Ten Years Near the German Frontier: A Retrospect and a Warning. Egan Maurice Francis

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СКАЧАТЬ Government as having a mission secrète. You are allied with the Russians; we know that you are not rich.' This very charming person, who always laid himself at 'the feet of the ladies' and clicked his heels like castanets, did not apologise for discussing my private affairs without permission, and for insinuating that I was paid by the Russian Government.

      'Do you mean – ?'

      'Nothing,' he said hastily, 'nothing; but the Russians use money freely; they would not dare to approach you. Nevertheless, I warn you that their marked regard for you must have some motive, and yours for them may excite suspicions.'

      'Surely my friend Henckel-Donnersmarck has not reported me to the Kaiser?'

      'Our ministers are expected to report everything to the Kaiser, especially from Copenhagen; but Henckel-Donnersmarck does not report enough. He is either too haughty or too lazy. My master will send him to Weimar, if he is not more alert; but we have others!'

      'I like him.'

      'It is evident. Why?' asked the Count, with great interest.

      'I sent him a case of Lemp's beer. He says it is better than anything of the kind made in Germany – polite but unpatriotic.'

      'You jest,' said the Count. 'You have the reputation of being apparently never in earnest, but – '

      'You shall have a case too,' I said, 'and then you can judge whether his truthfulness got the better of his politeness, or his politeness of his truthfulness.' He rose and bowed, he seated himself again.

      'Remember, we shall always be interested in you,' he said; 'but there is one thing I should like to ask – are you interested in potash?'

      'I have no business interests. If you wish to talk business, Count, you must go to the Consul General.'

      That was the beginning. Henckel and I continued to be friends. He seldom spoke of diplomatic matters. He assured me (over and over again) that, if the ideas of Frederick the Great were to be followed, Germany and the United States must remain friends. I told him that Count von X. had said that 'if the United States could arrange to oust England from control of the Atlantic and make an alliance with Germany, these two countries would rule the world.'

      'You will never do that,' he said. 'You are safer with England on the Atlantic than you would be with any other nation. I am not sure what our ultra Pan-Germans mean by "ruling the world." You may be sure that your Monroe Doctrine would go to splinters if our Pan-Germans ruled the world. As for me, I am sick of diplomacy. Why do you enter it? It either bores or degrades one. I am not curious or unscrupulous enough to be a spy. As to Slesvig, I have little concern with it. If Germany should find it to her interest, she might return Northern Slesvig; but there would be danger in that for Denmark. She must live in peace with us, or take the consequences.'

      'The consequences!'

      'Dear colleague, you know as well as I do that all the nations of the earth want territory or a new adjustment of territory. In the Middle Ages, nations had many other questions, and there was a universal Christendom; but, since the Renascence, the great questions are land and commerce. Germany must look, in self-defence, on Slesvig and Denmark as pawns in her game. She is not alone in this. You know how tired I am of it all. No man is more loyal to his country than I am; but I should like to see Germany on entirely sympathetic terms with the kingdoms that compose it and reasonably friendly to the rest of the world; but we could not give up Slesvig, even if the Danish Government would take it, except for a quid pro quo.'

      'What?'

      'Well, let us say a place in the Pacific, on friendly terms with you. Your country can hardly police the Philippines against Japan. Germany is great in what I fear is the New Materialism. As to Slesvig, in which you seem particularly interested, ask Prince Koudacheff, the Russian Minister; write to Iswolsky, the Russian Minister, or talk to Michel Bibikoff, who is a Russian patriot never bored in the pursuit of information. These Russians may not exaggerate the consequences as they know what absolute power means.

      'There is one thing, Germany will not tolerate sedition in any of her provinces, and, since we took Slesvig from Denmark in 1864, she is one of our provinces. The Danes may tolerate a hint of secession on the part of Iceland, which is amusing, but the beginning of sedition in Slesvig would mean an attitude on our part such as you took towards secession in the South. But it is unthinkable. The demonstrations against us in Slesvig have no importance.'

      Michel Bibikoff, Secretary of the Russian Legation, was most intelligent and most alert. Wherever he is now, he deserves well of his country. As a diplomatist he had only one fault – he underrated the experience and the knowledge of his opponents; but this was the error of his youth. I say 'opponents,' because at one time or other Bibikoff's opponents were everybody who was not Russian. A truer patriot never lived. He was devoted to my predecessor, Mr. O'Brien, who was, in his opinion, the only American gentleman he had ever met. He compared me very unfavourably with my courteous predecessor, who has filled two embassies with satisfaction to his own country and to those to whom he was accredited.

      At first Bibikoff distrusted me; and I was delighted. If he thought that you were concealing things he would tell you something in order to find out what he wanted to know. For me, I was especially interested in discovering what the Tsar's state of mind was concerning the Portsmouth peace arrangements. Bibikoff had means of knowing. Indeed, he found means of knowing much that might have been useful to all of us, his colleagues. A long stay in the United States would have 'made' Bibikoff. He was one of the few men in Europe who understood what Germany was aiming at. He predicted the present war – but of that later. He had been in Washington only a few months. I suffered as to prestige in the beginning only, as every American minister and ambassador suffers from our present system of appointing envoys. No representative of the United States is at first taken seriously by a foreign country. He must earn his spurs, and, by the time he earns them, they are, as a rule, ruthlessly hacked off!

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      1

      H. Rosendal, The Problem of Danish Slesvig.

      2

      Madame Hegermann-Lindencrone is the author of In the Court of Memory and The Sunny Side of Diplomacy.

      3

      On the outbreak of the war, the Grand Duchess threw off her allegiance to Germany, and resumed her Russian citizenship.

      4

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