PRINCE BISMARCK'S WEAKNESS.
THERE is a weakness somewhere in Prince 'Bismarck. If he is to be judged solely by his career, there never was a man so strong. Be has attempted the most terrible under- takings, and has succeeded in them all. He engaged Austria to help him in wresting Schleswig-Holstein from Denmark, then deprived Austria of her share in the spoil ; then in a seven weeks' war drove Austria from Germany, added one-half to his master's dominions, and finally established the hegemony of Prussia. While accomplishing these feats, he kept Russia quiet, soothed the Emperor Napoleon with promises, and then, when he was no longer trusted, marched on Paris, overthrew the Napoleonic Empire, and clutched two provinces more. Changing Germany into an empire, he has ruled it for ten years with complete success thus far,—that he has mastered a reluctant Court and a discontented people, has kept off all enemies, has controlled all allies, has assumed a kind of diplomatic headship in Europe, has made the Army far stronger than ever, has filled the Treasury, has reduced Parliament to a .debating society, and with Germany at the top of the world, has compelled all Germans to accept him as the necessary buckler of the country, the one indispensable man. It is a wonderful career, one which only Carlyle could have fittingly described ; but there is a 'weakness in the hero, nevertheless. He cannot make, or find, or keep, deputy Bis- mareks. There never was a man of his rank among statesmen who had such trouble with his agents, who failed so utterly to secure the help without which any brain, however great, any energy, however matchless, must ultimately be exhausted. Napoleon selected agents, of whom some at least—Cambaceres, the Administrator (a man only now beginning to be known); FouchcC, the policeman, Eugene Beauharnais, the Viceroy,
Massena, Soult, Marmont, Davoust, the Generals—were men of unusual powers for the work they had to do. Cavour left a school of statesmen. Gambetta has devoted agents in every department of official life. Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Gladstone, without founding schools, master all col- leagues near enough to feel their magnetism. Prinee Bismarck alone seems unable either to select great and devoted followers, to attract political friends, or to master colleagues. While Court, and Army, and country hang on his decisions, he is always wasting force in crushing some mutinous colleague or agent. It has been long noticed that there is no one to succeed him, for he has made no successor
of his own, and among his .agents Count Stolberg, however
able, has not much hold upon the people ; Prince Hohenlohe is diplomatist, rather than administrator; and Count Hatzfeld is a possible Foreign Minister, rather than a Chancellor ; but there is, also, no one to aid him. He appears to like no one above the intellectual rank of a clerk. Count Arnim was rising, v,nd was prosecuted. Herr Falk, after leading the struggle with Rome, was abruptly flung down. Herr Camphausen, after being trusted for seven years as Finance Minister, was not only dis- missed, but told in the Upper House of Prussia in a furious diatribe that he was incompetent. Now, Herr Eulenburg, Minister of the Interior, has been broken in pieces by what we can only characterise as a prodigious slap in the face, The powers of the Communal Councils in Prussia are being "regu- lated,"—that is, subjected to supervision on appeal,—ap- parently a necessary reform approved by all parties.
The Government suggested that the regulation should be entrusted to the official Intendants of counties, but the Prussian Commons thought the County Councils, which are elective, could do the work, and entrusted the power to them. The Prussian Upper House, always against centralisa- tion, confirmed this vote, and on Saturday Count Eulenburg, as Minister of the Interior, accepted the decision. Thereupon, Herr Rommel, a clerk from the Ministry of Commerce, who had been watching the proceedings from the Ministerial bench, rose, declared he was in charge of a message from the Premier, .and read out a short statement, blankly stating that Prince Bismarck objected to Count Eulen- burg's view, and should counsel his Majesty to with- draw the Bill. Count Eulenburg, white with rage and humiliation at this public disavowal sent through a clerk and read out to the Peers, at once gave in his resignation to the King, who sent for Prince Bismarck to explain. The Prince was "ill," and the King-Emperor, a man, be it remembered, of vast age, was compelled to visit him in person. What passed is, of course, unknown ; but next day Prince Bismarck was well, drove down to the Peers, declared that he had been misrepre- sented by a stupid clerk, who had read his paper, instead of using it for notes, sneered at Count Eulonburg's excitement, declared himself ready to vote for the Bill as it stood, and finished by asserting that the Bismarelts had been vassals of the Hohenzollerns since Brandenburg was a Margraviate, and that if his assailants could say as much, they would cease from their attacks, for they would understand him I As this excuse is not an apology, but only an act of submission to the King, Count Eulenburg remains only until the marriage of the heir—which in Prussia is a grand State ceremonial, as important as a negotiation—is completed, and then retires, never again, we may be certain, to be employed while Prince Bismarck reigns. In spite of his Sovereign's protection, the Count is, in fact, dismissed like a footman, by a public message delivered through a clerk so low in the hierarchy that Prince Bismarck can disavow him as a jolterhead without remark. So deep is the excitement at Berlin, that many papers reproach Ministers with taking office under a man who can so treat them, and but for the deep loyalty of the Prussian Services, which makes it a kind of sacrilege to disobey the King's summons, it really appears as if Ministers would hardly be found in the usual grade of higher officials. Not one of them can be secure that if he crosses the Chancellor, he may not only be requested to resign—which is fair enough, if the Prince is to be President, as well as Pre- mier—but subjected to some public indignity, felt in such a service as the Prussian like a blow.
We say nothing of the discourtesy of conduct like this, though to Englishmen accustomed to the forms of official life it seems positively brutal, for that is no business of the foreigner ; but what are we to think of its unwisclom Is there a man high in the Prussian civil service who is not the worse servant of his King, the more reluctant assistant of the Premier, tho less zealous head of his Department, for the occurrence of such an incident ? Is it not certain that statesmen who feel themselves liable to such treatment, who know there is no redress, but who yet feel it their duty to remain and await their fate, must feel themselves degraded into mere clerks, and perform their duties as mere machines, to the
direct loss of the Administration This is no case, be it remembered, of securing obedience by discipline. Count Eulenburg did not want to disobey, did not know, it is said, until Herr Rommel showed him the paper, that Prince Bismarck cared so deeply about the matter, or was so deeply embittered against himself. There would have been no diffi- culty in asking him to resign, or, if he refused, in inducing the King to request him to give up office. Nobody in Ger- many was likely to choose between Count Eulenburg and Prince Bismarck, or to care one straw if the former had been decorously but finally superseded at the Ministry of the Interior. The official was entirely at the Prince's mercy, and it is difficult to avoid the belief that he was humiliated of set purpose, and with a view to his punish- ment, as well as his removal. It may be said that in all such cases there is a secret history which the public does not know, that Prince Bismarck may have been thwarted by his subordi- nate for years, that he may have been conscious of intrigues with the Court, and may have been aware that Count Eulenburg was his enemy ; but all those are reasons for the removal of the Minister, not for morally bludgeoning him in that fashion. As for secret hatred, our complaint is that Prince Bismarck always provoke 's it among men who must of all men be best aware of his genius and his powers, and most ready to be his faithful instruments. There never is a great dismissal in Prussia—and dismissals have been numerous, including, it is said, eight Ministers in five years—but it is followed by some publication of papers, or debate, or scene of one kind or another, revealing the smouldering hatred that has existed between the Ministers and the Chancellor, and revealing also that as he has never completely conciliated them, so he has never completely mastered them. Either they have appealed to the King, or they have rejected the Chancellor's measures, or they have thwarted his will. They never pull with him, and the machine is driven either by Prince Bismarck's tremendous volition alone, or by the King himself working with Minis Let% who are safest, indeed are only safe, when they have his direct instructions. It must be unwisdom, a certain de- finite failure in the Chancellor, which produces such a situation. Either he lacks the power to select the right men, men who can do the work and yet agree with himself ; or having selected the right men, he so treats them that hatred to himself at last bursts the bonds of dis- cipline. In either case, there is a want which lowers the general conception of Prince Bismarck's powers. We will not say it is a want which must ultimately destroy the Chan- cellor, for Frederick the Great had the same want, and never found an agent in civil affairs higher than a clerk with whom he could work satisfactorily ; but it is a want which will one day be felt in Germany as terribly as was the desert which, when Frederick the Great died, was discovered to exist round the throne of the great King. If the Crown Prince is not a very able man—and the world never quite reads Crown Princes —Germany may yet, in no long time, be in very weak hands, for under the shade of Prince Bismarck no great man, not even a great administrator, can grow up.
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