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Excerpt from The Works of Heinrich Heine, Vol. 14. Translated from the German by Charles Godfrey Leland.

Since these events all has been quiet again, or, as Horatius Sebastiani would say, “L’ordre regne a Paris.” There is a stony stillness as of death in every face. For many evenings very few people were seen on the Boulevards, and they hurried along with hands or handkerchiefs held over their faces. The theatres are as if perished and passed away. When I enter a salon, people are amazed to see me still in Paris, since I am not detained by urgent business. In fact, most strangers, and especially my fellow-countrymen, left long since.

Obedient parents received from their children orders to return at once. God-fearing sons fulfilled without delay and tender wishes of their loving sires, who longed to see them in their homes again. Honour thy father and thy mother … then, thy days shall be prolonged upon the earth! In others, too, there suddenly awoke an endless yearning for their fatherland, for the romantic valleys of the noble Rhine, for the dear mountains, for winsome Suabia, the land of pure true love and woman’s faith, of joyous ballads and of healthy air. It is said that thus far more than 120,000 passports have been issued at the Hotel de Ville.

Although the cholera evidently first attacked the poorer classes; the rich still very promptly took to flight. Certain parvenus should not be too severely judged for having done so, for they probably reflected that the cholera, which came hither all the way from Asia, does not know that we have quite lately grown rich on Change, and thinking that we are still poor devils, will send us to turn up our toes to the daisies. M. Aguado, one of the richest bankers and a chevalier of the Legion of Honour, was field-marshal in this great retreat. The knight is said to have glared with mad apprehension out of the coach-window, and believed that his footman all in blue who stood behind was blue Death himself or the cholera morbus.

The multiple murmured bitterly when it saw how the rich fled away, and, well packed with doctors and drugs, took refuge in healthier climes. The poor man saw with bitter discontent that money had become a protection also against death. The greater portion of the juste milieu and of la haute finance have also departed, and now live in their chateaux. But the real representatives of wealth, the Messieurs Rothschild, have, however, quietly remained in Paris, thereby manifesting that they are great-minded and brave. Casimir Perier also showed himself great and brave in visiting the Hotel Dieu or hospital after the cholera had broken out.

It should have grieved even his enemies that he was attacked by the cholera after this visit. He did not, however, succumb to it, being in himself a much worse pestilence. The young Prince d’Orleans, who in company with Perier, visited the hospital, also deserves the most honourable mention. But the whole royal family has behaved quite as nobly in this sad time. When the cholera broke out, the Queen assembled her friends and servants, and distributed among them flannel bandages, which were mostly made by her own hands.

The manners and customs of ancient chivalry are not yet extinct; they have only changed into domestic citizen-like forms; great ladies now bedeck their champions with less poetical, but more practical and healthier scarfs. We live no longer in the ancient days of helm and harness and of warring knights, but in the peaceful, honest bourgeois days of under-jackets and warm bandages; that is, no longer in the iron age, but that of flannel – flannel everywhere. It is , in fact, the best cuirass against the cholera, our most cruel enemy. Venus, according to the Figaro, would wear today a girdle of flannel. I myself am up to my neck in flannel, and consider myself cholera-proof. The King himself wears now a belt of the best bourgeois flannel.

Nor should I forget to mention that he, the citizen king, during the general suffering, gave a great deal of money to the poor citizens, and showed himself inspired with civic sympathy and noble. And while in the vein, I will also praise the Archbishop of Paris, who also went to the Hotel Dieu, , after the Prince Royal and Perier had made their visits, to console the patients. He had long prophesied that God would send the cholera as a judgment and punishment on the people “for having banished a most Christian king, and struck out the privileges of the Catholic religion for the Charte.”

Now when the wrath of God falls on the sinners, M. de Quelen would fain send prayers to heaven and implore grace, at least for the innocent, for it appears that many Carlists also die. Moreover, M. de Quelen offered his Chateau de Conflans to be used as a hospital. The proffer was declined by the Government because the building is in such a ruined and deplorable condition that it would cost too much to repair it. And the Bishop had, as a condition, exacted that he should have unconditional authority or carte blanche in directing the hospital.

But it was deemed too dangerous an experiment to entrust the souls of the poor patients, whose bodies were already suffering terribly, to the tortures of attempted salvation, which the Archbishop and his familiars intended to inflict. It was thought better to let the hardened Revolutionary sinners die simply of the cholera, without threats of eternal damnation and hell-fire, without confession or extreme unction. For though it is declared that the Catholic is a religion perfectly adapted to the unhappy time through which we are now passing, the French will have none of it for fear lest they should be obliged to keep on with this epidemic faith when better days shall come.

Many disguised priests are now gliding and sliding here and there among the people, persuading them that a rosary which has been consecrated is a perfect preservative against the cholera.

The Saint-Simonists regard it as an advantage of their religion that none of their number can die of the prevailing malady, because progress is a law of nature, and as social progress is specially in Saint-Simonism, so long as the number of its apostles is incomplete none of its followers can die.

The Bonapartists declare that if any one feels in himself the symptoms of the cholera, if he will raise his eyes to the column of the Place Vendome he shall be saved and live.

And so hath every man his special faith in these troubled times.

As for me, I believe in flannel.

Good dieting can do no harm, but one should not eat too little, as do certain persons who mistake pangs of hunger felt in the night for premonitory symptoms of cholera. It is amusing to see the poltroonery which many manifest at table, regarding with defiance or suspicion the most philanthropic and benevolent dishes, and swallowing every dainty with a sigh.

The doctors told us to have no fear and avoid irritation; but they feared lest they might be unguardedly irritated, and then were irritated at themselves for being afraid. Now they are love itself, and often use the words Mon Dieu! and their voices are as soft and low as those of ladies lately brought to bed. Withal they smell like perambulating apothecary shops, often feel their stomachs, and ask every hour how many have died. But as no one ever knows the exact number, or either as there was a general suspicion as to the exactitude of the figures given, all minds were seized with vague terror, and the extent of the malady was magnified beyond limits.

In fact, the journals have since published that on one day, on the 10th of April, two thousand people died. But the people would not be deceived by any such official statement, and continually complained that far more died than were accounted for. My barber told me how an old woman sat at her window a whole night on the Faubourg Montmartre to count the corpses which were carried by, and she counted three hundred; but when morning came she was chilled with frost, and felt the cramp of the cholera, and soon died herself.

Wherever one looked in the streets, there he saw funerals, or, sadder still hearses with no one following. But as there were not hearses sufficient, all kinds of vehicles were used, which, when covered with black stuffs, looked very strange. Even these were at last wanting, and I saw coffins carried in hackney coaches. It was most disagreeable to see the great furniture wagons which were used for “moving” now moving about as dead men’s omnibuses, or omnibus mortuis, going from house to house for fares and carrying them by dozens to the field of rest.

The neighborhood of the cemetery where many funerals met presented the most dispiriting scene. Wishing to visit a friend one day, I arrived just as they were placing his corpse in the hearse. Then the sad fancy seized me to return the call which he had last made, so I took a coach and accompanied him to Pere la Chaise. Having arrived in the neighborhood of the cemetery, my coachman stopped, and awaking from my reverie, I could see nothing but literally sky and coffins.

I was among several hundred vehicles bearing the dead, which formed a queue or train before the narrow gate, and as I could not escape, I was obliged to pass several hours among these gloomy surroundings. Out of ennui, I asked my coachman the name of my neighbor corpse, and – what the chance! – he named a young lady whose coach had, some months before, as I was going to a ball at Lointier, been crowded against mine and delayed just as it was today. There was only this difference, that then she often put out of the window her little head, decked with flowers, her lovely, lively face lit by the moon, and manifested the most charming vexation and impatience at the delay.

Now she was quite still, and probably very blue; but ever and anon, when the mourning-horses of the hearses stamped and grew unruly, it seemed to me as if the dead themselves were growing impatient, and, tired of waiting, were in a hurry to get into their graves; and when, at the cemetery gate, one coachmen tried to get before another, and there was disorder in the queue, then the gendarmes came in with bare sabres; here and there were cries and curses, some vehicles were overturned, coffins rolling out burst open, and I seemed to see that most horrible of all emeutes — a riot of the dead.

To spare the feelings of my readers, I will not further describe what I saw at Pere la Chaise. Hardened as I am, I could not help yielding to the deepest horror. One may learn by deathbeds how to die, and then await death with calmness, but to learn how to be buried in graves of quicklime, among cholera corpses, is beyond my power.

I hastened to the highest hill of the cemetery, whence one may see the city spread out in all its beauty. The sun was setting; its last rays seemed to bid me a sad good-bye; twilight vapours cover sick Paris as with a light-white shroud, and I wept bitterly over the unhappy city, the city of freedom, of inspiration and of martyrdom, the saviour-city which has already suffered so much for the temporal deliverance of humanity.

Paris as seen from Pere-la-Chaise

Excerpt from The Works of Heinrich Heine, Vol. 14. Translated from the German by Charles Godfrey Leland.

It was amidst unparalleled trouble and confusion that hospital and other institutions for preserving public health were organized. A Sanitary Committee was created, Bureaux de Secours were established, and the ordinances as regards the salubrite publique were promptly put into effect. In doing this there was at once a collision with interests of several thousand men who regarded public filth as their own private property.

These were the chiffoniers or rag-men, who pick their living from the sweepings piled up in dirt heaps in odd corners. With great pointed baskets on their backs and hooked sticks in their hands, these men, with pale and dirty faces, stray through the streets, and know how to find and utilize many objects in these refuse piles. But when the police, not wishing this filth to remain longer in the public streets, had given out the cleaning to their agents, and the refuse, put into carts, was to be carried out into the open country, the chiffoniers could freely fish in it to their hearts’ content.

Then the latter complained that, though not reduced to starvation, that their business had been reduced, and that this industry was a right sanctioned by ancient usage, and like property, of which they could not be arbitrarily deprived. It is very curious that the proofs which they produced in this relation were quite identical with those which our country squires and nobles, chiefs of corporations, gild-masters, tithe-preachers, members of faculties, and similar possessors of privilege, bring forward when any old abuses by which they profit, or other rubbish of the Middle Ages, must be cleared away, so that our modern life may not be infected by the ancient musty mold and exhalations.

As their protests were of no avail, the chiffoniers attempted to oppose the reform of cleanliness by force, or got up a small counter-revolution, and that in connection with the old women called revendeuses, who had been forbidden to publicly sell on the quays or traffic in the evil-smelling stuff which they had bought from the chiffoniers.

Then we beheld the most repulsive riot; the new hand-cars used to clean the town were broken and thrown into the Seine; the chiffoniers barricaded themselves at the Porte Saint-Denis; the old women dealers in rubbish fought with their great umbrellas on the Chatelot; the general march was beaten; Casimir Perier had his myrmidons drummed up from their shops; the citizen-throne trembled; Rentes fell; the Carlists rejoiced.

The latter, by the way, had found at last their natural allies in rag-men and the old huxter-wives, who adopted the same principles as the champions of transmitted rights, or hereditary rubbish-interests and rotten things of every kind.

When the emeute of the chiffoniers was suppressed, and as the cholera did not take hold so savagely as was desired by certain people of the kind who in every suffering or excitement among the people hope, if not to profit themselves, to at least cause the overthrow of the existing Government, there rose all at one a rumour that many of those who had been so promptly buried had died not from disease but by poison. It was said that certain persons had found out how to introduce a poison into all kinds of foodt, be it in the vegetable markets, in bakeries, meat-stalls, or wine.

The more extraordinary these reports were, the more eagerly they were received by the multitude, and even the skeptics must needs believe in them when an order on the subject was published by the chief of police. For the police, who in every country seem to be less inclined to prevent crime than to appear to know all about it, either desired to display their universal information or else thought, as regards the tales of poisoning, that whether they were true or false, they themselves must in any case divert all suspicion from the Government.

Suffice it to say, that by their unfortunate proclamation, in which they distinctly said that they were on the track of the poisoners, they officially confirmed the rumours, and thereby threw all Paris into the most dreadful apprehension of death.

“We never heard the like!” said the oldest people, who, even in the most dreadful times of the Revolution, had never experienced such fearful crime. “Frenchmen! we are dishonoured!” cried the men, striking their foreheads. The women, pressing their little children in agony to the their hearts, wept bitterly and lamented that the innocent babes were dying in their arms. The poor people dared neither eat nor drink, and wrung their heads in dire need and distress. It seemed as if the end of the world had come.

The crowds assembled chiefly at the corners of the streets, where the red-painted wine-shops are situated, and it was generally there that men who seemed suspicious were searched, and woe to them when any doubtful objects were found on them. The mob threw themselves like wild beasts or lunatics on their victims. Many saved themselves by their presence of mind, others were rescued by the firmness of the Municipal Guard, who in those days patrolled everywhere; some received wounds or were maimed, while six men were unmercifully murdered outright.

Nothing is so horrible as the anger of a mob when it rages for blood and strangles its defenseless prey. Then there rolled through the streets a dark flood of human beings, in which, here and there, workmen in their shirtsleeves seemed like the white caps of a raging sea, and all were howling and roaring — all merciless, heathenish, devilish. I heard in the Rue Saint-Denies the well-known old cry. “A la lanterne!” and from voices trembling with rage I learned that they were hanging a prisoner. Some said that he was a Carlist, and that a brevet du lis had been found in his pocket; others declared he was a priest, and others that he was capable of anything.

In the Rue Vaugirard, where two men were killed because certain white powders were found on them, I saw one of the wretches, while he was still in the death rattle, and at the time old women plucked the wooden shoes from their feet and beat him on the head till he was dead. He was naked and beaten and bruised, so that his blood flowed…and one blackguard tied a rope to the feet of the corpse and dragged it through the streets, crying out, “Voila le chlera-morbus!”

A very beautiful woman, pale with rage, with bare breasts and bloody hands, was present, and as the corpse passed she kicked it. She laughed to me, and begged for a few francs reward for her dainty work wherewith to buy a mourning-dress, because her mother had died a few hours before of poison.

It appeared the next day by the newspapers that the wretched men who had been so cruelly murdered were all quite innocent, that the suspicious powders found on them consisted of camphor or chlorine; or some other kind of remedy against the cholera, and that those who were said to have been poisoned had died naturally of the prevailing epidemic. The mob here, like the same everywhere, being quick to rage and readily led to cruelty, became at once appeased , and deplored with touching sorrow its rash deeds when it heard the voice of reason.

With such voices the newspapers succeeded the next day in calming and quieting the populace, and it may be proclaimed, as a triumph of the press, that it was able so promptly to stop the mischief which the police had made.

I must here blame the conduct of certain people who by no means belonged to the lower class, yet who were so carried away by their prejudices as to publicly accuse the Carlista of poisoning. Passion should never carry us so far, and I should hesitate a long time ere I would accuse my most venomous foes of such horrible intentions. The Carlists were quite right in complaining of this, and it is only the bitter manner in which they cursed and raled over it which could excite suspicion.

That is certainly not the language of innocence. But according to the conviction of those best informed, there had been no poisoning. It may be that sham poisonings were contrived, or that a few wretches were really induced to sprinkle harmless powders on provisions in order to irritate and rouse the people; and if this was indeed the case, the people should not be too severely blamed for their riotous conduct, since it sprang not from public hate, “but in the interest of commonwealth, quite according to the theory of terrorism.”

Yes, the Carlists would themselves have perished in the pit dug for the Republicans, but the poisoning was not generally attributed to the one or to the other, but to that party which , “never conquered by arms, always raises itself again by cowardly means, which attains to prosperity and power invariably by the ruin of France, and which now, dispensing with the aid of Cossacks, may readily seek refuge in common poison.” This is about what is said in the Constitutional.

What I gained by personal observation on the day when these murders took place was the conviction that the rule of the elder branch of the Bourbons will never be reestablished in France. I heard the most remarkable utterances in different groups; I saw deep into the heart of the people — it knows its men.

To be continued…

Excerpt from The Works of Heinrich Heine, Vol. 14. Translated from the German by Charles Godfrey Leland.

French Affairs: The Citizen Kingdom.

Paris, April 19, 1832

I will not borrow from the workshops of political parties their common vulgar rule wherewith to measure men and things; still less will I determine their greatness or value by dreamy private feelings. But I will contribute as much as possible impartially to the intelligence of the present, and seek the solution of the stormy, noisy enigma of the day in the past. Saloons lie, graves speak the truth. But ah! the dead, those cold reciters of history, speak in vain to the raging multitude, who only understand the language of passion.

Yet certainly the saloons do not lie with deliberate intention. The society of those in power really believes in its eternal duration, when the annals of universal history, the fiery Mene tekel of the daily journals, and even the loud voice of the people in the streets, cry aloud their warnings. Nor do the coteries of the Opposition utter predetermined falsehoods. They believe that they are sure to conquer, just as men always believe in what they most desire. They intoxicate themselves with the champagne of their hopes, interpret every mischance as a necessary occurrence which must bring them nearer to their goal. Their confidence flashes most brilliantly on the eve of their downfall.

And the messenger of justice who officially announced to them their defeat generally finds them quarreling as to their share in the bear’s skin. Hence the one-sided errors which we cannot escape when we stand too near to one or the other party; either deceives, yet does it unaware, and we confide most willingly in those who think as we do. But if we are by chance of such indifferent nature that we, without special predilection, keep in continual intercourse with all, then we are bewildered by the perfect self-confidence of either party, and our judgment is neutralized in the most depressing manner.

There are indeed such all-indifferent men who have no true opinions of the time, who only wish to learn what may be going on, to gather all the gossip of saloons, and retail all the chronique scandaleuse of one party to the other. The result of such indifference is that they see everywhere only persons and not principles, or rather that they see in principles only persons, and so prophesy the ruin of the first, because they have perceived the weakness of the latter, and thereby lead their constituents or those who believe in them into most serious errors and mistakes.

I cannot refrain from calling special attention to the false relationship which now exists in France between things (that is, spiritual and material interests) and persons (i.e., the representative of these). This was quite different at the end of the last century, when man towered so colossally to the height of things, so that they form in the history of the Revolution at the same time an heroic age, and as such are now celebrated, worshiped and loved by our Republican youth. Or are we in this respect deceived by the same error which we find in Madame Roland, who bewails so bitterly in her Memoirs that there was not among the men of her time one of importance?

The worthy lady did not know her own greatness, nor did she observe that her contemporaries were indeed great enough when they were in naught inferior to her as regards intellectual stature. The whole French people has today grown so mightily that we are perhaps unjust to its public representatives, who do not rise so markedly from the mob, yet who are not on that account to be considered as small. We cannot see the forest for the trees. In Germany we see the country, a terrible jungle of scraggy thicket and dwarf pines, and here and there a giant oak, whose head rises to the clouds – while down below the worms do gnaw its trunk.

Today is the result of yesterday. We must find out what the former would ere we can find what it is the latter will have. The Revolution is ever one and the same. It is not as the doctrinaires would have us think; it was not for the Charte that they fought in the great week, but for those same Revolutionary interests for which the best blood in France has been spilt for forty years. But that the author of these pages may not be mistaken merely for one these holders-forth who understand by revolution only one overthrow after another, and who see in accidental occurrences that which is the spirit of the Revolution itself, I will here explain the main idea as accurately as I can.

When the intellectual developments or culture of a race are no longer in accord with its old established institutions, there results necessarily a combat in which the latter are overthrown, and which is called a revolution. Until this revolution is complete, until that reformation of institutions does not perfectly agree with the intellectual development and the habits and wants of the people, just so long the national malady is not perfectly cured; and the sickly and excited people will often relapse into the weakness of their exhaustion.

Yet ever and anon be subject to attacks of burning fever, when they tear away the tightest bandages and the most soothing lint from the old wounds; throw the most benevolent, noblest nurses out of the window, and roll about in agony until they finally find them themselves in circumstances. That is, adapt themselves to institutions, which suit them better.

The question whether France is at rest, or whether we are to anticipate new political changes, and finally what end it will all take, amounts to this — What motive had the French in beginning a revolution, and have they obtained what they desired? To aid the reply I will discuss the beginning of the Revolution in my next article. This will be a doubly profitable occupation, since, while endeavoring to explain the present by the past, it will at the same time be shown how the past is made clear and in mutual understanding with the present, and how every day new light is thrown upon it, of which our writers of historical hand-books had no idea.

They believed that the acts of the Revolution had come to an end, and they had uttered their last judgment over men and things, when all at once there thundered the cannons of the great week, and the faculty of Goettingen remarked that there had been an appeal from the academic senate to a higher jurisdiction, and that not only the French special revolution was not finished, but that the far more comprehensive universal revolution had begun.

How terrified must these peaceable people have been when they, one fine morning, put their heads out of the window and beheld the overthrow of states and of their compendia, and the tones of the “Marseillaise” forced themselves into their ears despite their nightcaps. In fact, that in 1830 the tri-coloured flag fluttered for several days on the towers of Goettingen was a student’s joke which universal history played on the eminently erudite Philistia of Georgia Augusta. In this all too serious age, we have need of a few such cheerful incidents.

So much for preface to an article which will busy itself with clearing up the past. The present is at this moment the most important, and the theme which it offers for discussion is of such a kind that further writing thereon especially depends upon it.

I was very much disturbed while writing this article, chiefly by the agonizing cries of a neighbor who died of cholera, and I must here lay stress on the fact that the events of that time had a sad influence on the following pages. I am not indeed conscious that I was in the least troubled, but it is very disturbing when the whetting of the scythe of Death rings distinctly in our ears. A disorder or discomfort which was more physical than mental, for which nothing could be done, would have driven me from Paris, but then my best friend would have been left here alone, and seriously ill. I note this that my remaining in Paris may not be considered as a mere bravado.

Only a fool would have found pleasure in braving the cholera. It was a reign of terror far more dreadful than the first, because the executions took place so rapidly and mysteriously. It was a masked executioner who passed through Paris with an invisible guillotine ambulante. “We shall all be stuck into the sack, one after the other,” said my servant, with a sigh every morning, when he announced how many had died or the loss of some one known. The expression “stuck into the sack” was no mere figure of speech, for coffins were soon wanting, and greater part of the dead were buried in bags.

When I, a week ago, passed a great open public building, and saw in the roomy halls the merry people, the gaily springing Franzoeschen, the dainty little gossiping Frenchwomen, who did their shopping laughing and joking, I remembered that here, during the time of the cholera, there were ranged high piled, one on the other, many hundreds of white sacks containing every one a corpse, and that there were then heard here very few, but all the more terrible voices. Or those of the watchers of the dead, who with a grim indifference counted out the sacks to the men who buried them; and how the latter, as they piled them on their cars, repeated the numbers in lower tones, or complained harshly that they had received one corpse too few, over which there often arose a strange dispute.

And I remember how two small boys with sorrowful faces stood by, and that one asked me if I could tell him in which sack his father was.

That which follows has perhaps the merit that it is at once a bulletin written on the field of battle during the fight, and thus bears the impress and colour of the moment… I shall, in the following pages, remain true to the principle which I have followed from the beginning of the book, which is to change nothing and to let it be printed as it was originally written… they belong to the history of the time. The events themselves afford their own and the best corroboration.

I speak of the cholera which has raged here till now without limit, and which, regardless, of rank and opinion, fells its victims by the thousand.

The pestilence had been regarded with less apprehension, because it was reported that there had been in London comparatively few deaths. People had seemed at first inclined to really make fun of it, and it was thought that the cholera, as happens to so many other great characters, would have its reputation mightily diminished when it should come to Paris. One must not blame the good honest cholera for having, out of fear of ridicule, had recourse to means which Robespierre and Napoleon had found efficacious — that is, in order to secure respect they decimated the people.

Owing to the vast misery prevailing here, to the incredible filth, which is by no means limited to the lower classes, to the excitability of the people and their unrestrained frivolity, and to utter want of all preparation and precaution whatsoever, the cholera laid hold here more rapidly and terribly than elsewhere.

Its arrival was officially announced on the 29th of March, and as this was the day of MiCareme, and there was bright sunshine and beautiful weather, the Parisians hustled and fluttered the more merrily on the Boulevards, where one could even see maskers, who, in caricatures of the livid colour and sickly mien, mocked the fear of the cholera and the disease itself.

That night the balls were more crowded than usual; excessive laughter almost drowned the roar of music; people grew hot in the chahut; a dance of anything but equivocal character; all kinds of ices and cold beverages were in great demand — when all at once the merriest of the harlequins felt that his legs were becoming much too cold, and took off his mask, when, to the amazement of all, a violent-blue face became visible.

It was at once seen that there was no jest in this; the laughter died away, and at once several carriages conveyed men and women from the ball to the Hotel Dieu, the Central Hospital, where they, still arrayed in mask attire, soon died. As in the first shock of terror people believed the cholera was contagious, and as those who were already patients in the hospital raised cruel screams of fear, it is said that these dead were buried so promptly that even their fantastic fools’ garments were left on them, so that as they lived they now lie merrily in the grave.

To be continued…

The Masked Ball

TRANSLATED BY EDMUND VON MACH, PH.D.

[The complete victory which Russia had won in the Turkish war had

greatly disturbed the European powers, and in Germany much

apprehension was felt for the safety of Austria. England, too, was

much concerned, for she had been displeased at Bismarck's refusal to

intervene in the war. German public opinion was aroused, and the

representative von Bennigsen joined with four colleagues in the

following interpellation, which they made in the Reichstag on February

8: "Is the Chancellor willing to inform the Reichstag of the political

situation in the Orient, and of the position which the German empire

has taken or intends to take in regard to it?" The interpellation was

put on the calendar of February 19, and while Bismarck regarded it as

ill timed he was ready to reply, lest his silence be misunderstood.]

Anton von Werner: "The Berlin Congress, 1878"
.

BISMARCK AS THE "HONEST BROKER"

February 19, 1878

I first ask the indulgence of the Reichstag if I should not be able to

stand while I say everything I have to say. I am not so well as I

look.

/ 

With regard to the question, I cannot deny that I was in doubt, when I

first saw the interpellation, not whether I would answer it--for its

form gives me the right to answer it with a "No"--but whether I should

not have to say "No." Do not assume, gentlemen, as one generally does

in such cases, that the reason was because I had to suppress a good

deal which would compromise our policy or restrict it in an

undesirable manner. On the contrary, I have hardly enough to say in

addition to what is already generally known to induce me, of my own

initiative, to make a statement to the representatives of the empire.

/ 

The discussions in the English parliament have almost exhaustively

answered one part of the question "What is the political

situation in the Orient at the present time?" If, in spite of the

paucity of the information with which I am addressing you, I do not

say "No" it is because I fear the inference that I have much to

suppress, and because such an inference is always disquieting,

especially when it is coupled with the desire to make capital out of

my silence.

/

I am the more pleased to address you with complete

frankness, because the interpellation and the way it was introduced

have given me the impression that if the German policy wishes to

correspond to the majority opinion of the Reichstag--in so far as I

may consider the recent comments an expression of this opinion--

it has only to continue along the path which it has thus far followed.

/ 

Regarding the present situation, I suspect that you already know

everything I can say about it. You know from the press and the English

parliamentary debates that at present one can say in the Orient, "The

arms are idle, and the storms of war are hushed"--God grant, for a

long while! The armistice which has been concluded grants the Russian

army an unbroken position from the Danube to the sea of Marmora, with

a base which it lacked formerly. 

/

I mean the fortresses near the Danube. This fact, which is nowhere 

denied,  seems to me to be the most  important of the whole armistice. 

There is excluded from the Russian occupation, if I begin in the north,

a quadrangular piece, with Varna and Shumla, extending along the 

shore of the Black Sea to Battshila in the north, and not quite to the 

Bay of Burgas in the south, thence inland to about Rasgrad--a pretty 

exact quadrangle. Constantinople and the peninsula of Gallipoli are

also excluded, the very two points on whose independence of Russia

several interested powers are laying much stress.

/ 

Certain peace preliminaries preceded the armistice, which at the risk

of telling you things you already know I shall nevertheless review

because they will answer the question whether German interests 

are at stake in any one of them. There is, in the first place, the

establishment of Bulgaria "within the limits determined by the

majority of the Bulgarian population, and not smaller than indicated

by the conference of Constantinople."

/ 

The difference between these two designations is not of sufficient

importance, I believe, to constitute a reasonable danger to the peace

of Europe. The ethnographical information which we possess is, it is

true, not authentic nor without gaps, and the best we know has been

supplied by Germans in the maps by Kiepert. According to this the

national frontier--the frontier of the Bulgarian nationality--runs

down in the west just beyond Salonica, along a line where the races

are rather unmixed, and in the east with an increased admixture of

Turkish elements in the direction of the Black Sea. 

/

The frontier of the  conference, on the other hand, so far as it is possible

 to trace it, runs--beginning at the sea--considerably farther north than the

national frontier, and two separate Bulgarian provinces are

contemplated. In the west it reaches somewhat farther than the

national frontier into the districts which have an admixture of

Albanian races. 

/

The constitution of Bulgaria according to the preliminaries would 

be similar to that of Serbia before the evacuation of Belgrade and

other strongholds; for this first paragraph of the preliminaries closes

 with these words, "The Ottoman army will not remain there," and, 

in parenthesis, "barring a few places subject to mutual agreement."

/ 

It will, therefore, devolve upon the powers who signed the Paris

treaty of 1856 to discuss and define those sentences which were left

open and indefinite there, and to come to an agreement with Russia, if

this is possible, as I hope it may be.

/ 

Then there follow "The Independence of Montenegro * * * also of

Romania and Serbia;" and directions concerning Bosnia and

Herzegovina, whose reforms "should be analogous."

/ 

None of these things, I am convinced, touches the interests of Germany

to such an extent that we should be justified in jeopardizing for

its sake our relations with our neighbors--our friends. We may accept

one or the other definition without loss in our spheres of interest.

/ 

Then there follows, under paragraph five, a stipulation concerning the

indemnity of war, which leaves the question open, whether "it should

be pecuniary or territorial." This is a matter which concerns the

belligerents in so far as it may be pecuniary, and the signers of the

Paris treaty of peace in so far as it may be territorial, and will

have to be settled by their consent.

/ 

Then there follows the provision concerning the Dardanelles. This, I

believe, has given cause for much more anxiety in the world than is

justified by the actual possibilities of any probable outcome. "His

Majesty the Sultan declares his willingness to come to an agreement

with His Majesty the Emperor of Russia with a view of safeguarding the

rights and interests of Russia in the straits of the Bosporus and the

Dardanelles."

/ 

The question of the Dardanelles is freighted with importance when it

means placing the control there--the key of the Bosporus--in other

hands than heretofore, and deciding whether Russia shall be able to

close and to open the Dardanelles at will. All other stipulations can

have reference only to times of peace, for in the more important times

of war the question will always hinge on whether the possessor of the

key to the Dardanelles is in alliance with or dependent on those

living outside or inside the Dardanelles, on Russia or on the

opponents of Russia. 

/

In case of war, I believe no stipulation which may be made will 

have the importance which people fear, provided the Dardanelles

are in times of peace in the possession of people who are

fully independent of Russia. 

/

It may be of interest for the people on the shores of the Mediterranean to

know whether the Russian Black Sea fleet shall be permitted in times of

peace to sail through the Dardanelles and to show itself on their shores. 

If, however, it shows itself there, I should infer Peace, like good weather 

from the barometer; when it withdraws and carefully secludes itself, then it

is time to suspect that clouds are gathering. The question, therefore,

whether men-of-war shall be permitted to pass the Dardanelles in times

of peace, although by no means unimportant, is to my way of thinking

not sufficiently important to inflame Europe.

/ 

The question whether the possession of the Dardanelles shall be

shifted to other owners is entirely different. It constitutes,

however, a conjectural eventuality which the present situation does

not contemplate, I believe, and on which I shall, therefore, express

no opinion. My only concern at present is to give an approximate

definition, as best I can, of those weighty interests which may lead

to another war after the Russian-Turkish war has been actually

concluded.

/

For this reason I deem it important to affirm that the

stipulations of peace concerning the Dardanelles mean less for the

men-of-war than for the merchant marine. The preëminent German

interest in the Orient demands that the waterways, the straits as well

as the Danube from the Black Sea upward, shall continue as free and

open to us as they have been until now. I rather infer that we shall

surely obtain this, for as a matter of fact it has never even been

questioned. An official communication on this point which I have

received from St. Petersburg simply refers to the existing

stipulations of the treaty of Paris. Nothing is jeopardized; our

position can be no worse and no better than it has been.

/ 

The interest which we have in a better government of a Christian

nation and in the safeguards against those acts of violence which have

occurred at times, under Turkish rule, is taken care of by the

agreements mentioned above. And this is the second interest which

Germany has in this whole affair. It is less direct, but is dictated

by humanity.

/ 

The rest of the preliminary stipulations consists--I will not say of

phrases, for it is an official paper--but it has no bearing on our

present discussion.

/ 

With these explanations I have answered to the best of my ability the

first part of the interpellation concerning the present state of

affairs in the Orient, and I fear, gentlemen, that I have said nothing

new to any one of you.

/ 

The other parts of the question refer to the position which Germany

has taken or intends to take in view of the now existing conditions

and innovations.

/ 

As to the position which we have already taken I cannot now give you

any information, for officially we have been in possession of the

papers to which I have referred only a very short while, I may say

literally only since this very morning. What we knew beforehand was in

general agreement with these papers, but not of a nature to make

official steps possible. It consisted of private communications for

which we were indebted to the courtesy of other governments.

/ 

Official steps, therefore, have not yet been taken, and would be

premature in view of the conference, which I hope is at hand. All this

information will then be available and we shall be in a position to

exchange opinions concerning these matters. Any alterations,

therefore, of the stipulations of 1856 will have to be sanctioned. If

they should not be, the result would not necessarily be another war,

but a condition of affairs which all the powers of Europe, I think,

have good cause to avoid. 

/

I am almost tempted to call it making a morass of matters. Let us assume

that no agreement about what has to be done can be reached in the

conference, and that the powers who have a chief interest in opposing

the Russian stipulations should say: "At the present moment it does not

suit us to go to war about these questions, but we are not in accord with

our agreements, and we reserve our decision"--would not that establish

a condition of affairs which cannot be agreeable even to Russia? 

/

The Russian policy rightly says, "We are not desirous of exposing

ourselves to the necessity of a Turkish campaign every ten or twenty

years, for it is exhausting, strenuous, and expensive." 

But the Russian policy, on the other hand, cannot wish to substitute

for this Turkish danger an English-Austrian entanglement recurring

every ten or twenty years. It is, therefore, my opinion that Russia is

equally interested with the other powers in reaching an agreement

now, and in not deferring it to some future and perhaps less 

convenient time.

/ 

That Russia could possibly wish to force the other powers by war to

sanction the changes which she deems necessary I consider to be

beyond the realm of probability. If she could not obtain the sanction

of the other signers of the clauses of 1856, she would, I suppose, be

satisfied with the thought "_Beati possidentes_" (happy are the

possessors). 

/

Then the question would arise whether those who are

dissatisfied with the Russian agreements and have real and material

interests at stake, would be ready to wage war in order to force

Russia to diminish her demands or to give up some of them. 

If they should be successful in forcing Russia to give up more than 

she could bear, they would do so at the risk of leaving in Russia, when the

troops come home, a feeling similar to that in Prussia after the

treaties of 1815, a lingering feeling that matters really are not

settled, and that another attempt will have to be made.

/

If this could be achieved by a war, one would have to regard, as the

aim of this war, the expulsion of Russia from the Bulgarian

strongholds which she is at present occupying, and from her position

which no doubt is threatening Constantinople--although she has given

no indication of a wish to occupy this city. Those who would have

accomplished this by a victorious war, would then have to shoulder the

responsibility of deciding what should be done with these countries of

European Turkey. 

/

That they should be willing simply to reinstate the Turkish rule in its entirety

after everything said and determined in the conference, is, I believe, very

improbable. They would, therefore, be obliged to make some kind of a

disposition, which could not differ very much in principle from what is being

proposed now. It might differ in geographical extent and in the degree of

independence, but I do not believe that Austria-Hungary, for instance, the

nearest neighbor, would be ready to accept the entire heritage of the present

Russian conquest, and be responsible for the future of these Slavic

countries, either by incorporating them in the state of Hungary or

establishing them as dependencies. I do not believe that this is an

end which Austria can much desire in view of her own Slavic subjects.

'

She cannot wish to be the editor of the future in the Balkan

peninsula, as she would have to be if she won a victory.

/ 

I mention all these eventualities, in which I place no faith, for the

sake of proving how slight the reasonable probability of a European

war appears to be. It is not reasonably probable that the greater or

lesser extent of a tributary State--unless conditions were altogether

unbearable--should induce two neighboring and friendly powers to start

a destructive European war in cold blood! The blood will be cooler, I

assure you, when we have at last come together in a conference.

/ 

It was to meet these eventualities that the idea of a conference was

first proposed by the government of Austria-Hungary. We were from the

start ready to accept it, and we were almost the first to do so.

Concerning the selection of a place where the conference should be

held, difficulties arose which I consider out of proportion to the

significance of the whole matter. But even in this direction we have

raised no objections and declared ourselves satisfied with the places

which have been mentioned. 

/

They were Vienna, Brussels, Baden-Baden, Wiesbaden, Wildbad, 

a place in Switzerland--I should, however, say Wildbad was mentioned

by no one but itself. Stuttgart was also mentioned. Any of these places 

would have been agreeable to us. It now seems--if I am correctly informed,

and the decision must be made in a few days--that the choice will fall on

Baden-Baden. Our interest, which is shared by those powers with whom 

we have corresponded, is the despatch of the conference irrespective of

the choice of a place, which is for us of little consequence.

/

As regards places in Germany I have expressed no opinion beyond this, 

that on German soil the presidency would have to be German. This view 

has nowhere been opposed. After the general acceptance of this principle

it will depend on the men sent to attend this conference whether for reasons of

expediency it must be adhered to. Personally I believe the conference

is assured, and I expect that it will take place in the first half of

next March. 

/

It would be desirable that the conference should take

place sooner--and the uncertainty concerning it be ended. 

But before the powers join in a conference, they naturally desire an 

exchange of opinion the one with the other; and the connections with the 

seat of war are really very slow. The delay of the communications which

reached us was, and still is, explained by the delay with which news

comes from the seat of war. The suspicion which has for some time been

felt in the press that this delay was intentional becomes unfounded

when one realizes that the advance of the Russian army following

January 30 was in consequence of the stipulations of the armistice,

and did not constitute an advantage taken of an opportune moment. 

/

The boundaries within which the Russian army is stationed today are the

lines of demarcation expressly mentioned in the armistice. I do not

believe in any intentional delay from anywhere; on the contrary, I

have confidence in the good intentions everywhere to send

representatives to the conference speedily. We certainly shall do our

part to the best of our ability.

/ 

I now come to the most difficult part--excuse me if I continue for the

present seated--I come to the most difficult part of the task set me,

an explanation, so far as this is possible, of the position which

Germany is to take in the conference. In this connection you will not

expect from me anything but general indications of our policy. Its

programme Mr. von Bennigsen has developed before you clearly and

comprehensively, almost more so than any strength at the present

moment permits me to do.

/ 

When from many quarters the demand has been made upon us--to be sure

from no government, but only from voices in the press and other well

meaning advisers--that e should define our policy from the start and

force it on the other governments in some form, I must say that this

seems to me to be newspaper diplomacy rather than the diplomacy of a

statesman.

/ 

Let me explain to you at once the difficulty and impossibility of such

a course. If we did express a definite programme, which we should be

obliged to follow when we had announced it officially and openly not

only before you, but also before the whole of Europe, should we not

then place a premium on the contentiousness of all those who

considered our programme to be not favorable to themselves!

/ 

We should also render the part of mediation in the conference, which I

deem very important, almost impossible for ourselves, because

everybody with the _menu_ of the German policy in his hand could say

to us: "German mediation can go just so far; it can do this, and this

it cannot do." It is quite possible that the free hand which Germany

has preserved, and the uncertainty of Germany's decisions have not

been without influence on the preservation of peace thus far.

/

If you play the German card, laying it on the table, everybody knows how to

adapt himself to it or how to avoid it. Such a course is impracticable

if you wish to preserve peace. The adjustment of peace does not, I

believe, consist in our playing the arbiter, saying: "It must be thus,

and the weight of the German empire stands behind it." Peace is

brought about, I think, more modestly. Without straining the simile

which I am quoting from our everyday life, it partakes more of the

behavior of the honest broker, who really wishes to bring about a

bargain.

/ 

As long as we follow this policy we are in the position to save a

power which has secret wishes from the embarrassment of meeting with a

refusal or an unpleasant reply from its--let me say, congressional

opponent. If we are equally friendly with both, we can first sound one

and then say to the other: "Do not do that, try to arrange matters in

this way." 

 /

These are helps in business which should be highly esteemed. I have an

experience of many years in such matters, and it  has been brought home to

me often, that when two are alone the thread drops more frequently and is not

picked up because of false shame. The moment when it could be picked up

passes, people separate in silence, and are annoyed. If, however, a third person

is present, he can pick up the thread without much ado, and bring the two together

again when they have parted. This is the function of which I am thinking and

which corresponds to the amicable relations in which we are living

with our friendly neighbors along our extensive borders. 

/

It is moreover in keeping with the union among the three imperial courts

which has existed for five years, and the intimacy which we enjoy with

England, another one of the powers chiefly concerned in this matter.

As regards England we are in the fortunate position of not having any

conflicting interests, except perhaps some trade rivalries or passing

annoyances. These latter cannot be avoided, but there is absolutely

nothing which could drive two industrious and peace-loving nations to

war. I happily believe, therefore, that we may be the mediator between

England and Russia, just as I know we are between Austria and Russia,

if they should not be able to agree of their own accord.

/ 

The three-emperor-pact, if one wishes to call it such, while it is

generally called a treaty, is not based on any written obligations,

and no one of the three emperors can be voted down by the other two.

It is based on the personal sympathy among the three rulers, on the

personal confidence which they have in one another, and on the

personal relations which for many years have existed among the leading

ministers of all three empires.

/ 

We have always avoided forming a majority of two against one when

there was a difference of opinion between Austria and Russia, and we

have never definitely taken the part of one of them, even if our own

desires drew us more strongly in that direction. We have refrained

from this for fear that the tie might not be sufficiently strong

after all. 

/

It surely cannot be so strong that it could induce one of

these great powers to disregard its own incontestably national

interests for the sake of being obliging. That is a sacrifice which no

great power makes _pour les beaux yeux_ of another. Such a sacrifice

it makes only when arguments are replaced by hints of strength. Then

it may happen that the great power will say: "I hate to make this

concession, but I hate even worse to go to war with so strong a power

as Germany. 

/

Still I will remember this and make a note of it." That is

about the way in which such things are received. And this leads me to

the necessity of vigorously opposing all exaggerated demands made on

Germany's mediation. Let me declare that they are out of the question

so long as I have the honor of being the adviser of His Majesty.

/ 

I know that in saying this I am disappointing a great many

expectations raised in connection with today's disclosures, but I am

not of the opinion that we should go the road of Napoleon and try to

be, if not the arbiter, at least the schoolmaster of Europe.

/ 

I have here a clipping given me today from the _Allgemeine Zeitung,_

which contains a noteworthy article entitled "The Policy of Germany in

the Decisive Hour." This article demands as necessary the admission of

a third power to the alliance of England and Austria. That means, we

shall take part with England and Austria and deprive Russia of the

credit of voluntarily making the concessions which she may be willing

to grant in the interest of European peace. 

/

I do not doubt that Russia will sacrifice for the sake of peace in Europe

whatever her sense of nationality and her own interests and those of eighty

million Russians permit. It is really superfluous to say this. And now please

assume that we took the advice of the gentlemen who think that we should play

the part of an arbiter--I have here another article from a Berlin

paper, called "Germany's Part as Arbiter"--and that we declared to

Russia in some polite and amicable way: 

'

"We have been friends, it is true, for hundreds of years, Russia has ever 

been true-blue to us when we were in difficulties, but now things are different. 

In the interest of Europe, as the policemen of Europe, as a kind of a justice

of the peace, we must do as we are requested, we can no longer resist

the demands of Europe ...," what would be the result?

/ 

There are considerable numbers of Russians who do not love Germany,

and who fortunately are not at the helm now, but who would not be

unhappy if they were called there. What would they say to their

compatriots, they and perhaps other statesmen who at present are not

yet avowedly hostile to us? They would say: "With what sacrifices of

blood and men and money have we not won the position which for

centuries has been the ideal of Russian ambition! 

/

We could have maintained it against those opponents who may have 

a real interest in combating it. It was not Austria, with whom we have lived on

moderately intimate terms for some time, it was not England, who

possesses openly acknowledged counter-interests to ours--no, it was

our intimate friend Germany who drew, behind our back, not her sword

but a dagger, although we might have expected from her services in

return for services rendered, and although she has _no_ interests in

the Orient."

/ 

Those approximately would be the phrases, and this the theme which we

should hear in Russia. This picture which I have drawn in exaggerated

lines--but the Russian orators also exaggerate--corresponds with the

truth. We, however, shall never assume the responsibility of

sacrificing the certain friendship of a great nation, tested through

generations, to the momentary temptation of playing the judge in

Europe.

 /

To jeopardize the friendship which fortunately binds us to most

European states and at the present moment to all,--for the parties to

whom it is an eyesore are not in power,--to jeopardize, I say, this

friendship with one friend in order to oblige another, when we as

Germans have no direct interests, and to buy the peace of others at

the cost of our own, or, to speak with college boys, to substitute at

a duel--such things one may do when one risks only one's own life, but

I cannot do them when I have to counsel His Majesty the Emperor as

regards the policy of a great State of forty million people in the

heart of Europe. 

/

From this tribune I therefore take the liberty of saying a very definite 

"No" to all such imputations and suggestions. I shall under no condition 

do anything of the kind; and no government, none of those primarily

interested, has made any such demands.  Germany, as the last 

speaker remarked, has grown to new responsibilities as it has grown

stronger. But even if we are able to throw a large armed force into the

scales of European policies, I do not consider anybody justified in

advising the emperor and the princes (who would have to discuss the

matter in the Bundesrat if we wished to wage an offensive war) to 

make an appeal to the proven readiness of the nation to offer blood

and money for a war.

/

The only war which I am ready to counsel to the emperor is one to protect 

our independence abroad and our union at home, or to defend those of our

interests which are so clear that we are supported, if we insist on them, not

only by the unanimous vote of the Bundesrat, which is necessary, but

also by the undivided enthusiasm of the whole German nation.

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