THE BISMARCK MEMOIRS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1
SIR,—In reference to your notice of the book of Moritz Busch on Prince Bismarck in the Spectator of October 1st, and in view of the importance which, to judge from the articles in the English Press, seems to be attributed here to this book, it may not be out of place to quote from the book itself some remarks of the Chancellor's which indicate the opinion entertained by him of Busch and of his biographical notes. We read in Vol. III., p. 99, that Busch had submitted to Prince Bismarck the proofs of his book, " Unser Reichs- kanzler," and that in reference to them Prince Bismarck had written to Busch a letter dated Kissingen, August 3rd, 1883, in which we find the following pertinent remarks :—
"On former occasions of a similar kind I have corrected all errors of fact which had arisen through mistakes on your part, or on that of others. Now, however, you wish to sub- mit to the public with regard to my way of thinking and my inner man, inferences drawn from observations made by yourself and others, which in great part are actually incor- rect It is therefore not surprising that your conclu- sions do not correspond with the facts, so that if you were to publish them I should be forced to controvert and refute them. There are a number of gross errors of fact, and confusions of jest and earnest, in the expressions and incidents upon which you base your view of my supposed way of thinking. You assume that in everything that I have ever said in your presence for the entertainment of my guests at table, or in my own home, or in what you have gathered from the unreliable accounts of third persons, I have invariably given serious expression to my inmost feelings with the conscientiousness of a witness giving evidence on oath before a Court In view of the pedantry with which you utilise scattered fragments of conversation, a man in my position would be obliged never to depart for a moment from a formal mode of expressing himself or step down from his official stilts."
On p. 105 (Vol. III.) Basch quotes from a conversation with Prince Bismarck, who says :—
"Besides this new book (' *Unser Reiclaskanzler') is not so good as the preceding one. It does not contain much that is new, and what it does is false. You are not such a good observer as you were ; you have grown older ; and you want to divine and picture my inner man from fragmentary observations, which were mainly misconceptions. You draw conclusions from occa- sional utterances which you jotted down under the table-cloth. According to you, I am always in deadly earnest, as if I were on oath " ; &c.
On the same page Busch writes :—
"He (Bismarck) was rather impatient over it, said my hearing was not so good as formerly."
On page 107 we read :— " And the Chancellor, who had remarked in the tete-à-tete with me at midday that he would henceforth be careful of what he said in my presence, had probably forgotten his inten- tion."
On page 108 Busch writes :—
" He (Bismarck) exclaimed : Look here, you must have a thoroughly wicked heart. You are delighted every time you hear and can jot down a disagreeable remark about somebody." On page 109 :- "He (Bismarck) told me his wife had said : 'The doctor (Busch) may be very clever and amiable, but all the same you should be on your guard at table when he is present. He always, sits there with his ears cocked, writes everything down, and then spreads it abroad.'" The above remarks of the great Chancellor read almost like an answer from beyond the grave to the miserable 'indiscre- tions committed by a man who during the Chancellor's life- time posed as one of his sincerest admirers, and who by his book has done more than any one has ever done to vilify his character. It is only surprising that Busch should have been simple-minded enough not to see that by including the above utterances he publishes himself the most annihilating criticism of his work that could be conceived. The Hamburger Nachrichten, which has always been considered the mouth.. piece of Prince Bismarck, and which still entertains close relations with the Bismarck family, wrote a few days ago- that "in the twenty-two years from 1871 to 1893, Herr Busch saw Prince Bismarck only at intervals of years, and generally only for short conversations, so that most of his material must be based on what he heard from others, whose communications he seems to have coloured as sensationally as possible." In view of the above, one ought to be careful in. drawing conclusions from the book in question, which can certainly not be treated as a source from which the historian, could gather serious and reliable information for the picture and biography of one whose failings are only the natural accompaniments of his unrivalled power and genius.—I am,
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