carried out with the greatest secrecy, but as soon as the acceptance was made known the French government intervened and declared that the project was inadmissible. Bismarck was away at Varzin, but on his instructions the Prussian foreign office in answer to inquiries denied all knowledge or responsibility. This was necessary, because it would have caused a bad impression in Germany had he gone to war with France in support of the prince’s candidature. The king, by receiving Benedetti at Ems, departed from the policy of reserve Bismarck himself adopted, and Bismarck (who had now gone to Berlin) found himself in a position of such difficulty that he contemplated resignation. The French, however, by changing and extending their demands enabled him to find a cause of war of such nature that the The Ems telegram.whole of Germany would be united against French aggression. France asked for a letter of apology, and Benedetti personally requested from the king a promise that he would never allow the candidature to be resumed. Bismarck published the telegram in which this information and the refusal of the king were conveyed, but by omitting part of the telegram made it appear that the request and refusal had both been conveyed in a more abrupt form than had really been the case.[1] But even apart from this, the publication of the French demand, which could not be complied with, must have brought about a war.
In the campaign of 1870–71 Bismarck accompanied the headquarters of the army, as he had done in 1866. He was present at the battle of Gravelotte and at the surrender of Sedan, and it was on the morning of the 2nd of September that he had his famous meeting with Napoleon after the surrender of the emperor. He accompanied the king to Paris, and spent many months at Versailles. Here he was occupied chiefly with the arrangements for admitting the southern states to the confederation, and the establishment of the empire. He also underwent much anxiety lest the efforts of Thiers to bring about an interference by the neutral powers might be successful. He had to carry on the negotiations with the French preliminary to the surrender of Paris, and to enforce upon them the German terms of peace.
For Bismarck’s political career after 1870 we must refer to the article Germany, for he was thenceforward entirely absorbed in the affairs of his country. The foreign policy he controlled absolutely. As chancellor he was responsible for the whole internal policy of the empire, and his influence is to After 1870.be seen in every department of state, especially, however, in the great change of policy after 1878. During the earlier period the estrangement from the Conservatives, which had begun in 1866, became very marked, and brought about a violent quarrel with many of his old friends, which culminated in the celebrated Arnim trial. He incurred much criticism during the struggle with the Roman Catholic Church, and in 1873 he was shot at and slightly wounded by a youth called Rullmann, who professed to be an adherent of the Clerical party. Once before, in 1866, just before the outbreak of war, his life had been attempted by a young man called Cohen, a native of Württemberg, who wished to save Germany from a fratricidal war. In 1872 he retired from the presidency of the Prussian ministry, but returned after a few months. On several occasions he offered to retire, but the emperor always refused his consent, on the last time with the word “Never.” In 1877 he took a long leave of absence for ten months. His health at this time was very bad. In 1878 he presided over the congress of Berlin. The following years were chiefly occupied, besides foreign affairs, which were always his first care, with important commercial reforms, and he held at this time also the office of Prussian minister of trade in addition to his other posts. During this period his relations with the Reichstag were often very unsatisfactory, and at no time did he resort so freely to prosecutions in the law-courts in order to injure his opponents, so that the expression Bismarck-Beleidigung was invented. He was engaged at this time in a great struggle with the Social-Democrats, whom he tried to crush by exceptional penal laws. The death of the emperor William in 1888 made a serious difference in his position. He had been bound to him by a long term of loyal service, which had been rewarded with equal loyalty. For his relations to the emperors Frederick and William II., and for the events connected with his dismissal from office in March 1890, we must refer to the articles under those names.
After his retirement he resided at Friedrichsruh, near Hamburg, a house on his Lauenburg estates. His criticisms of the government, given sometimes in conversation, sometimes in the columns of the Hamburger Nachrichten, caused an open breach between him and the emperor; and the new chancellor, Count Caprivi, in a circular despatch which was afterwards published, warned all German envoys that no real importance must be attached to what he said. When he visited Vienna for his son’s wedding the German ambassador, Prince Reuss, was forbidden to take any notice of him. A reconciliation was effected in 1893. In 1895 his eightieth birthday was celebrated with great enthusiasm: the Reichstag alone, owing to the opposition of the Clericals and the Socialists, refused to vote an address. In 1891 he had been elected a member of the Reichstag, but he never took his seat. He died at Friedrichsruh on the 31st of July 1898.
Bismarck was made a count in 1865; in 1871 he received the rank of Fürst (prince). On his retirement the emperor created him duke of Lauenburg, but he never used the title, which was not inherited by his son. In 1866 he received £60,000 as his share of the donation voted by the Reichstag for the victorious generals. With this he purchased the estate of Varzin in Pomerania, which henceforth he used as a country residence in preference to Schönhausen. In 1871 the emperor presented him with a large part of the domains of the duchy of Lauenburg. On his seventieth birthday a large sum of money (£270,000) was raised by public subscription, of which half was devoted to repurchasing the estate of Schönhausen for him, and the rest was used by him to establish a fund for the assistance of schoolmasters. As a young man he was an officer in the Landwehr and militia, and in addition to his civil honours he was eventually raised to the rank of general. Among the numerous orders he received we may mention that he was the first Protestant on whom the pope bestowed the order of Christ; this was done after the cessation of the Kulturkampf and the reference of the dispute with Spain concerning the Caroline Islands to the arbitration of the pope.
Bismarck’s wife died in 1894. He left one daughter and two sons. Herbert (1840–1904), the elder, was wounded at Mars-le-Tour, afterwards entered the foreign office, and acted as private secretary to his father (1871–1881). In 1882 he became councillor to the embassy at London, in 1884 was transferred to St Petersburg, and in 1885 became under-secretary of state for foreign affairs. In 1884 he had been elected to the Reichstag, but had to resign his seat when, in 1886, he was made secretary of state for foreign affairs and Prussian minister. He conducted many of the negotiations with Great Britain on colonial affairs. He retired in 1890 at the same time as his father, and in 1893 was again elected to the Reichstag. He married Countess Margarete Hoyos in 1892, and died on the 18th of September 1904. He left two daughters and three sons, of whom the eldest, Otto Christian Archibald (b. 1897), succeeded to the princely title. The second son, Wilhelm, who was president of the province of Prussia, died in 1901. By his wife, Sybilla von Arnim-Kröchlendorff, he left three daughters and a son, Count Nikolaus (b. 1896).
Authorities.—The literature on Bismarck’s life is very extensive, and it is only possible to enumerate a few of the most important books. The first place belongs to his own works. These include his own memoirs, published after his death, under the title Gedanken und Erinnerungen; there is an English translation, Bismarck: his Reflections and Reminiscences (London, 1898). They are incomplete, but contain very valuable discussions on particular points. The speeches are of the greatest importance both for his character and for political history; of the numerous editions that by Horst Kohl, in
- ↑ It was not till many years later that our knowledge of these events (which is still incomplete) was established; in 1894 the publication of the memoirs of the king of Rumania showed, what had hitherto been denied, that Bismarck had taken a leading part in urging the election of the prince of Hohenzollern. It was in 1892 that the language used by Bismarck himself made it necessary for the German government to publish the original form of the Ems telegram.
