BOOKS.

THE HOHENLOHE MEMOIRS:I.

[FIRST NOTICE.]

THE Hohenlohe Memoirs are the disjecta membra of an autobiography which the subject of it never lived to write, and however much they may have lost thereby in literary form, they have probably gained a good deal in historical value. They consist of extracts from a Journal kept religiously during the years 1866-1900, interspersed with letters, despatches, and memoranda in chronological order, giving us the raw material of history without the intrusive • subjectivity of the historian. Prince. Holienlohe has here no case to present and no slights to avenge. He writes as an observer, and with a certain austere detachment from the transactions in which he took part. Moreover, he is temperate, judicious, and cool, and his strongest expression of disapproval is usually that a thing is not decent (anstiindig). He had much to endure in the course of his official career, but he is rarely indignant and never dis- turbed. He is convincing, not because he seeks to convince, but because he writes with conviction. The editor has wisely .made himself as unobtrusive as possible. His editing is in no sense critical, and the reader is largely left to reconstruct the context of events for himself. But it is worthy of remark that at some crucial points during his tenure of office, such as

• " Paretu3" is here written in the margin by another hand.

DenlasSrdigkeiten des Flirsten Chloduig an Mohenlohe-Schillingsffirst. Im Auftrage des Prinzen Alexander zu Hobenlobe-SchillingsfUrst herausgegeben von F. Curtius. 2 Die. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt. [24 3143 the .war scares of 1875 and 1887, there are considerable lacunae.

We may conclude that either the editor has suppressed passages here, or that Prince Hohenlohe. was deliberately kept in the dark by Bismarck, and left his editor little or nothing to suppress ; and there are good reasons for inclining to the latter supposition. Still more remarkable is it that the eighth section of the book, dealing with the four years of Prince Hohenlohe's Chancellorship, does not extend beyond forty pages ; and, remarkable as those pages are, they must be held to be less remarkable for what they say than for what

they do not say. It appears that they form only " extracts " from the "detailed. information" of his tenure of office left by the Imperial Chancellor, and that owing to "imperative personal considerations" a great deal -has been kept back. The inference is obvious; if the passages that are published are so indiscreet, what is to be said of those that are suppressed P

These thousand pages of intimate revelation cover a life of eighty-two years passed almost entirely in the service of the State, the subject of these Memoirs having been born in 1819. He belonged to an old family of noble rank, a fact which, as Bismarck once reminded him, gave him a more favourable position as Chancellor than he had himself occupied in rela- tion to the Prussian Junkers, "who could never forgive him for having risen from being one of themselves to become a Prince." He was, indeed, a diplomatist of quite a different type, having more in common with Metternich and Talleyrand in their versatility, finesse, and love of society than with Bismarck, who, according to Busch, had but a moderate opinion of his ability, and thought that he had "too great an interest in other matters than politics, such as smart company, racing, &c." The reader of these Memoirs will, however, assuredly not regret this catholicity of interests, which, combined with his urbane, tactful, and courteous temper, made his appointment to the Embassy at Paris in 1874 an ideal one, and give a singular charm to his Journal, in which we are introduced to all that was best in the Parisian society of the day. Like Bismarck, he began life as a lawyer in the Prussian Administration, and soon became a favourite at Court; but his public career may be said to have com- menced when he entered the Bavarian Upper House, a,nd during the crucial years of 1860-70 he was a close observer of the diplomatic struggle between France, Austria, and Prussia when the South German States were the pawns in the game.

He was a Liberal, and to the end of his life retained his belief in Parliamentary institutions ; and, like Prince Albert, his dreams were of a reformed and Liberal Germany. He was related on his mother's side to Queen Victoria—" our good Queen Victoria," as he called her—and the relationship between them was of a most affectionate character. The anxiety of the Queen to be personally well informed on all matters of foreign policy is exemplified in a request which she transmitted to him in 1864 for an authoritative exposition of the state of German opinion on the subject of Schleswig- Holstein, the Queen complaining that since the death of the Prince Consort she was to a certain extent cut off from Germany, and had no one to whom she could trust for im- partial information. Hohenlohe answered her request with two letters which reveal powers of political observation of a high order.

The first volume presents us with a most careful and detailed account of the miniature diplomacy of those " lansquenets of politics," the Ministers of the Southern States which Hohenlohe eventually succeeded in forming into the South German Band, doing in some measure for the South the work which Bismarck was accomplishing in the North. In this capacity he first came into intimate relations with Bismarck, and was the object of flattering but abortive overtures from Napoleon Ill. and Benet. No one, we may remark, who wishes to unravel the intricate skein of the history of German unity can afford to neglect these pages.

There are curious glimpses of Napoleon III.'s indirect attempts to " sound " him and Bismarck :-

"He recounted that he had asked Bismarck if he would recog- nise the casv,s foodefis, if ever Bavaria began war against Austria in order to conquer the Tyrol, whereupon Bismarck replied: `De droit, oui; de fait, non.' '4s for me,' he continued, consider war a great calamity, which one should avoid at all costs. There can only be disastrous consequences, and you will be the first to be engulfed; German unity will be accomplished. You (Bavaria) therefore have every interest in desiring peace."

Although a Roman Catholic, his sympathies were with Prussia, and not with Austria, in her fightfor the hegemony of Germany, and his experience of the Ulta-amontanes in Bavaria, where during the years 1867-70 be governed as Minister-President in opposition to the Roman Catholic majority, ultimately led him into the Kulturkampf, of which, indeed, he, rather than Bismarck, claimed to be the author. These two volumes are, in fact, full of the most illuminating conversations with

his brother, Cardinal Hohenlohe, and with Dollinger on the position of the Old Catholics in Germany, with whom he sympathised.

With Bismarck he soon became on intimate terms. Bismarck told him of the overwhelming depression that

seized him after he had hurried on the conclusion of peace with Austria at Nicolsburg "People always believe,' he said, 'that at that time I was only bathed in triumphs, but I can assure you that I never went through a more awful time. At headquarters I was regarded as a traitor, and I often thought whilst standing at the high windows of the Castle, Would it not after all be better if you leapt down? I have often had such scenes in the Council. that I sprang up, rushed out, banged the door, threw myself on my bed, and howled like a dog."

It is, however, with Hohenlohe's acceptance of the German

Embassy at Paris in May, 1874, that we are introduced into the dark paths of German diplomacy. The post was no easy one. These were the days when, as Lord Odo Russell said of a later period, "Bismarck's sayings inspired respect and his silence apprehension." There had already been a "scare" in the previous December, when Bismarck menaced the Due de Broglie with war, using the attitude of the French Bishops as a pretext; and, although Hohenlohe's appointment was at first regarded as an eirenicon, there followed a period of extreme tension when, as the Duo Decazes subsequently con- fessed, French Ministers were "living at the mercy of the smallest incident, the least mietake."

The truth about the subsequent war scare of 1875 is still a matter of speculation, but the documents published of late years by de Broglie and Hanotaux, and the revelations of Lord Odo Russell, have thrown considerable suspicion of a very positive kind on Bismarck's plea that it was all a malicious invention of Gontaut-Biron, the French Ambassador, and of Gortchakoff. A careful collation of the passages in these Memoirs goes far to confirm these suspicions, and, incidentally, to reveal Bismarck's inner diplomacy in a very sinister light. Hohenlohe was appointed to succeed the unhappy Arnim, who had made himself obnoxious to Bismarck by his independence, and he was instructed by the Chancellor that it was to the interest of Germany to see that France should become "a weak Republic and anarchical," so as to be a negligible quantity in European politics, on which the Emperor William I. remarked to Hohenlohe that "that was not a policy," and was not "decent," subsequently confiding to Hohenlohe that Bismarck was trying "to drive him more and more into war " ; where- upon Hohenlohe confidently remarked : "I know nothing of it, and I should be the first to hear of it." Hohenlohe soon found reason to change his opinion. As Gortchakoff remarked to Decazes, "they have a difficult way with diplomatists at Berlin " ; and Hohenlohe was instructed to press the French Ministry for the recall of Gontaut-Biron, against whom Bismarck complained on account of his Legitimist opinions and his friendship with the Empress Augusta. Thereupon that supple and elusive diplomat, the Due Decazes, parried by inviting an explanation of the menacing words which Gontaut- Biron declared had been uttered to him by Radowitz, a

Councillor of Legation in Berlin, to the effect that "it would be both politic and Christian to declare war at once," the Duke adding shrewdly: "One doesn't invent these things." Hohen- loshe in his perplexity tried to get at the truth from Bismarck, and met with what seems to us a most disingenuous explanation. Bismarck said Radowitz denied the whole thing, but added that, even if he had said it, clr,ontant-Biron had no right to report it. He admitted, however, that Radowitz made mischief and "egged

on" Billow, the Foreign Secretary. "You may be sure," he added,. "that these two between them would land us in a war in four weeks if I didn't act as safety-valve." Hohenlohe took advantage of this confession to press for the despatch of Radowitz to some distant Embassy "to cool himself." To this Bismarck assented, but a few days later declared that Radowitz was indispensable. When Hohenlohe attempted to sound Bismarck on the subject, the Chancellor showed the utmost reserve. When the war scare had passed, Decazes related to Hohenlohe an earlier example of Imperial truculence on the part of Arnim, who, on leaving after a call, turned round as he reached the door and called out : "I have forgotten one thing. Recollect that I forbid you to get possession of Tunis " ; and when Decazes affected to regard the matter as a jest, Arnim repeated with emphasis : "Yes, I forbid it." Hohenlohe adds that an examination of his pre- decessor's papers convinced him that Arnim did not speak without express authorisation. When the elections for the French Chamber are imminent in the autumn of 1877, Bismarck informs Hohenlohe that Germany will adopt "a threatening attitude," but "the scene will be laid in Berlin, not in Paris." The usual Press campaign followed, much to the vexation of the Emperor, who complained to Hohenlohe that the result of these "pin-pricks" (Nadelstiche) would provoke the French people beyond endurance.

During his stay at Paris, which lasted from 1874-85, Hohenlobe participated in two international agreements of momentous consequence. The first was the Congress of Berlin, to which he was invited as a compliment to the King of Bavaria ; and his Journal affords some intimate glimpses of the pourparlers at that historic meeting. Disraeli, whose "fearfully Jewish face" got more and more on Hohenlohe's nerves, seemed wrapped in impenetrable mystery ; and Bismarck, remarks Hohenlohe, feared "some unexpected coup of Dizzy's," an intuition which shows Bismarck's prescience, for the Cyprus Convention, although not announced till three weeks later, had just been secretly concluded. The repre- sentatives of Balkan peoples were clamouring to be beard at the Conference, following the Greeks, who were admitted to make speeches, during which "Salisbury, Beaconsfield, and Waddington slept the sleep of the just." At last Bismarck, "to whom the fate of the Balkan peoples is indifferent so long as he can preserve unity amongst the Powers," grew impatient of his honest brokerage, and when Lord Salisbury announced a proposal as to the Armenians he exclaimed: " What,another!" —an impatience which, adds Hohenlohe presciently, "pushes on the work, but later may lead to serious consequences, for many things are superficially dealt with." Thus is history made. Hohenlohe records a characteristic example of Bismarck's mordant humour :—" When somebody said that Bismarck's hound had seized hold of a Minister, the Chancellor said : The dog is not properly trained yet; he does not know whom he should bite. If he knew, he would have bitten the Turks.'" Of the development in German colonial policy, and its effect on Anglo-German relations, one learns little. There is much more light thrown on Bismarck's earlier attitude as tertius gaudens than in his later exhibition, in the partition of Africa, of what M. Hanotaux incisively called "the art of promising and selling to the highest bidder that which costs you nothing." Bismarck regards French colonial operations as a timely diversion from the Rhine, but he would not be at all emu to see "the English and French locomotives come into collision," and a French annexation of Morocco would have his benevolent approval. Generally his remarks about England are tinged with a kind of cheerful malevolence, not perhaps to be taken too seriously, as when he tells the Turkish Ambassador to send England packing if she makes a fuss about Armenia. He speaks of Gladstone as "a speaker, but a silly fellow," and there are traces of his inspiration in the Emperor William's curiously exaggerated fears as to the possibility of the Reform Bill leading, under Mr. Chamber- lain's leadership, to the establishment of a Republic in England. This fear, said the Emperor to Hohenlohe, had given the impetus to the famous agreement of the three Imperial Powers at Skierniewice, which has been generally regarded as giving Russia "the push" towards Central Asia.