Contents
-BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
S.A. Bent, comp. Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men. 1887.
Prince von Bismarck
[Carl Otto, Prince von Bismarck-Schönhausen, a distinguished Prussian statesman; born at Brandenburg, 1813; member of the Diet, 1847; ambassador to St. Petersburg, 1859; to Paris, 1862; prime minister in that year; chancellor of the North-German Confederation, 1867; of the German Empire, 1871.]Blood and iron.
In a letter from St. Petersburg to Baron von Schleinitz, the Prussian minister of foreign affairs, May 12, 1859, Bismarck wrote, “I see in our relations with the Bund [the old German Confederation, at the head of which stood Austria] a fault of Prussia’s, which we must cure sooner or later ferro et igne” (Ich sehe in unserm Bundesverhältnisse ein Gebrechen Preussens, welches wir früher oder später “ferro et igne” werden heilen müssen). This letter only saw the light in 1866, when Prussia applied the cure to her Bund-relation ferro et igne. He had already made a public use of the words in a speech before the Budget Commission of the Prussian House of Delegates, Sept. 30, 1862: “It is desirable and necessary that the condition of affairs in Germany and of her constitutional relations should be improved; but it cannot be accomplished by speeches and resolutions of a majority, but only by iron and blood” (Die deutschen Zustände und Verfassungsverhältnisse zu verbessern ist wünschenswerth und nothwendig, was jedoch nicht durch Majoritätsbeschlüsse, Reden, u. s. w., sondern nur durch Eisen und Blut bewirkt werden kann). There was, however, nothing original in the expression. Quintilian speaks of slaughter as meaning blood and iron (cædes videtur significare sanguinem et ferrum).—Declamationes. Arndt, the soul-stirrer of the “War of Liberation,” had introduced the words to a German audience,—
“Zwar der Tapfere nennt sich Herr der LänderDurch sein Eisen, durch sein Blut”Lehre an den Menschen: 5.
Schenkendorf, in “Das Eiserne Kreuz,” declared that only iron and blood could save his countrymen; and Heine, in manuscript memoranda found after his death, anticipated the “healing” as well as the “blood and iron” in Bismarck’s letter to von Schleinitz; for he said that “Napoleon healed through fire and iron the sick nation.”Somewhat similar was Bismarck’s remark, expressive of his dislike of political speeches, concerning the popular indignation excited by Manteuffel’s arrangement with Austria during an insurrection of the people of Hesse-Cassel against the government in 1850, “Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches,” (Lieber Spitzkugeln als Spitzreden).He used a striking equivalent for cannon-balls, when speaking in Parliament at another time of the insufficiency of debates: “The decision will come only from God, from the God of battles, when he lets fall from his hand the iron dice of destiny.”Bismarck denied on four different occasions, from 1866 to 1875, the use of the expression “Might before Right” (Macht geht vor Recht), which was imputed to him in the House of Deputies in 1863.In the same debate in which he used the words “iron and blood,” he said, “We have too many critics of government, too many parliamentary candidates, too many Catilinarian existences” (zu viele catilinarische Existenzen): this latter phrase had already been employed as the title of a romance by Theodore König (Breslau, 1854, “A Catilinarian Existence”), being meant in both cases to express an existence supported by conspiracy.The definition of a newspaper-writer, that he is “a man who has failed in his career,” although not given in that form by Bismarck, is derived from a remark of his to a deputation from Rügen to the king, Nov. 10, 1862; to the members of which he said a few days previously, “An amicable relation between the government and the House of Deputies is rendered impossible by the opposition press, which is in the hands of malecontents who have failed in their career.” With this may be compared Disraeli’s well-known observation in “Lothair,” that “a critic is a man who has failed in literature and the arts.”Only one other saying belongs to this period of Bismarck’s life, but that is the earliest in point of time: it is significant of his own “Junker” politics, and may have recommended him at the outset of his career to the favor of a prince who was to claim during a long reign the authority of divine right. Bismarck declared in the Prussian Parliament in 1847, that “the Prussian sovereigns are in possession of a crown, not by the grace of the people, but by God’s grace.”A great unrecognized Incapacity.
While minister to Paris for a short time in 1862, he studied the men with whom he was afterwards to deal, and mystified the official world by his undiplomatic frankness. He easily read the character of Napoleon III., whose silence had imposed upon the French people, and of whom the English ambassador, Lord Cowley, had said, “He never speaks, and always lies” (Il ne parle jamais, et il ment toujours). Events were to prove the justice of Bismarck’s verdict, “He is a great unrecognized Incapacity” (une grande incapacité inconnue). It was more accurate than the judgment which the Prussian’s apparent levity caused the emperor to pass upon him,—“He is not a serious man” (Ce n’est pas un homme sérieux); a judgment “of which,” said Bismarck, “I naturally did not remind him at the weaver’s of Donchery,” where, after the battle of Sedan, the emperor surrendered himself to the king of Prussia, and discussed with Bismarck the terms of capitulation. Thiers said later of the Prussian chancellor, “He is an amiable barbarian” (C’est un barbare aimable); and Francis Joseph of Austria, hearing him criticised after the battle of Sadowa had destroyed the hegemony of Austria in the Germanic Confederation, exclaimed, “Oh, if I had but him!”His “Junker” politics, by which is to be understood the “high and dry” conservatism of the landed nobility, is illustrated by a remark, which he made during this time concerning constitutional government, that it was “democracy in its Sunday best” (la démocratie endimanchée).While in Paris, Bismarck accused Thiers of sulking with his friends and his books, instead of taking that part in public affairs, even under the Second Empire, to which his ability and previous career would entitle him. “Be minister,” said the Prussian, “and we will between us re-make the map of Europe.” When the map of Europe was re-made in 1871, it was not “between them,” in the sense of 1862.Even Bismarck’s slightest remarks at this time were considered afterwards as prophetic. Walking one day with the emperor on the terrace of St. Germain, he saw the dome of the Invalides shining on the distant horizon. “It looks,” he observed, “like a gilded Prussian helmet” (il ressemble à un casque prussien doré).If Italy did not exist, it would be necessary to invent her.
To Chevalier Nigra, minister of Italy to Paris; of the tendency of Napoleon III. to encourage Italy, and thus, by opposing Austria, to assist unwittingly the purpose of Bismarck to humble the leader of the Germanic Confederation, which occurred in 1866. The expression is derived from a line of Voltaire’s, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him” (Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer).—Epître à l’Auteur du Livre des Trois Imposteurs. It also occurs in a letter of Voltaire to Frederick, Prince Royal of Prussia. “Seldom,” wrote the poet later, “am I satisfied with my lines; but I confess that I feel for this one the tenderness of a father.” A similar thought occurs in a sermon of Archbishop Tillotson: “If God were not a necessary Being of himself, he might almost seem to be made for the use and benefit of mankind.” Goethe declared, “If there be not a God, there will be some day;” that the necessity of a Supreme Being must be sooner or later acknowledged. Millaud borrowed Voltaire’s line in voting for the death of Louis XVI.: “If death did not exist to-day, it would be necessary to invent it” (Aujourd’hui si la mort n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer).France took no part in the struggle which broke out between Prussia and Austria in the summer of 1866, but hoped to gain by it some territorial acquisition, however slight, rather than come out of it empty-handed. Some one compared the policy of Napoleon III. to a man who should profit by an eruption of Vesuvius to boil an egg. Bismarck accused France of pursuing “a policy of pour-boire,” the smallest favor being gratefully received (la France fait une politique de pour-boire).At the close of the “six-weeks’ war,” Prussia found herself at the head of the North-German Confederation, which had taken the place of the old Bund. Bismarck expressed the new position of Germany by saying in the Parliament of the Confederation, March 11, 1867, “Let us put Germany, so to speak, into the saddle! You will see that she can ride” (Setzen wir Deutschland, so zu sagen, in den Sattel! Reiten wird es schon können). Of similar character was the reply of the Liberal leader, Herr Lasker, to Bismarck, in the Reichstag, session of 1881, “Germany has reached her majority.”The chancellor said in the Zoll Parliament, May 18, 1868, “An appeal to fear never finds an echo in German hearts” (Ein Appell an die Furcht findet im deutschen Herzen niemals ein Echo).“Liberalism,” he once declared, “is only nonsense, which it is easy to bring to reason; but revolution is a force which it is necessary to know how to use.”In 1862, during a struggle between the Prussian parliament and the government, he showed that he had in mind the fate of Strafford after a resort to force, by saying, “Death on the scaffold under certain circumstances is as honorable as death on the battle-field.”Some deviations from strict veracity led Bismarck to declare in the Prussian Upper House, Feb. 13, 1869, “It will soon come to be said, ‘He lies like the telegraph.’” Napoleon’s bulletins, especially those from the Russian campaign, made “To lie like a bulletin” a proverbial expression.I am going to let Paris stew in her own gravy.
Attributed to Bismarck during the siege of Paris, 1870–71. The Duke of Alva asserted that the Low Countries were fat enough to be stewed in their own liquor. Bismarck may have thought of a French proverb, “cuire dans son jus,” and of the remark of a great epicurean at dinner, that “with such a gravy one could eat his own father” (avec une pareille sauce on mangerait son père). In Ward’s “London Spy,” IX., p. 219, 1709, quoted in “Notes and Queries,” a writer describes a bath at the Hummums, Covent Garden: “The landlord relieved us out of our purgatory (the tepidarium), and carried us to our own dressing-rooms, which gave us much refreshment after we had been stewing in our own gravy.” Shakespeare speaks of “melting Falstaff in his own grease” (“Merry Wives of Windsor,” II. 1); and Chaucer,—
“That in his owen grise I made him frie.” 