FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125  
126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   >>   >|  
r and his Government are so insistent on the doctrine of Heaven-granted sovereignty, so ready to support more or less autocratic monarchies in other parts of the world, and so sensitive to popular movements like Anarchism and Nihilism in Russia, or the always-smouldering Polish agitation and the propaganda of the Social Democracy in Germany. When King Frederick William IV said to his assembled generals at Potsdam a week after the "March Days," "Never have I felt more free or more secure than when under the protection of my burghers," his words were drowned in the buzz of murmurs and the angry clanking of swords. The Emperor to-day might, or might not, endorse the words of his ancestor. Most probably he would not; for, judging by his speeches, his care for the army, the military state with which he surrounds himself, and his habitual appearance in uniform, he, though in truth far more a civil monarch than the War Lord foreign writers delight in painting him, is evidently determined to rely only on his soldiers for every eventuality at home as well as abroad. Perhaps the best German authorities on Bismarck's falling-out with the young Emperor are the statements regarding it to be found in the memoranda supplied at the time by Prince Bismarck himself to Dr. Moritz Busch; the Memoirs of Prince Hohenlohe-Schillingsfuerst, subsequently Imperial Chancellor; and the monograph on Bismarck by Dr. Hans Blum, one of the Chancellor's confidants. The memoranda supplied to Busch make regrettably few references to the subject, beyond giving the terms of the official resignation and some scanty addenda thereto; but enough is said generally by Busch concerning Bismarck's conversations to show that the Chancellor was deeply mortified by his dismissal. Bismarck indeed expressly denies this in a conversational statement quoted by an able Bismarckian writer of our own time, Dr. Paul Liman; but in view of subsequent events and statements the denial can hardly be taken as sincere. The passage referred to is as follows:-- "I bear no grudge against my young master, who is fiery and lively. He wishes to make all men happy, and that is very natural at his age. I, for my part, believe perhaps less in this possibility, and have told him so too. It is very natural that a mentor like myself does not please him, and that he therefore rejects my advice. An old carthorse and a young courser go ill in harness togeth
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125  
126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Bismarck
 

Chancellor

 

memoranda

 
statements
 

Emperor

 

supplied

 

Prince

 

natural

 

conversations

 

denies


deeply

 
mortified
 

dismissal

 
generally
 
expressly
 

references

 

monograph

 

confidants

 

Imperial

 

subsequently


Moritz

 

Memoirs

 

Hohenlohe

 

Schillingsfuerst

 

regrettably

 
scanty
 

addenda

 

thereto

 

resignation

 

official


subject

 

giving

 
possibility
 

mentor

 

wishes

 

courser

 

harness

 

togeth

 

carthorse

 

rejects


advice
 
lively
 

subsequent

 

denial

 

events

 
writer
 

quoted

 
statement
 
Bismarckian
 

grudge