does not make an attack. If I were to come before you today, on the assumption that conditions were different from what I believe they are, and said, "We are considerably menaced by France and Russia; it is to be expected that we shall be attacked, and as a diplomat, believing my military information in these matters to be correct, I am convinced that it is better for us to have our defense consist of a bold attack, and to strike the first blow now;" and if I added: "We can more easily wage an aggressive war, and I, therefore, am asking the Reichstag for an appropriation of a milliard, or half a milliard, marks to engage in a war against our two neighbors,"—then I do not know, gentlemen, whether you would have enough confidence in me to grant my request, but I hope you would not have it.

But, if you had, it would not satisfy me. If we Germans wish to wage a war with the full effect of our national strength, it must be a war which satisfies all who take part in it, all who sacrifice anything for it, in short the whole nation. It must be a national war, a war carried on with the enthusiasm of 1870, when we were foully attacked. I still remember the ear splitting, joyful shouts in the station at Köln. It was the same all the way from Berlin to Köln, in Berlin itself. The waves of popular approval bore us into the war, whether or no we wished it. That is the way it must be, if a popular force like ours is to show what it can do. It will, however, be very difficult to prove to the provinces and the imperial states and their inhabitants that the war is unavoidable, and has to be. People will ask: "Are you so sure? Who can tell?" In short, when we make an attack, the whole weight of all imponderables, which weigh far heavier than material weights, will be on the side of our opponents whom we have attacked. France will be bristling with arms way down to the Pyrenees. The same will take place everywhere. A war into which we are not borne by the will of the people will be waged, to be sure, if it has been declared by the constituted authorities who deemed it necessary; it will even be waged pluckily, and possibly victoriously, after we have once smelled fire and tasted blood, but it will lack from the beginning the nerve and enthusiasm of a war in which we are attacked. In such a one the whole of Germany from Memel to the Alpine Lakes will flare up like a powder mine; it will be bristling with guns, and no enemy will dare to engage this furor teutonicus which develops when we are attacked.

[Illustration: ANTON VON WERNER WILLIAM I ON HIS DEATHBED]

We cannot afford to lose this factor of preëminence even if many military men—not only ours but others as well—believe that today we are superior to our future opponents. Our own officers believe this to a man, naturally. Every soldier believes this. He would almost cease to be a useful soldier if he did not wish for war, and did not believe that we would be victorious in it. If our opponents by any chance are thinking that we are pacific because we are afraid of how the war may end, they are mightily mistaken. We believe as firmly in our victory in a just cause as any foreign lieutenant in his garrison, after his third glass of champagne, can believe in his, and we probably do so with greater certainty. It is not fear, therefore, which makes us pacific, but the consciousness of our strength. We are strong enough to protect ourselves, even if we should be attacked at a less favorable moment, and we are in a position to let divine providence determine whether a war in the meanwhile may not become unnecessary after all.

I am, therefore, not in favor of any kind of an aggressive war, and if war could result only from our attack—somebody must kindle a fire, we shall not kindle it. Neither the consciousness of our strength, which I have described, nor our confidence in our treaties, will prevent us from continuing our former endeavors to preserve peace. In this we do not permit ourselves to be influenced by annoyances or dislikes. The threats and insults, and the challenges, which have been made have, no doubt, excited also with us a feeling of irritation, which does not easily happen with Germans, for they are less prone to national hatred than any other nation. We are, however, trying to calm our countrymen, and we shall work for peace with our neighbors, especially with Russia, in the future as well as in the past. When I say especially with Russia, I express the opinion that France is offering us no assurances of success in our endeavors. I will, however, not say that these endeavors are of no use. We shall never pick a quarrel, nor ever attack France; and in the many little incidents which the liking of our neighbors for spying and bribing has occasioned we have always brought about a very courteous and amicable settlement. I should consider it criminal if we were to enflame a great national war for such bagatelles. These are instances when one should say: "The cleverer of the two will yield."

I am referring, therefore, especially to Russia, and here I have the same confidence of success which I expressed a year ago, and which this liberal sheet printed in such large type, without any "running after," or as a German paper very vulgarly called it, "Kow-towing" to Russia. That time has passed. We no longer sue for love, either in France or in Russia! The Russian press and the Russian public opinion have shown the door to an old powerful and reliable friend, which we were. We do not force ourselves on anybody. We have tried to reestablish the old intimate relations, but we are running after nobody. This does not prevent us, however, from observing the treaty-rights which Russia has with us; on the contrary, it is an incentive to us to do so.

These treaty rights comprise some which not all our friends recognize as such. I mean the rights concerning Bulgaria which we won for Russia in the Congress of Berlin, and which were not contested until 1885. There is no question for me, who was instrumental in preparing the congressional decisions, and who joined in signing them, that all of us were of the opinion at that time that Russia should have a predominating influence in Bulgaria, after the latter had renounced East Roumelia, and she herself had given the modest satisfaction of reducing by 800,000 souls the extent of the territory under her influence until it included only about three million people.

Following this interpretation of the Congress, Russia until 1885 appointed the prince, a close relative of the imperial house, of whom at that time nobody believed, or could believe, that he would wish to be anything but a faithful adherent of the Russian policy. Russia nominated the minister of war and a great many officers; in short it was governing in Bulgaria. There was no doubt of this. The Bulgarians, or some of them, or the prince—I do not know which—were not satisfied with it. A coup d'état took place—a defection from Russia. Thus an actual condition has ensued which we are not called upon to remedy by a recourse to arms, but which cannot in theory alter the rights which Russia took home from the Congress of Berlin. Whether there will be difficulties, if Russia should wish to procure her rights by force, I do not know. We shall neither support nor counsel violent means, nor do I believe that they are being contemplated—I am quite sure they are not. If, however, Russia should try her luck along diplomatic lines, possibly by suggesting the intercession of the Sultan, the suzerain of Bulgaria, I deem it the duty of a loyal German policy to cling to the decisions of the Congress of Berlin, and to interpret them as all of us, without an exception, interpreted them at that time. The public feeling of the Bulgarians can alter nothing in this, so far as I am concerned. Bulgaria, the tiny little country between the Danube and the Balkans is not an object of sufficient size, I assure you, to attach to it any importance, or to push Europe for its sake into a war, from Moscow to the Pyrenees, from the North Sea to Palermo, when no one can foresee its end. After the war we would conceivably not even know for what we had been fighting.

I may, therefore, declare that the hostility against us shown in the Russian public opinion, and especially in the Russian press, will not deter us from supporting, at Russia's request, any diplomatic steps she may take to regain her influence in Bulgaria. I intentionally say, at her request. Formerly we have, at times, endeavored to fulfil her wishes when they had been only confidentially suggested, but we have seen that some Russian papers immediately tried to prove that these very steps of the German diplomacy had been the most inimical to Russia. They actually attacked us for having fulfilled the wishes of Russia even before they had been expressed. We did this also in the Congress of Berlin; but it will not happen again. If Russia will officially request us to support with the Sultan, as suzerain of Bulgaria, the steps which she may take in her desire to reëstablish in Bulgaria conditions according to the decisions of the Congress, I shall not hesitate to advise His Majesty the Emperor to do so. Our sense of loyalty to our neighbor demands this, for we should cherish neighborly relations with him, let the present feelings be what they may. Together we should protect the monarchical institutions which are common to both of us, and set our faces, in the interest of order, against all the opponents of it in Europe. Russia's monarch, moreover, fully understands that these are the duties of the allied monarchs. If the Emperor of Russia should find that the interests of his great empire of one hundred million people demand war, he will wage it, I do not doubt. But I do not believe that these interests can possibly demand a war against us, nor do I believe that these interests demand war at the present time at all.

To sum up: I do not believe in an immediate interruption of peace, and I ask you to discuss this bill independently of such a thought or apprehension, looking upon it as a means of making the great strength which God has placed in the German nation fully available. If we do not need all the troops, it is not necessary to summon them. We are trying to avoid the contingency when we shall need them.

This attempt is as yet made rather difficult for us by the threatening newspaper articles in the foreign press, and I should like to admonish these foreign editors to discontinue such threats. They do not lead anywhere. The threats which we see made—not by the governments, but by the press—are really incredibly stupid, when we stop to reflect that the people making them imagine they could frighten the proud and powerful German empire by certain intimidating figures made by printer's ink and shallow words. People should not do this. It would then be easier for us to be more obliging to our two neighbors. Every country after all is sooner or later responsible for the windows which its press has smashed. The bill will be rendered some day, and will consist of the ill-feeling of the other country. We are easily influenced—perhaps too easily—by love and kindness, but quite surely never by threats! We Germans fear God, and naught else in the world! It is this fear of God which makes us love and cherish peace. If in spite of this anybody breaks the peace, he will discover that the ardent patriotism of 1813, which called to the standards the entire population of Prussia—weak, small, and drained to the marrow as it then was—has today become the common property of the whole German nation. Attack the German nation anywhere, and you will find it armed to a man, and every man with the firm belief in his heart: God will be with us.

MOUNT THE GUARDS AT THE WARTHE AND THE VISTULA!

September 16, 1894

TRANSLATED BY EDMUND VON MACH, PH.D.

[On September 16, 1894, when Bismarck was no longer chancellor, 2,200 Germans from the province of Posen appeared in Varzin to thank him for his devoted work in the service of the national idea, and to gather courage from him in their fight against the Polish propaganda which had gained strength under the new régime at court. The aged farm-manager, Mr. Kennemann, was the leader and spokesman of the visitors.]

Gentleman! First I must ask your indulgence, since for two days I have been upset by an unpolitical enemy called lumbago, an old acquaintance of mine for sixty years. I hope to get the better of him soon, and then to be able to stand again fully erect. At present, I must confess, I am hampered by him.

I begin by replying to the words of the previous speaker with thanks for the honor done me, addressing myself first of all to him, but then also to you. The previous speaker is as old as I. We were both born in 1815, and different walks of life have brought us together again here in Varzin after almost eighty years. The meeting gives me great pleasure, although I have not run my course as safe and sound as Mr. Kennemann. When I claim to be an invalid of hard work, he may perhaps claim the same. But his work was possibly healthier than mine, this being the difference between the farmer and the diplomat. The mode of life of the latter is less healthy and more nerve-racking. To begin with, then, I am grateful to you, gentlemen, and I should be even more grateful, if we were all to put on our hats. I have lost in the course of years nature's own protection, but I cannot well cover my head if you do not do the same.

I thank you that you have spared no exertion to show your national sentiments in this way. The exertion was considerable, a night in the train, a second night on the way back, insufficient meals, and inconveniently crowded cars. The fact that you have stood all this and were not deterred by it attests the strength of your national feeling, which impelled you to bear witness to it here. That you did it here greatly honors me, and I recognize in it your appreciation of my part in the work of establishing the conditions which we are enjoying in Germany today, after years of disunion. These conditions may be imperfect, but "the best is the enemy of the good." At the time when we shaped these conditions we never asked: "What may we wish?" but "What must we have!" This moderation in our demands for union was one of the most important preliminaries of success. By following this path we have reached the results which have strengthened the pledge that your home will remain united with the German empire and the kingdom of Prussia. The proportion, in the meanwhile, of Germans in the foundation of our structure to the less reliable—I will not say loose—Polish element has become decidedly more favorable for the Germans. Our national figures are forty-eight million Germans and two million Poles; and in such a community the wishes of the two million cannot be decisive for the forty-eight million, as must be apparent, especially in an age when political decisions are dependent on a majority vote as a last resort. The forces which guarantee the union of these territories are strong enough both in the parliament and in the army to assure it, and no one can doubt that the proper authorities are ready to use these forces at the right time. No one mistakes the meaning, when the announcement is made from the highest quarters: "Ere we shall yield again Alsace, our army will have to be annihilated" (and words to this effect have been spoken). The same thing is true, to an even stronger degree, of our eastern frontier. We can spare neither, Posen even less than Alsace, and we shall fight, as the Emperor has said, to the last man, before we renounce Alsace, this protection of our Southern states. Yet Munich and Stuttgart are not more endangered by a hostile position in Strassburg and Alsace than Berlin would be endangered by a hostile position near the Oder. It may, therefore, be readily assumed that we shall remain firm in our determination and sacrifice, if it should become necessary, our last man and the last coin in our pockets for the defense of the German eastern frontier as it has existed for eighty years. And this determination will suffice to render the union between your province and the empire as positively assured as things can be in this world.

We confined our demands to what was necessary for our existence and what enabled the big European nation which we are to draw a free breath. We did not include territories where German used to be spoken, when this had been largely due to a propaganda of the German courts. More German used to be spoken in the East, North-east, and elsewhere than today. Remember our ally, Austria, and how familiar German was there in the days of Joseph II. and of the Empress Maria Theresa, when German was a greater force in parts of Hungary than it is or can be today. But, for everything we gave up in the shape of a linguistic and outward union, we have found rich compensation in the intensity of a closer union. If the older gentlemen will think back to the time before Emperor William I., they will realize that the lack of love among the various German tribes was much greater at that time than it is today. We have made notable progress in this direction, and, when we compare the unequivocal expressions of opinion from Bavaria and Saxony today with the familiar sentiments of earlier times, we must say that Germany, which for the past one hundred years had lagged behind the other people of Europe in national development, has rapidly caught up with them. Forty years ago we were far behind all other nations in national feeling and love of one another. Today we are no longer behind them.

Our fellow-countrymen from the Rhine, from the Alpine lake and the Saxon Elbe are attached to one another in affectionate sympathy, not only when they meet abroad, but also at home. A united people has been created in a remarkably short time. This proves that the medical cure which we employed, although it was of blood and iron, lanced only a sore, which had come to a head long ago, and that it gave us speedy comfort and good health. God grant that the cure will be lasting and subject to no change. How far reaching it is has been proved by the testimonials which I have received since I gave up my office. They have come from all people,—from Baden, Bavaria, Saxony, Suabia, Hessen, and from all the districts of Prussia outside the provinces of Frederick the Great. These entirely voluntary manifestations, which were arranged by no one, and which not infrequently came to me at rather inconvenient and inopportune times, have impressed me with the existence of national harmony. Every one of them has given pleasure to my patriotic heart, and has borne witness to a common feeling existing in all German races—this much I wished to say concerning the stability of the political and national union of your province today.

We often sing "Firm is the stand of the faithful guards on the Rhine," but they are standing equally firm at the Warthe and the Vistula. We cannot spare an acre of land in either direction, for the sake of principle if for nothing else. The previous speaker referred to the attempts which had been made, as a result of the movement of 1848, to shake loose the union in which we were then living in Prussia and Germany, and to disregard our boundary lines. These attempts of satisfying the wishes of our Polish neighbors ended with the action of the Prussian general von Colomb, who closed the gates of Posen to the Polish troops which, in response to promises made in Berlin, had been raised under the Prussian General von Willisen. We were obliged to conquer with Prussian troops, and in a bloody war, the army of the insurgents who fought bravely and honorably. I wish to add that even that war was not fought with the Polish people as such, but with the Polish nobility and their following. I remember speaking to some Polish soldiers of the 19th regiment, I believe, in Erfurt at that time, that is in 1850, who called the opponents only "Komorniks"—the Polish word for "contract-laborers." We should, then, not deceive ourselves into believing that even today the number of those who are opposed to the two races in Posen and in West Prussia living together peacefully is as large as statistics may claim.

This brings me to the second point touched upon by the previous speaker, the two races living together peacefully. I believe that many of you have in your employ laborers and servants who speak Polish, and that you are of the opinion that no danger comes from this lower social stratum of the population. Living together with them is possible, and no disturbance of the peace starts with them. They do not promote any movements hostile to us. I do not even mention the fact that they are possibly of another race than the nobility, whose immigration into the Slavic districts is lost in the obscure past. The statistical numbers, therefore, of those opposed to a peaceful communion of both races must be lessened by the large number of laborers and farmers. The lower classes are, in the bulk, satisfied with the Prussian government, which may not be perfect always, but which treats them with greater justice than they were accustomed to in the times of the Polish republic of nobles. They are satisfied with this. It was not part of my programme that the commission on colonization should pay special attention to small holdings of German-speaking settlers. The Polish peasants are not dangerous, nor does it make any difference whether the laborers are Polish or German. The chief thing was to create crown-lands among the big estates, and to rent them to men whom the State could permanently influence. The desire for quick sales and colonization emanated from other competent quarters than myself. It was impossible for me to supervise these measures after I had instigated them.

The difficulties which I met in the forty years of my Polish diplomacy did not start with the masses of Polish laborers and peasants, but were, I believe, occasioned largely, if not exclusively, by the Polish nobility with the assistance of the Polish clergy. Perhaps this latter term is too narrow, for I know of instances when German priests assisted in the Polish propaganda for the sake of peace. This is a peculiarity of our race—and I do not exactly wish to condemn it—that we often place our religion above our nationality. The very opposite is true of our opponents, the Poles and the French people, who regard their nationality more highly than their religion. We are suffering from this habit. We possess, however, a certain material counter-weight, provided the State government unreservedly supports the German element. The religious element has great weight in the family circle and among women, especially the Polish women, whom I have always greatly admired. The minister has a freer access to them than the local governor or the judge. There will, however, always be a powerful weight in the scales, when the Prussian government exercises its influence with firm determination and so clearly that doubts for the future are impossible. Vestigia terrent! we may say, when with 1848, no—not 1848, I mean 1831-32—the attention paid to the Polish nation became almost more pronounced in Germany than that given to the German element. Since then we have surely been able to register progress in our politics. Now I must ask your indulgence for a moment on account of my lumbago. (Voices: Sit down, Your Highness.) Sitting down does not help me. I know this visitor from years of experience. I was speaking of the possibility of having the two races living peacefully side by side. This is not impossible, for in Switzerland we see three different nationalities—the German, Italian, and French Swiss—deliberate quietly and without bitterness on matters of joint interest. In Belgium we see the Germanic Flemish form a united State with the Gallic Walloons, and we perceive that it is possible under circumstances to live peacefully together even with the Poles, when we remember East Prussia, where the Polish Masures, the Lithuanians, and the Germans work together harmoniously. Because nobody has incited the people there, no national ill feeling has appeared among them. It is true, to be sure, that the Catholic priest, with his peculiar interests, is unknown there. But look at your neighbors in Upper Silesia. Have the two races not lived there in peaceful communion for centuries, although the religious differences exist there also? What is it, then, that Silesia has not, and that has made it possible for us to live there, through centuries, in religious harmony? I am sorry to have to say it, it is the Polish nobility and the clergy of the Polish propaganda. The Polish nobles are, no doubt, very influential—more so with the Poles than the Germans—but the statistical figures are much larger than the actual number of our aggressive Polish opponents with whom we have to count.

The nobles are thinking of the time when they were all-powerful, and they cannot give up the memory of conditions when they ruled the king as well as the peasants. The Polish nobles, however, are surely too highly educated to believe that the conditions of the old Polish republic of nobles could ever return, and I should be astonished if the Polish peasants knew the history of Poland so badly that they did not recoil from the possibility of a return to the old state of affairs. The peasants must say to themselves that a "wet year," as the farmers put it, would be their lot if the nobles regained their power. Among the national-Polish representatives that are elected, you generally meet only noblemen. At least I cannot remember having seen a Polish farmer as a representative in the Reichstag or in the diet. Compare this with the election results in German districts. I do not even know whether there are Polish burghers in our sense of the word. The middle classes in the Polish cities are poorly developed. Consequently, when we reduce our opponents to their proper size, we grow more courageous in our own determination; and I should be very glad if I could encourage those who on their part are adding to the encouragement of the Polish nobles. I feel, gentlemen, that I am of one mind with you, who have traveled the hard road hither. I have no influence with other elements, but we shall not give up hope in spite of all vicissitudes.

The address of the previous speaker also referred to vicissitudes and changes. These changes have characterized our entire Polish policy, from 1815 till today. They took place whenever high Polish families gained influence at court. You all know the Radziwill family and its influence at the court of Frederick William IV. If we could make a mental test of the popular feeling of 1831 and of today, we should find that the conviction has greatly increased that we have German fellow-countrymen in the Grand duchy of Posen. The former and, I am tempted to say, childish cult of the Poles as I knew it in my childhood is no longer possible. Then we were taught Polish songs in our music lessons together with the Marseillaise, to be sure. The Polish nobleman, therefore, than whom God never created anything more reactionary, was here thrown into one pot with the French revolution, and liberalism was coupled with the cause of the Poles, because we were lacking in political perspicacity. Such feelings were ingrained in our citizens at that time. I am thinking especially of the citizens of Berlin. If today you ask the opinion of your forty-eight million fellow-countrymen, and compare their views and those of the bulk of the German army with the bugbear which had found lodging in German hearts at the time of Platen's Polish songs, you surely cannot despair of further development. We may, you must agree, register progress, although it is slow and there are lapses. It is like climbing a sandy hill or walking in the lava of Mount Vesuvius. One often glides back, but on the whole one is advancing. Your position will grow the stronger the more vigorously developed our sense of nationality will become. I ask of you, do not despair if there are clouds in the sky, especially in this rainy year which has saddened the farmers. They will disappear, and the union of the Warthe and the Vistula with Germany is irrefragable.

For centuries we have existed without Alsace-Lorraine, but no one yet has dared to think of what our existence would be if today a new kingdom of Poland were founded. Formerly it was a passive power. Today it would be an active enemy supported by the rest of Europe. As long as it would not have gained possession of Danzig, Thorn, and West Prussia, and I know not what else the excitable Polish mind might crave, it would always be the ally of our enemies. It indicates, therefore, insufficient political skill or political ignorance if we rely in any way on the Polish nobles for the safety of our eastern frontier, or if we think that we can win them to fight anywhere for German possessions, sword in hand. This is an Utopian idea. The only thing which we and you, gentlemen, can do under present conditions, and which we can learn from the Poles, is to cling to one another. The Poles, too, have parties, and used to show this even more unfortunately than we, but all their parties disappear as soon as a national question is broached. I wish the same would come to be true of us, and that in national questions we would belong primarily, not to a party, but to the nation. Let us be of as divergent opinions as we choose, but when in our eastern provinces the question arises: "German or Polish," then let the party feuds be laid aside until, as the Berliners say, "After nine o'clock." Now is the time to fight and to stand together. This is just as it is in military matters—and I am glad to see among you many who have experience in such things. Before joining an attack in war we do not ask: Shall we follow our progressive or our reactionary neighbor? We advance when the drum beats the signal, and so we should in national affairs forget all party differences, and form a solid phalanx hurling all our spears, reactionary, progressive, and despotic alike, against the enemy.

If we agree on this—and the dangers of the future are compelling us to do so—we shall win our women and children for the same strict sense of nationality. And if our women are with us, and our youths, we are saved for all time. This is one of our present tasks, to give a national education to our children. I am confident that the German women possess all the necessary qualifications for this task. I shall ask you, therefore, to join me in a toast: The German Women in the Grandduchy of Posen! And may the German idea take an ever firmer hold in your country!

LONG LIVE THE EMPEROR AND THE EMPIRE!

April 1,1895

TRANSLATED BY EDMUND VON MACH, PH.D.

[The eightieth birthday of Prince Bismarck was celebrated as a national holiday everywhere in Germany. Not less than 5,250 youths from the universities and academies visited Friedrichsruh on April 1 to bear witness, before the "old man" of Germany, to their love for the emperor and the empire. After receiving a delegation from the faculties of all the universities, Bismarck addressed the students as follows:]

Gentlemen! I have just heard from the lips of your teachers, the leaders of higher education, an appreciation of my past, which means much to me. From your greeting, I infer a promise for the future, and this means even more for a man of my years than his love of approbation. You will be able, at least many of you, to live according to the sentiments which your presence here today reveals, and to do so to the middle of the next century, while I have long been condemned to inactivity and belong to the days that are past. I find consolation in this observation, for the German is not so constituted that he could entirely dismiss in his old age what in his youth inspired him. Forty and sixty years hence you will not hold exactly the same views as today, but the seed planted in your young hearts by the reign of Emperor William I. will bear fruit, and, even when you grow old, your attitude will ever be German-national because it is so today—whatever form our institutions may have taken in the meanwhile. We do not wilfully dismiss from our hearts the love of national sentiments; we do not lose them when we emigrate. I know instances of hundreds of thousands of Germans from America, South Africa, and Australia who are today bound to the fatherland with the same enthusiasm which carried many of them to the war.

We had to win our national independence in difficult wars. The preparation, the prologue, was the Holstein war. We had to fight with Austria for a settlement; no court of law could have given us a decree of separation; we had to fight. That we were facing a French war after our victory at Sadowa could not remain in doubt for anyone who knew the conditions of Europe. It was, however, desirable not to wage this war too soon nor before we had garnered to some extent the fruits of our North-German union. After the war had been waged everybody here was saying that within five years we should have to wage the next war. This was to be feared, it is true, but I have ever since considered it to be my duty to prevent it. We Germans had no longer any reason for war. We had what we needed. To fight for more, from a lust of conquest and for the annexation of countries which were not necessary for us, always appeared to me like an atrocity; I am tempted to say like a Bonapartistic and foreign atrocity, alien to the Germanic sense of justice.

Consequently since we rebuilt and enlarged our house according to our needs, I have always been a man of peace, nor have I shrunk from small sacrifices. The strong man can afford to yield at times. Neither the Caroline Islands nor Samoa were worth a war, however much stress I have always laid on our colonial development. We did not stand in need of glory won in battles, nor of prestige. This indeed is the superiority of the German character over all others, that it is satisfied when it can acknowledge its own worth, and has no need of recognition, authority, or privilege. It is self-sufficient. This is the course I have steered, and in politics it is much easier to say what one should avoid than to say what one should do. Certain principles of honesty and courage forbid one to do certain things, just as the access to certain fields is interdicted in the army maneuvers. But the decision as to what has to be done is a very different matter, and no one can be sure of it beforehand, for politics are a task which can be compared only to the navigation of unknown waters. One does not know what the weather will be or how the currents will flow, nor what storms will be raging. There is in politics this additional factor of uncertainty that one is largely dependent on the decisions of others on whom one has counted and who have failed. One never can act with complete independence. And, when our friends whose assistance we need, although we cannot guarantee it, change their minds, our whole plan has failed. Positive enterprises are, therefore, very difficult in politics, and when they succeed you should be grateful to God who has given His blessing, and not find fault with details which one or the other may regret, but accept the situation as God has made it. For man cannot create or direct the stream of time. He can sail on it and steer his craft with more or less skill, be stranded and shipwrecked, or make a favorable port.

Since we now have made a favorable port, as I conclude from the predominant although not unanimous opinion of my countrymen, whose approval is all we have worked for, let us be satisfied, and let us keep and cherish what we have won in an Emperor and an empire as it is, and not as some individuals may wish it should be, with other institutions, and a little bit more of this or that religious or social detail that they may have at heart. Let us be careful to keep what we have, lest we lose it because we do not know how to appreciate it. Germany once was a powerful empire under the Carolingians, the Saxons, and the Hohenstaufens, and when she lost her place, five, yes six hundred years passed before she regained the use of her legs—if I may say so. Political and geological developments are equally slow. Layers are deposited one on the other, forming new banks and new mountains. But I should like to ask especially the young gentlemen: Do not yield too much to the German love of criticism! Accept what God has given us, and what we have toiled to garner, while the rest of Europe—I cannot say attacked us, but ominously stood at attention. It was not easy. If we had been cited before the European Council of Elders before our French affairs were settled, we should not have fared nearly so well; and it was my task to avoid this if I possibly could. It is natural that not everything which everybody wished could be obtained under these conditions, and I mention this only to claim the indulgence of those who are perfectly justified in expecting more, and possibly in striving for more. But, above everything, do not be premature, and do not act in haste. Let us cling for the present to what we have.

The men who made the biggest sacrifices that the empire might be born were undoubtedly the German princes, not excluding the King of Prussia. My old master hesitated long before he voluntarily yielded his independence to the empire. Let us then be thankful to the reigning houses who made sacrifices for the empire which after the full thousand years of German history must have been hard for them to make; and let us be thankful to science, and those who cultivate her, for having kept alive on their hearths the fire of German unity to the time when new fuel was added and it flamed up and provided us with satisfying light and warmth.

I would then—and you will say I am an old, conservative man—compress what I have to say into these words: Let us keep above everything the things we have, before we look for new things, nor be afraid of those people who begrudge them to us. In Germany struggles have existed always, and the party schisms of today are naught but the echoes of the old German struggle between the noble families and the trade unions in the cities, and between those who had and those who had not in the peasant wars, in the religious wars, and in the thirty years' war. None of these far reaching fissures, which I am tempted to call geological, can disappear at once. And should we not be indulgent with our opponents, if we ourselves do not desist from fighting? Life is a struggle everywhere in nature, and without inner struggles we end by being like the Chinese, and become petrified. No struggle, no life! Only, in every fight where the national question arises, there must be a rallying point. For us this is the empire, not as it may seem to be desirable, but as it is, the empire and the Emperor, who represents it. That is why I ask you to join me in wishing well to the Emperor and the empire. I hope that in 1950 all of you who are still living will again respond with contented hearts to the toast

LONG LIVE THE EMPEROR AND THE EMPIRE!