Forge of Empires
Page 54
103 Grand Duchess Hélène: Narishkin-Kurkakin, Under Three Tsars, 34.
103 “Look at what your nihilists”: Ivan Turgenev, Literary Reminiscences and Autobiographical Fragments, trans. David Magarshack (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1958), 194.
103 agents provocateurs: Ulam, The Bolsheviks, 64.
103 a memorandum: Venturi, Roots of Revolution, 175; Ronald Hingley, The Russian Secret Police: Muscovite, Imperial Russian and Soviet Political Security Operations 1565-1970 (London: Hutchinson, 1970), 49, 51.
103 “All this”: Venturi, Roots of Revolution, 175.
103 “personally known”: MR, 140.
103 a hero; MR, 141.
103 absent-minded gaze: MR, 147.
104 “retained too much”: MR, 149.
104 “The promoted officers”: MR, 165-66.
104 “full of that expression”: MR, 166.
104 “So you go”: MR, 166-67.
9. Preparations for the Death Struggle
105 “like a rat”: Bismarck to Countess von Bismarck, June 1, 1862, in Gesammelten Werke, xiv (2), 589; Bismarck to Roon, June 2, 1862, Gedanken, i, 251.
105 the bullet: Wiegler, William the First: His Life and Times, 200.
105 Oscar Becker: Dulcken, Life of the Emperor William the First of Germany and King of Prussia, 48.
105 elaborate ceremony: Bismarck to Roon, June 2, 1862, Gedanken, i, 251.
106 Empress Eugénie: Bismarck to Countess von Bismarck, June 1, 1862, Gesammelten Werke, xiv (2), 589; Bismarck to Roon, June 2, 1862, Gedanken, i, 251
106 a café: Bismarck to Countess von Bismarck, June 1, 1862, Gesammelten Werke, xiv (2), 589.
106 “dark, damp and cold”: Bismarck to his sister, June 16, 1862, Gesammelten Werke, xiv (2), 589-90.
106 still resented: Gedanken, i, 251.
106 “You do me”: Bismarck to Roon, Whitsuntide 1862, Gedanken, i, 255.
106 a sphinx: Wetzel, A Duel of Giants, 18.
106 ostensibly to award medals: “France and America,” The New-York Times, Tuesday, July 29, 1862, 2.
106 the newspapers speculated: Ibid.
107 a dinner: LBD, iv, 341, 558.
107 “Take care of that man!”: LBD, iv, 341. According to Count Charles Frederick Vitzthum von Eckstȯdt, Disraeli claimed that at the Russian dinner Bismarck(1) unfolded to him his plan of German, unification, and (2) intended the revelation as a communication to “the Queen’s Ministers”—CountCharles Frederick Vitzthum von Eckstasdt, Saint Petersburg and London in the “Years 1852-1864, 2 vols. (London: Longmans, Green, 1887), ii, 172. The story must be regarded with skepticism. Bismarck was not a minister at the time and would not have made unauthorized communications of policy (through a member of the opposition, no less) tothe English Ministry. Moreover, had Disraeli really been in possession of Bismarck’s plan as early as 1862, he himself would almost certainly have been more prescient in his approach to the German revolution, which by his own subsequent confession “destroyed” the existing balance of power.
107 “Der alte Jude”: Robert Blake, Disraeli (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1967), 646.
107 “nerves unsettled”: Gedanken, i, 259.
107 “a long journey”: Gedanken, i, 258.
107 100,000 men: But he estimated his effective force at 86,000-MOS, 266.
107 “give the death-blow”: Stephen W. Sears, To the Gates of Richmond (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1992), 21.
107 Napokon’s Address: Ibid.
107 “altogether stronger”: ALH, v, 360.
107 “Yesterday made”: MOS, 315.
108 “I am probably”: ALH, v, 364-65; MOS, 312.
108 “I am getting”: MOS, 313.
108 “Would be glad”: ALH, v, 374.
108 “Your call”: MOS, 295; ALH, v, 374.
108 “horrid”: MOS, 357, 264, 276; ALH, v, 380
108 “covered with water”: MOS, 276, 309.
108 disliked the corps commanders: Williams, Lincoln and the Radicals, 135.
109 “quite comfortable”: MOS, 312-13.
109 Fitz-John Porter: ALH, v, 414; Sears, To the Gates of Richmond, 211.
109 “I rather like”: MOS, 312.
109 “It is certain”: MOS, 402, 357.
109 “If I am not”: ALH, v, 380.
109 “traitors”:MOS, 310.
109 “hounds”:MOS, 359.
109 Judas: Sears, Landscape Turned Red, 36.
109 “the most infamous thing”: MOS, 308.
109 “The fate”: ALH, v, 370.
109 “Bluff Ben”: Williams, Lincoln and the Radicals, 124-40.
109 “Your dispatches”: Lincoln to McClellan, April 9, 1862, SW, 1859-1865, 313.
109 McDowell’s corps: Williams, Lincoln and His Generals, 78-87.
109 “Do you really think”: Lincoln to McClellan, April 9, 1862, SW, 1859-1865, 314 (emphasis in original); ALH, v, 363.
110 “The country will not fail”: Lincoln to McClellan, April 9, 1862, SW, 1859-1865, 314 (emphasis in original).
110 “prematurely old”: “McClellan Before the Battles,” The New York-Times, Wednesday, July 30, 1862, p. 8.
110 “They are concentrating”: MOS, 356.
110 “old Mexican enemy”: MOS, 397.
110 letters: Williams, Lincoln and His Generals, 93-95.
110 “intentions of the enemy”: MOS, 395.
110 authorized a raid: Tolstoy to Countess A. A. Tolstaya, July 1862, TL, 158-61; Kuzminskaya (née Behrs), Tolstoy As I Knew Him, 83.
110 most powerful: MR, 335-36.
111 far more dreaded: MR, 336.
111 The windows: Monas, The Third Section, 92.
111 “Here are”: Ibid., 48.
111 potential treacheries: Ulam, The Bolsheviks, 29.
111 agents provocateurs: Ibid.
111 They spread their nets: Venturi, Roots of Revolution, 176.
111 “audacity”: Monas, The Third Section, 152.
111 Those who displayed: MR, 252, 254-56, 335-42; Hugh Seton-Watson, The Decline of Imperial Russia, 1855-1914 (New York: Frederick Praeger, 1952, 1956), 15; Monas, The Third Section, 91; Ulam, The Bolshevik, 28-29.
111 Floorboards: Maude, The Life of Tolstoy: First Fifty Years, 286.
111 For two days: T, 224.
111 “slovenly Colonel”: Tolstoy to Countess A. A. Tolstaya, July 1862, TL, 157-58.
112 “I feel milice”: Ibid., 158.
112 “We can’t live”: Tolstoy to Countess A. A. Tolstaya, August 7, 1862, TL, 160-63.
112 “There are loaded”: T, 226.
112 In the last week of August: Tolstoy to the Emperor Alexander II, August 22, 1862, TL, 163-64.
112 Fair Oaks: Map of the Military Department of Southeastern Virginia, in The Official Atlas of the Civil War (New York and London: Thomas Yoseloff, 1958), plate XVI.
113 J. R. Anderson: REL, ii, 148-49.
113 “This must”: L, 205.
10. “Periculum in Mora”
114 “Idrank”: Bismarck to his wife, July 27, 1862, in Gesammelten Werke, xiv (2), 605.
114 “but with good wine”: Bismarck to his wife, July 29, 1862, in Gesammelten Werke, xiv (2), 605.
114 At the end of July: Bismarck to his wife, August 1, 1862, in Gesammelten Werke, xiv (2), 607.
114 Golden Rose: Ernest Alfred Vizetelly, The Court of the Tuileries, 1852-1870 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1922), 99.
114 “My Dearest Heart”: Bismarck, The Love Letters of Bismarck, trans. Charlton T. Lewis (New York: Harper, 1901), 376, 185, 91, 93.
114 “unthankful”: Bismarck to his wife, August 14, 1862, Gesammelten Werke, xiv (2), 612.
115 “petty and boring”: Gedanken, i, 13.
115 The Prussian official: BGE, 14; Gall, Bismarck: The White Revolutionary, i, 140.
115 “over many”: Erich Marcks, Bismarck: Eine Biographie, 1815-1851, in Otto von Bismarck: A Historical Assessment, ed. Theodore S. Hamerow (Boston: D. C. Heath, 1966), 3.
115 freethinking: Kiss
inger, “The White Revolutionary: Reflections on Bismarck,” D, vol. 97, no. 3 (Summer 1968), 896-98.
115 “hath said”: Psalm 14.
115 Pietism: Ronald Knox, Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of Religion, With Special Reference to the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 398-99.
115 unworthiness: Gall, Bismarck, i, 25.
115 Wenching: Bismarck to his wife, July 3, 1851, Gesammelten Werke, xiv (1), 229.
115 “first fervent prayer”: Gall, Bismarck, i, 26.
115 Johanna von Puttkamer: Ibid., i, 25.
115 “schmutziges Hemde”: Bismarck to his wife, July 3, 1851, Gesammelten Werke, xiv (1), 230.
116 “a storm”: Gedanken, i, 18.
116 pages of a newspaper: Ibid.
116 essentially dramatic: William L. Langer, “Bismarck as a Dramatist,” in Studies in Diplomatic History and Historiography in Honour of G. P. Gooch, C. H., ed. A. O. Sarkisissian (London: Longmans, Green, 1961), 199-216.
116 since leaving Paris: Bismarck to his wife, August 10, 1862, Gesammelten Werke, xiv, 610.
116 “Ever since”: “Lettres à; la Princesse Orloff,” Revue des Deux Mondes, March 15, 1936, vol. xxxii, 306.
116 daily regimen: Bismarck to his wife, August 14, 1862, Gesammelten Werke, xiv (2), 611-12. It has been recently reported that documents in the archives of the Biarritz SwimmingCommittee reveal that Bismarck was swept out to sea by the undertow, and that he was saved by a “quick-thinking French lifeguard, Pierre Lafleur,” who “plucked a floundering Bismarck from the waves.” French patriots were quoted as saying, “it might havebeen better [for France] if Lafleur had let Germany’s future Chancellor sink”-Luke Harding, “How France Missed a Chance to Sink Bismarck,” The Guardian, Tuesday, August 22, 2006.
116 on the sofa: Bismarck to his wife, August 11, 1862, in Gesammelten Werke, xiv (2), 611; Bismarck to his wife, August 4, 1862, in Gesammelten Werke, xiv (2), 608.
116 figs: Bismarck to his wife, August 10, 1862, in Gesammelten Werke, xiv, (2) 610.
116 Dinner followed: Bismarck to his wife, August 22, 1862, in Gesammelten Werke, xiv (2), 614.
116 Chopin: Nicholas Orloff, Bismarck und die Fürstin Orloff(Munich: Becksche, 1936), 58; Bismarck to his wife, August 15, 1862, in Gesammelten Werke, xiv (2), 616.
116 the moon rise: Bismarck to his wife, August 14, 1862, in Gesammelten Werke, xiv (2), 612.
116 she called him: Orloff, Bismarck und die Fürstin Orloff, 66.
116 “I find”: “Lettres à;la Princesse Orloff,” Revue des Deux Mondes, March 15, 1936, vol. xxxii, 306.
116 “double-quick the Fourth Texas”: Sears, To the Gates of Richmond, 241.
116 Seventeen Federal batteries: Ibid., 215.
117 “Steady, steady” … “Forward! Forward!: Ibid., 241.
117 “I have lost”: McClellan to Stanton, June 28, 1862, MOS, 425.
117 “I again repeat”: Ibid. At the time neither Lincoln nor Stanton saw the last two lines of the letter: Colonel Sanford in the telegraph office deleted them-Sears, To the Gates of Richmond, 251. When his wife questioned the wisdom of such communications, McClellan replied: “Which dispatch of mine to Stanton do you allude to? The telegraphic one in which I told him that if I saved the army I owed no thanks to any one in Washington, and that he had done his best to sacrifice my army? It was pretty frank and quite true. Of course they will never forgive me for that. I knew it when I wrote it; but as I thought it possible that it might be the last I ever wrote, it seemed betterto have it exactly true”-MOS, 452.
117 “a terrible fight”: MOS, 442, 346; ALH, v, 426, 431. “That I have to a certain extent failed,” McClellan said of the Peninsula Campaign, “I do not believe to be my fault, though my self-conceit probably blinds me to many errors that others see”—MOS, 453. Probably.
117 91,000 effective: Williams, Lincoln and His Generals, 88.
117 Lee had: L, 197; Williams, Lincoln and His Generals, 114.
117 “If, at this instant”: McClellan to Stanton, June 28, 1862, MOS, 425.
117 “swollen to twice”: McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 477.
118 “I may be”: McClellan to Lincoln, July 7, 1862 (the “Harrison’s Bar Letter”), MOS, 487-89; ALH, v, 448-52.
118 ominous construction: Williams, Lincoln and the Radicals, 146.
118 “A declaration”: McClellan to Lincoln, July 7, 1862, MOS, 488-89.
118 “ridiculously well”: Bismarck to his wife, August 19, 1862, Gesammelten Werke, xiv (2), 612.
118 Madeira … Möet: Bismarck to his wife, August 22, 1862, Gesammelten Werke, xiv (2), 614.
118 “only wings to fly”: Bismarck to his wife, August 11, 1862, Gesammelten Werke, xiv (2), 611.
118 chansonettes: Bismarck to his wife, September 9, 1862, Gesammelten Werke, xiv (2), 618.
118 narrow portal: Ibid.
118 “rushed”: Ibid.
118 “Catty”: “Lettres à; la Princesse Orloff,” Revue des Deux Mondes, March 15, 1936, vol. xxxii, 306.
118 a yellow flower: Bismarck to Princess Orlov, September 16, 1863, in Orloff, Bismarck und die Fürstin Orloff, 144.
119 “joyous time”: Bismarck to Princess Orlov, ca September 16, 1863, and Bismarck to Princess Orlov, February 11, 1863, both in Orloff, Bismarck und die Fürstin Orloff, 144, 143. Compare “Lettres à; la Princesse Orloff” Revue des Deux Mondes, March 15, 1936, vol. xxxii, 310, 311-12.
119 high priest: Ludwig Bamberger, Count Bismarck (Breslau: Günther, 1869), 42.
119 he detested: George F. Kennan, The Decline of Bismarck’s European Order: Franco-Russian Relations, 1875-1890 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 71.
119 Pomeranian girl: Bismarck to his wife, August 11, 1862, Gesammelten Werke, xiv (2), 611.
120 “brutal sensuality”: Wetzel, A Duel of Giants, 16.
120 “a man of prose”: Henry A. Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1812-1822 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973), 10.
120 “disorganised excitement”: Metternich, “Confession of Faith: Metternich’s Secret Memorandum to the Emperor Alexander” in The Documentary History of Western Civilization: Metternich’s Europe, ed. Mack Walker (New York: Walker, 1968), 125, 123.
120 Concert of Europe: Kissinger, A World Restored, 10, 41-61.
120 techniques of the eighteenth century: Kissinger, “The White Revolutionary: Reflections on Bismarck,” D, vol. 97, no. 3 (Summer 1968), 909.
120 romantic sensibility: Pflanze, “Bismarck’s ‘Realpolitik,’” RP, vol. 20, no. 4 (October 1958), 499.
120 “The King”: BMS, 50-51.
120 “Periculum in mora”: Gedanken, i, 266.
120 compromise: BGE, 54-56.
120 “cesspool of doctrinaire liberalism”: Thomas Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte 1800-1866: Bürgerwelt und starker Staat (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1983), 755.
121 Babelsberg: Lord Ronald Charles Sutherland Leveson Gower, My Reminiscences, 2 vols. (London: Kegan Paul, 1883), i, 186.
121 “I will not reign”: Gedanken, i, 267.
121 “Then it is my duty”: Gedanken,, i, 268.
121 “I would rather perish”: Gedanken, i, 269.
121 “Light Horse Harry”: Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 105-06.
122 “a Virginia farm”: MCCW, 116.
122 “sweetness of his smile”: Lord Gharnwood, Abraham Lincoln, 230.
122 “Is it not”: L, 93.
122 Slavery: Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor; 107. It has been alleged that Lee ordered the whipping of two runaway slaves; and that, after witnessing the whipping himself, he ordered brine to be poured on the wounds—Ibid., 371-72.
122 “slow influences”: L, 92-93.
123 “fanatic”: L, 103.
123 “lie close”: Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor, 107.
123 “the very best”: L, 76.
123 “one of those dull”: L, 111.
123 “greater calamity”: Robert E. Lee to William Henry Fitzhugh (“Rooney”) Lee, January 29, 1861, in William M. Rachal, “‘Secession Is Nothing But Revolution’: A Letter from R. E. Lee to His Son Rooney,” VMHB, vol. 69, no. 1 (January 1961), 3-6.
123 “the miseries of my people ”: Ibid.
123 “Well, Mary”: L, 111.
123 “Lee”: L, 110.
124 “The siege”: L, 221.
11. Trump Cards
125 frigid hauteur: Disraeli’s characterization, LBD, iv, 390.
125 the Whigs: The history of the Whig aristocracy is full of anomalies. The houses of Cavendish and Russell, later so staunchly Whig, adhered during the English Civil War to King Charles. In the sixteenth century the Cecils helped to lay the foundations of the Whig order; yet in the seventeenth century James Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, was attached to James II and converted to Roman Catholicism. The family did not again attain political prominence until the rise, in the nineteenth century, of LordRobert Cecil, afterwards third Marquess of Salisbury, a great Tory. The Bentincks, a family that played a leading part in the Revolution of 1688, later switched sides, and in the nineteenth century promoted the career of Disraeli.
126 rumor that general McClellan: “Three Days Later from Europe,” The New-York Times, Thursday, July 31, 1862, 1; “Parliamentary Intelligence,” The Times, Saturday, July 19, 1862, 8-10.
126 colonial fortifications: “Parliamentary Intelligence,” The Times, Saturday, July 19, 1862, 8.
126 Lindsay: RAL, i, 482-86; Margaret Antoinette Clapp, Forgotten First Citizen: John Bigelow (Boston: Little, Brown, 1947), 175; James Morton Callahan, Diplomatic History of the Southern Confederacy (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1964), 150-53; The New-York Times, “The American Question in Parliament,” Thursday, July 31, 1862, 2; The Times, “Civil War in America,” Saturday, July 19, 9.
127 spirited debate: “Parliamentary Intelligence,” The Times, Saturday, July 19, 1862, 8-10.
127 drunk: Howard Jones, The Union in Peril: The Crisis over British Intervention in the Civil War (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 135.
127 Lord Palmerston: “Parliamentary Intelligence,” The Times, Saturday, July 19, 1862, 8-10. Palmerston’s was an Irish peerage, and he was thus permitted to sit in the House of Commons.