Faust’s Metropolis: A History of Berlin. Alexandra Richie

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СКАЧАТЬ Suddenly the telegram was delivered. Bismarck picked it up, read it, and gave a cry of joy. He began scribbling on the paper and, by cutting out some of William’s text, he made the bland wordy message look like a terse declaration of war.

      The original telegram consisted of two long paragraphs filled with diplomatic protocol and inoffensive niceties. One phrase explained that the French ambassador had ‘presented to His Majesty the King at Ems the demand to authorize him to telegraph to Paris that His Majesty the King would obligate himself for all the future never again to give his consent should the Hohenzollerns revive their candidacy’. But it had continued in a gentler vein, in which the king had explained: ‘I refused to agree to this, the last time somewhat earnestly, telling him that such obligations dare not and cannot be assumed à tout jamais. Naturally I told him that I had not received any news as yet and since he had been informed earlier than I via Madrid and Paris he could see that my government was once again out of the affair.’ But Bismarck deleted the second part of the paragraph leaving a terse, provocative statement.

      The original had included a long explanation of how the king was expecting a communication from the prince, and for this reason would not receive Count Benedetti again. Bismarck cut that out as well, and ended the telegram with the clipped phrase: ‘His Majesty the King thereupon refused to receive the French ambassador again and sent word to the latter through his Adjutant that His Majesty has nothing further to tell the ambassador.’ As a result Bismarck made the overall message much harsher and more abrupt than the king had ever intended while completely changing its meaning.²⁰ Moltke gloated that the innocent note now ended like ‘a flourish in answer to a challenge’. Bismarck said, ‘If I not only publish this text … at once in the newspapers … but also transmit it by telegram to all our embassies, it will be known in Paris before midnight, and not only because of its contents but because of its mode of publication, it will have the effect of a red cloth upon the Gallic bull.’

      Bismarck sent the telegram without consulting the king and, as he predicted, the story was printed in the Norddeutsche Zeitung in Berlin and picked up on both sides of the Rhine that night. Napoleon III was informed of the Prussian duplicity and was left with no honourable choice but to talk of war. When he saw the text, Count Waldersee, who was then in Paris, said that it was so ‘grob’ (rude) that ‘I could hardly believe it was possible’. The morning editions in Paris were filled with anti-Prussian venom and had TO THE RHINE and À BERLIN! printed across their front pages.²¹

      When poor befuddled William awoke the next day he was shocked to hear the news. ‘This is war!’ he said sadly and left immediately for Berlin, determined to stop the terrible events from unfolding. But Bismarck was always a few steps ahead of his king. The Chancellor intercepted him at the train station and convinced him that total mobilization was the only sensible option for Prussia. He was a persuasive man. On 19 July France declared war on an expectant Prussia.

      Berliners knew nothing of Bismarck’s manipulation of the Ems telegram, and rose up in a frenzy of patriotism and anti-French indignation. Thousands rushed to the palace singing, ‘I’m Proud to be a Prussian’, declaring their loyalty to the king and yelling insults at the French for forcing their innocent army into war. Baroness Spitzemberg reflected the popular mood when she wrote that ‘In Berlin they are in great excitement … The French could not have arranged things more unintelligently … instead of dividing us they have contrived to complete Germany’s unification.’ Sybel wrote: ‘the excited masses swayed to and fro; men embraced one another amid tears of joy and thunderous cheers for King William rent the air.’

      Once again Europe watched as small Prussia took on a European giant; France had after all been the greatest power on the continent for 200 years and few believed Prussia could win a sustained war against her. They were wrong. Once again they had not counted on the deadly combination of Bismarck and Moltke, backed by an efficient, powerful and well-informed army. The Franco-Prussian war was a vicious and bloody affair; Theodor Fontane went to the front shortly after Napoleon’s surrender and was shocked by the horror and the bloodshed he found there; indeed he was almost shot as a spy while trying to find Joan of Arc’s village. Adolph Menzel, too, was appalled by the scenes on the battlefield and said that he now knew ‘from where Schlüter had got his masks of the Arsenal’.²² Napoleon III surrendered after the Battle of Sedan and the anniversary became a German national holiday. The French Republic, which was declared at the infamous Hôtel de Ville, faced the siege of Paris with inadequate supplies and a demoralized army.

      Initially most Europeans had believed France to be the aggressor and had sympathized with Prussia, but opinion turned against the Germans during the four-month bombardment of Paris and it solidified further after the forced annexation of Alsace and Lorraine. The liberal Crown Prince Frederick warned that if Prussia was too belligerent it would ‘no longer be looked upon as an innocent victim of French aggression but rather as an arrogant victor. The nation of thinkers and philosophers, poets and artists, idealists and enthusiasts’ would be portrayed ‘as a nation of conquerors and destroyers’.²³

      The Prussian generals were unimpressed by such sentimental nonsense.²⁴ They were winning a vital war, carving out an empire by crushing their greatest historical enemy; Paris had not even surrendered when Bismarck decided to make his move and announce the unification of Germany. His timing was perfect. With the Prussians winning on all sides nobody, least of all the other German princes, was in a position to refuse him. The German army headquarters, the king, Bismarck, the Prussian court, the government of Prussia and the representatives from the North German Confederation were all crowded together in Versailles, along with the courts of twenty German princes. On 18 January 1871 the representatives were called in to Louis XIV’s magnificent Hall of Mirrors and forced to watch as King William was declared German emperor. At the stroke of a pen Berlin had been elevated to the capital of a united Germany.

      Not all Germans were pleased by these developments. The south German states had conformed but many resented Prussian dominance and the exclusion of Austria – and Vienna – from the new Germany. Some complained that the state could not be considered ‘unified’ despite the foundation of the Reich as one-third of the German speakers of Europe remained outside its borders. Furthermore Germany remained a land of regions: there were still kingdoms within the Reich, including Saxony and Bavaria, grand duchies (including Hessen), and free cities like Hamburg and Bremen – each proud of its identity. Berlin was not a popular choice for capital in much of the rest of Germany and there were many in Nuremberg, Frankfurt and beyond who felt that their cities would have made better, worthier and, best of all, anti-Prussian centres; Munich above all saw itself as a rival to Berlin, particularly as a centre of the arts, and Prince Otto of Bavaria was not atypical when he said, ‘I cannot even describe … how infinitely sad and hurt I felt during the ceremony … Everything was so cold, so proud, so glittering, so showy and swaggering and heartless and empty.’²⁵

      But despair was not confined to other Germans. Many conservative Prussians were dismayed at the loss of their little kingdom and even King William of Prussia wept, overcome by what he saw as the destruction of his ancestral Prussian crown. He had never wanted to be emperor of Germany, but with Bismarck dictating policy he had little choice. He pointedly refused to shake Bismarck’s hand during the ceremony and would soon be heard to mutter that ‘it was not easy being King under such a Chancellor’. But none of these things bothered Bismarck.²⁶ He had fulfilled his dream to become leader of the Second Reich. He had ended two centuries of Austrian involvement in Germany and the particularist tradition of the Old Reich. He had stifled German dualism and German confederation, and he had destroyed Old Prussia. Bismarck was now eager to assume power in Berlin. He sought to be made Chancellor and Foreign Minister of Germany as well as Minister President of Prussia, and set out to rule a country in which the Reichstag had no real power and the people had no popular representation and no Bill of Rights. Erstwhile liberals became increasingly conservative and Germany developed an ever more aggressive chauvinistic nationalism.

      These developments fuelled the ahistorical СКАЧАТЬ