The chief of the ministers was the Chancellor. He was a far more powerful person than the British Prime Minister. The British Prime Minister must answer to Parliament for all he does, and Parliament means the nation. The German Chancellor — and Bismarck was the first German Chancellor — answered only to the King. So his power was immense. It was his success in war which saved him, and made him a popular hero. Prussia was still a fighting state, not a commercial state.
Napoleon III. in France was a despot, but very popular, for he conciliated the people all the time. He was a good deal like an Italian Tyrant in the Renaissance. France flourished under him, and Paris became the beautiful modern city it is now. Trade prospered, France was a commercial nation. But Napoleon in. had a fixed idea that it was necessary ‘ to gratify the military and domineering instincts of France.’ He had very successfully interfered in Italy, and brought France out of her wars with much satisfaction and pride to himself and the people. He had acquired Nice and Savoy, and Europe had become quite alarmed, imagining him a dangerous aggressor like Napoleon I.
But after 1860 the French emperor’s foreign policy was a failure, and the people, particularly the commercial and moneyed classes, began to turn against him. They were wearying of their unnecessary war-lord. He attempted to make Maximilian of Austria, Emperor of Mexico. The whole affair was a tragic fiasco, and France lost vast sums of money. Napoleon in. felt very uncertain on his throne.
Yet, on June 30, 1870, when the people of France were asked to vote whether a new, republican constitution should be introduced, or whether they should stand by the Emperor, 9,000,000 votes against 1,500,000 decided for him. Everything seemed most satisfactory. ‘ On whichever side we look there is an absence of troublesome questions; never has the maintenance of the peace of Europe been better assured.’ Fifteen days later war was declared against Prussia. In two months the second empire of France collapsed and disappeared.
We cannot say exactly why the great Franco-Prussian War of 1870 broke out. Neither France nor Germany desired war: only Bismarck wanted it. There had been a revolution in Spain. The Queen, Isabella, had fled to France. Leopold of Hohenzollern, a Roman Catholic, a distant relative of William I., was proposed for the throne of Spain. Napoleon in. protested. William listened to Napoleon’s remonstrance, and Leopold’s name was withdrawn. Then Napoleon thought he would show his power a little further. He sent an ambassador to William of Prussia, asking him to promise to oppose Leopold, even should that prince again be suggested for the throne of Spain. William said he could not promise so much, but that he disapproved of Leopold as a candidate for the Spanish throne. All passed quietly and pleasantly.
Bismarck was bitterly disappointed. He had hoped for a quarrel. He wanted war. He even thought of resigning his post. But then, it seems, he so modified the message he had received from the King, and published it in such a form as to make it appear that the Prussian king had been insulted by Napoleon, and had broken off all communications with France. A loud shout for war went up in Germany, and quite as loud a shout in France.
The French were very jaunty and confident of victory. But the German preparations were perfect, while Francc was in disorder. Half a million German soldiers poured over the French frontier. A marvellously rapid campaign followed. MacMahon was defeated at Worth with great loss to the French. Then Marshal Bazaine’s army was defeated and shut up in Metz. Then the emperor and MacMahon decided to retreat on Paris, to fight under the city fortresses. The Empress Eugenie telegraphed that a retreat would bring about a fall of the dynasty. The army changed its direction and marched against the enemy, hoping to relieve Metz. It was caught by the German army at Sedan, on September 1, 1870, and after losing 17,000 men Napoleon surrendered with 85,000.
At this disastrous news the empire was at once abolished in Paris, and a republic declared. Jules Favre was the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gambetta was President. The new republic might now have had peace, if she would consent to surrender Strassburg and Metz. She proudly answered that she would not surrender an inch of French soil. So the war went on. The German armies gathered round Paris and the long siege began. No help came. On December 28, the bombardment of the city, which had been deferred so long, commenced. But it was Bismarck’s plan to reduce the 2,000,000 inhabitants by speedy starvation. ‘ Let them stew in their own juice,’ he said.
Wildly excited over these triumphs, the people of Germany united and offered the crown of the German Empire to William, whilst he was with the armies besieging Paris. A deputation waited on him on December 18, 1870, asking him to receive the new dignity. He accepted, and the new state was to come into being on January 1. On January 18, while Paris was still holding out, William I. was crowned emperor at Versailles, twelve miles away from the besieged city. In the great hall of mirrors, where the splendours of Louis xiv. had dazzled the world, the German officers and princes met in uniform, a throng of powerful men. With tremendous shouts they hailed the grey-haired King emperor, the German Emperor, Bismarck and Moltke standing by his side, flashing aloft their swords and shouting with fierce joy.
The bombardment of Paris continued till January 28, when an armistice was signed and the city surrendered. The Prussians then occupied the city. And now came another revolution among the French themselves. A National Assembly had been called at Versailles to settle the new republican constitution. Meanwhile Paris was revolution-mad. Socialism, communism, anarchism were preached frantically. Paris proclaimed ‘ the Commune,’ declaring she would go her own way, have her own government, regardless of the rest of France. For the people of Paris were republican, and they feared the monarchist tendency of the Assembly of Versailles. The Assembly decided that the Parisians must be subdued. The French leader Thiers, with the French armies which had returned from the war, now marched on Paris, Frenchmen attacking Frenchmen with utmost ferocity, French armies marching on the capital of France. The German troops, not yet withdrawn, looked on whilst the ghastly fighting between the two French parties took place. At last MaeMahon became master of the city. The Communists were destroyed, 17,000 were executed, the Socialists entirely stamped out.
In such a way began the Third French Republic, which is the Republic of to-day. And at such a moment the German Empire began. In 1877 Bismarck wished to resign, worn out by his labours. To this the Emperor would not listen, for the state rested on the shoulders of the Iron Chancellor.
William I. died in 1888. His son Frederick, who was married to the daughter of Queen Victoria, died after a reign of ninety-nine days. The Emperor William II. then succeeded. He was twenty-nine years old. The young emperor was far more positive and dictatorial than William I. He did not agree with Bismarck. The old chancellor resigned in 1890, virtually dismissed.
After this, the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia were reckoned the most powerful stf.te organisations in Europe. They did their best to resist the growth of Socialism. And yet labour organisation and socialist influence were perhaps stronger among the German people than anywhere. The state was keenly divided against itself. Germany was the last great military power left in Europe, excepting only Russia. And yet, in Germany as in Russia, the working people were most united, most ready to strike against war-lords and military dominion.
It seems as if North Europe, Germany and Russia, were never to take the course which France and Britain and America have taken. These latter three great states broke the monarchic power and established a rule of rich citizens, merchants, and promoters of industry, the rule of the middle classes. But Germany and Russia step from one extreme to the other from absolute monarchy such as Britain never knew, straight to the other extreme of government, government by the masses of the proletariat, strange, and as it seems, without true purpose: the masses of the working people governing themselves they know not why, except that they wish to destroy all authority, and to enjoy all an equal prosperity.
So the cycle of European history completes itself, phase by phase, from imperial Rome, through the mediaev
al empire and papacy to the kings of the Renaissance period, on to the great commercial nations, the government by the industrial and commercial middle classes, and so to that last rule, that last oneness of the labouring people. So Europe moves from oneness to oneness, from the imperial unity to the unity of the labouring classes, from the beginning to the end.
But we must never forget that mankind lives by a twofold motive: the motive of peace and increase, and the motive of contest and martial triumph. As soon as the appetite for martial adventure and triumph in conflict is satisfied, the appetite for peace and increase manifests itself, and vice versa. It seems a law of life. Therefore a great united Europe of productive working- people, all materially equal, will never be able to continue and remain firm unless it unites also round one great chosen figure, some hero who can lead a great war, as well as administer a wide peace. It all depends on the will of the people. But the will of the people must concentrate in one figure, who is also supreme over the will of the people. He must be chosen, but at the same time responsible to God alone. Here is a problem of which a stormy future will have to evolve the solution.
Epilogue
The War, called now the Great War, came in 1914, and smashed the growing tip of European civilisation. Mankind is like a huge old tree: there are deep roots that go down to the earth’s centre, and there is the massive stem of primitive culture, where all men are very much alike. All men, black, white, yellow, cover their nakedness and build themselves shelters, make fires and cook food, have laws of marriage and of family, care for their wives and their children, and have stores of wisdom and ancient lore, rules of morality and behaviour. All men are alike in these fundamentals: even the crudest black Australian aborigines. We should say, that in its roots and its massive trunk, the tree of mankind is undivided. Mankind is one great race, in its fundamentals always the same. Whereas the gulf that divides man from the animals is so great, that we can see no connection. We can no longer believe that man has descended from monkeys. Man has descended from man.
The difference between the most civilised man and the lowest savage with a black face and a flat nose is as nothing compared to the difference between that same stunted, ugly savage and the highest ape. The pigmy naked Bushman and the highly educated white man, once they meet and are acquainted, know each other man for man. The savage soon knows if I am a ‘good’ man: that is, if I am decent and brave and kindly. And if I am foolish, or affected, or even snobbish, the crude savage soon learns to despise me. He may be in awe of my white man’s powers:
my gun, my power to write letters, or to send telegrams, or to build railways. But if I am a poor specimen of a man, inwardly, even if I have a big strong body, the savage will soon know, and he will despise me, sneer at me, and play tricks on me. To be brave, to keep one’s word, to be generous, the savage recognises these as the first qualities in a man quite as quickly, or perhaps more quickly, than we white people do. It is manhood. And manhood is the same in all men, and the chief part of all men. Cleverness educated skill come far behind.
Man recognises man as his own sort, and manhood is manhood to the pigmy black as to the educated white, the heroic qualities are the same.
But man and monkey look at one another across a great and silent gulf, never to be crossed. The savage shakes hands with me, and each of us knows we are of one ancient blood-stream. But if I attempt to shake hands with a j monkey or an ape — it is a gesture only of mockery. We cannot really meet in touch.
In its root and trunk, Mankind is one. But then the differences begin. The great tree of man branches out into different races: huge branches, reaching far out in different directions. And each branch has its own growing tip.
So the races of mankind have grown in their different directions; the Egyptians and the Chinese, the Hindu and the Assyrians, the Aztecs and the Peruvians, the negroes and the Polynesians, the Mediterranean peoples that include Greece and Rome and Carthage, then the Germanic and Slavic races, and the modern Europeans: all huge branches on the one tree of mankind.
Every branch has its own direction and its own growing tip. One branch cannot take the place of any other branch. Each must go its own way, and bear its own flowers and fruits. For each branch is, as it were, differently grafted by a different spirit and idea, which becomes its own spirit and idea. My manhood is the same as the manhood of a Chinaman. But in spirit and idea we two are different and shall be different forever, as apple-blossom will forever be different from irises.
And each branch has its own growing tip. In every race, the growing tip is the living idea, which must never cease to change and develop. Once the living idea, the forward- reaching consciousness of any race dies and goes hard and dry, the vast branch of that race dies upon the tree of mankind, withers, goes dry rotten, and at length falls and disappears. As the great Egyptians and Babylonians have fallen and disappeared.
But as every branch of mankind has its own growing tip, so the whole tree of Man has one supreme travelling apex, one culminating growing tip. If this dies, the whole tree perishes. Or else, from some side socket, a new leading bud appears. Then the whole direction of the tree’s growth changes, the movement onward takes a new line.
For a thousand years, surely, we may say that Europe has been the growing tip on the tree of mankind. Man must change. Either he must grow, or he must die. Like a tree. There is no tree in the world which is the same this year as it was last. Either it has grown a bit or died a bit. And the same is true of every man, of every race, and of all mankind itself. Either it has grown a bit or died a bit.
But a man doesn’t grow just because he gets fatter. He may be getting fatter, but the spirit inside him may be flagging and dying. The same with a race or a nation. Populations may be increasing rapidly. But the spirit inside the people may at the same time be failing, and then, sooner or later, there will come a crash. Babylon, the great city, once increased by thousands every year. Now there is not a man left.
From time to time the tree of mankind begins to fail, it runs to wood, and its fruit grows more and more paltry. Then it must be pruned, and grafted with a new idea.
For a thousand years Europe has led the world, and grown apace. But our spirit and our manhood begin to weaken. Our idea and our ideal begin to peter out.
So the War came, and blew away forever our leading tip our growing tip. Now we are directionless.
Our great idea, during the last hundred years, has been the idea of Progress. We must all make progress. Every nation must make its own great strides of progress.
But again, it is like the tree. Each branch starts in its own separate direction. But if any branch spreads too hugely, it will spread above its neighbour, and cut off the light from that neighbour. And any branch that must grow in its neighbour’s shadow must slowly and surely die.
And this is progress.
We believed also in free competition, and we said that, as many young trees must grow together in a plantation if they are to grow straight and tall, so must men compete with one another in every way, freely. Every man must be free to compete with every other man, and there must be equality of opportunity.
Since the War these words make us feel sick, they have I proved such a swindle. But it is actually true that a plantation of young trees should be thick, the trees growing close upon one another, so that their struggle with one another for the light may send them upwards and keep them straight and erect. All very good for a plantation of young trees, with lots of space. Which is what Europe was, a hundred years ago.
But what of those young trees a hundred years later? They are just choking one another. Some manage to struggle above their neighbours, and there, once having got up into the air, they flourish fast. And the faster they flourish, the more they cut off the light from their neighbours below them. And the more the neighbours lose the light, the more they dwindle and expire.
Nothing is more depressing, in this respect, than a virgin forest. There are giants, and there are great growing
youngsters. But at the same time there is a tangle and a misery of dwindling, thin trees which can hardly hold up, and which drop out their thin scratchy branches with dead brown tips; while on the ground a depth of fallen trees lies rotting.
The same applies among the nations. At first, plenty of room for all, and competition is the best thing possible, and equality of opportunity is the ideal. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Then some nations forge ahead, and get a stranglehold upon the natural resources around them. Still there must be progress, expansion, progress, expansion, free competition. All very well. But you can’t progress upwards if another great tree has risen and sent out branches above you. You can’t expand if your neighbour takes up all the room. You can’t compete once your ‘brother’ has got a stranglehold on you.
Then you’ve either got to give in, and gradually, gradually have the light of day taken from you. Or you have to fight.
Sooner or later war is bound to come. If we continue in our ideal of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; liberty for every man and every nation to get as much as he can for himself, equality of opportunity for every sharp and unscrupulous man or nation to get the better of the more honest or less shrewd man or nation, then there is bound to come more war, many more wars.
We all know it. We none of us believe in our ideals any more. Our ideal, our leading ideas, our growing tip were shot away in the Great War.
Till the Great War, we believed in Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and in the Voice of the People. The best men and women believed that the poorer classes were simple and honourable, and that when the Voice of the People was heard, it would speak simple, but wise and decent things, free from the falsities of the educated upper classes.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 921