The Reichstag, the democratic branch of the Imperial government, was elected by universal male suffrage and secret ballot, an evolution of democracy which no other European state, not even England, had yet attained. In Germany, the appearance was grossly misleading; the German Social Democrat Wilhelm Liebknecht scorned the Reichstag as “the fig leaf of absolutism.”38 Although the Reichstag voted on the federal budget and its consent was necessary for all legislation, the restrictions placed on it were crippling: it could not initiate legislation; it had no say in the appointment or dismissal of the Chancellor or Imperial Ministers, and the Emperor (or, in practice, the Chancellor) could with the agreement of the Bundesrat dissolve the Reichstag at any time.
The position of the monarch who presided over this government was constitutionally peculiar. The German Emperor was not a sovereign with ancient prerogatives; he had only the powers granted him by the constitution. Article XI of the Imperial constitution stated: “The presidency of the union belongs to the King of Prussia who in this capacity shall be titled German Emperor.” Nevertheless, the Kaiser possessed several critically important powers: he had personal control of the armed forces and made all appointments and promotions in the army and the navy. And he appointed (or could dismiss) all imperial ministers including the Imperial Chancellor.
More unusual still was the office of Imperial Chancellor, which Bismarck carefully crafted for himself. The Chancellor was appointed by the Emperor, entirely independent of the Bundesrat and the Reichstag. His tenure of office depended wholly on the will—or the whim—of the Emperor. Responsibility for foreign policy and war and peace were split; the Chancellor, not the Kaiser, had responsibility for German foreign policy, but the armed forces reported directly to the Kaiser and orders to the army and navy, including orders to begin a war, were exempt from requirement of the Chancellor’s countersignature. The senior members of the imperial bureaucracy (the State Secretaries of Foreign Affairs, the Treasury, the Navy, Interior, and Education) were subordinates of the Chancellor, appointed and dismissed by him with the Kaiser’s consent. They were not a Cabinet, either in the British or American sense; there was no collective responsibility as in England; there were no regular, joint meetings as in the United States. The overwhelming flaw in the constitution of the German Empire was that it was designed too closely to meet the needs and accommodate the talents of specific personalities. Fitted smoothly to the qualities of Bismarck and William I, it made the Chancellor the most powerful man in the empire. But, constitutionally, the Chancellor required the absolute support of the Kaiser. In other times, with other men—a restless, ambitious Kaiser, a weak, uncertain Chancellor—the Chancellor’s position was certain to be fatally undermined.
Politically, it was Bismarck’s extraordinary good fortune that William I remained on the throne as long as he did. Prince William of Hohenzollern was sixty-five in 1862 when he became King of Prussia, and seventy-four in 1871 when he assumed the imperial title; neither he nor Bismarck imagined that he would continue as Emperor for another seventeen years. During this span, Bismarck ruled the Empire and dominated Europe with no public sign of disapproval from the Emperor. In private, there were moments when the sovereign rebelled and threatened to step out from behind his role as figurehead; Bismarck usually dealt with these disturbances by threatening to resign. In fact, the Chancellor, venerating William in public, privately found the Kaiser dry and simplistic, and his insistence on faithfully executing his duty annoying. Der Alte Herr (the Old Gentleman), as Bismarck referred to him, demanded to be kept fully informed and then wished to discuss and approve all of the Chancellor’s actions. William insisted on seeing all diplomatic dispatches, then writing his comments and questions, which, to Bismarck’s chagrin, demanded answers. As much as possible, Bismarck withheld information from the monarch, not because he was not certain of overcoming William’s hesitations, but simply because he did not wish to take the time to do so.
The two men irritated each other even in little ways. Bismarck, plagued by insomnia, would arrive at the Castle eager to describe his sleepless night. The Kaiser would open their conversation by innocently saying that he had slept badly. William disliked the confrontations to which Bismarck often exposed him; often, when the Chancellor asked for an audience, he would send word that he was too exhausted. One day, out for a walk, the Kaiser saw Bismarck approaching. “Can’t we get into a side street?”39 William said to his companion. “Here’s Bismarck coming and I’m afraid that he’s so upset today that he will cut me.” There were no side streets; Bismarck came up, and fifteen steps away took off his hat and said, “Has Your Majesty any commands for me today?” William dutifully replied, “No, my dear Bismarck, but it would be a very great pleasure if you would take me to your favorite bench by the river.” The two, neither desiring to be with the other, went off to sit side by side. Bismarck expressed his sense of this burden by saying, “I took office40 with a great fund of royalist sentiments and veneration for the King; to my sorrow I find this fund more and more depleted.” The Kaiser said simply, “It is not easy to be emperor41 under such a chancellor.”
The years after 1871 seemed anticlimactic. The moments of daring calculation, of dramatic victories snatched from probable catastrophe, were over. “I am bored,”42 Bismarck said in 1874. “The great things are done.” He had no design in domestic politics beyond survival. In time, the national glow of triumph in unity wore off and each of the parties which made up the Reich grumbled that its interests were neglected. The wars had been won by the Prussian Army, the military embodiment of the Prussian Junker aristocracy, and the agrarian Junkers continued to demand predominance in the government of the empire. German liberals, the German middle class, and Germany’s new industrialists often opposed the Junker elite, and the Reichstag became a field of open warfare. The rapid expansion of German industry also gave rise to a new industrial proletariat, whose ambitions and goals clashed with those of both the Junkers and the prosperous middle class. Bismarck had somehow to balance these factions to get legislation through the Reichstag.
Bismarck’s decisions came after long periods of solitary brooding, not after lively discussions with others. Bismarck never exchanged ideas; he gave orders. Outside the Reichstag, he was rarely challenged. Yet neither mastery, success, nor fame calmed his loneliness or restlessness. Wherever he was, he felt out of place. “I have the unfortunate nature43 that everywhere I could be seems desirable to me,” he said, “and then dreary and boring as soon as I am there.” Bismarck acknowledged that his personality was complicated: “Faust complains44 of having two souls in his breast,” the Chancellor said. “I have a whole squabbling crowd. It goes on as in a republic.” Asked whether he really felt like the “Iron Chancellor,” he replied: “Far from it, I am all nerves.”45 He admitted his unruly temper: “You see,” he said, “I am sometimes spoiling for a fight46 and if I have nothing else at hand at that precise moment, I pick a quarrel with a tree and have it cut down.” He was lavish with insults; when a subordinate, Baron Patow, had proved inept, another subordinate in Bismarck’s presence called Patow an ox. “That seems to me rudeness47 to animals,” Bismarck said. “I am certain that when oxen wish to insult each other, they call each other ‘Patow.’” He made few friends. “Oh, he never keeps his friends for long,”48 Johanna sadly told Holstein. “He soon gets tired of them.” In his diary, Holstein noted: “Part of the trouble49 was Prince Bismarck’s habit of doing all the talking himself.... He always monopolized the conversation. He therefore preferred people who had not yet heard his stories.”
In Berlin, Bismarck could be found either at the Reichstag, at his office, or at home. He had no interest in society, never attended dinners, balls, weddings, or funerals, and entertained the diplomatic corps only once a year. Purporting to disdain the Reichstag, the Chancellor actually spent many hours there when it was in session. He entered through a private door, took his place on the dais, and began turning through and signing government papers as if he we
re in his office or his study at home. If personally attacked by a deputy, he stopped writing and began stroking his mustache. When the speaker finished, Bismarck immediately rose to reply, without asking permission from the Chair. He spoke in his high, thin voice, meditating aloud, wrestling for words, shifting from one leg to the other, pulling his mustache, studying his fingernails, spinning a pencil between his fingers, breaking off to drink a glass of brandy and water, sometimes remaining silent for several minutes. The deputies, losing interest, would begin to talk and laugh among themselves. Then Bismarck would shake his fist and shout at them, “I am no orator.50 I am a statesman.”
Bismarck’s office and home were on the Wilhelmstrasse, a fashionable and busy street extending north from Unter den Linden and containing a number of old palaces and stately mansions which had been converted into ministries. The Imperial Chancellory at No. 76 was an unimpressive two-story stucco building with a steep, red-tiled roof. Its authority was inauspicious: the paint was peeling; the door was guarded, not by a soldier or a policeman, but by an unliveried porter with neither a staff nor a badge of office. Bismarck’s office, a corner room on the ground floor to the left of the entrance, possessed two windows, an enormous mahogany desk, a carved armchair, and a massive leather couch on which the Chancellor liked to recline while reading official papers. The office displayed collections of meerschaum pipes, swords, buckskin gloves, and military caps, but no books. A bell sash hanging over the desk was used for summoning clerks, and a hole in the wall connected with an adjoining room which contained a telegraph to keep the Prince informed of what was happening in the Reichstag. Every ten minutes, while the Reichstag was in session, a length of tape was pushed through the aperture in the wall. Bismarck took it, read it, and threw it aside. While the Chancellor worked, his giant dog, Tiras, lay on the carpet, staring fixedly at his master. Tiras, known as the Reichshund (dog of the empire), terrorized the Chancellory staff, and people speaking to Bismarck were advised to make no unusual gestures which Tiras might interpret as threatening. Prince Alexander Gorchakov, the elderly Russian Foreign Minister, once raised an arm to make a point and found himself pinned to the floor, staring up at Tiras’ bared teeth.
Until 1878, the Chancellory building at No. 76 Wilhelmstrasse had also been the Chancellor’s home. In that year, as the Congress of Berlin was about to convene, the Imperial government, concerned about foreign opinion, purchased a separate residence for the Chancellor. The Radziwill Palace, next door to No. 76, was an elegant eighteenth-century building occupying three sides of a paved courtyard. Here, surrounded by his family, Bismarck was able to relax. Dinner was served at five; supper at nine. When the Chancellor was finished, the meal was over. He signalled this by rising from his chair and taking a seat at a small table in the parlor. Here, he filled his porcelain pipe and waited for coffee. He told stories, described what had happened in the Reichstag, joked with his grandchildren, and made the women laugh.
On the rare occasions when Bismarck entertained, guests were astonished by the lavish table spread by the Princess and the courtesy and warmth exhibited by the Prince. Visitors arriving at ten P.M. would find awaiting them Brunswick sausages, Westphalian ham, Elbe eels, sardines, anchovies, smoked herrings, caviar (usually a gift from St. Petersburg), salmon, hard-boiled eggs, cheeses, and bottles of dark Bavarian beer. Bismarck appeared at eleven. “I never saw Bismarck enter51 the room without the feeling that I saw a great man, a really great man, before me, the greatest man I ever saw or ever would see,” said Bernhard von Bülow, the future Chancellor. Every male guest was greeted with a handshake; every woman with a slight bow and a kiss on the hand. In later years, when he was forced by gout to recline on a sofa, he asked forgiveness from the women for receiving them in this position. Bismarck always dominated the conversation, sometimes speaking so softly that his guests had to strain to catch his words. When he was silent, the company was silent, afraid of disturbing his thoughts or being caught speaking when he began to speak again.
When the Chancellor was not in Berlin, he was at one of his immense country estates, Varzin or Friedrichsruh. Varzin, in Pomerania, spread over fifteen thousand acres and containing seven villages, was purchased with a grant of money voted by the Prussian Landtag after Königgrätz. It was remote—five hours by train from Berlin, followed by forty miles on bad roads. Johanna thought the house “unbearably ugly”;52 Bismarck found it ideal. The forest was filled with giant oaks, beeches, and pines; there were deer, wild boar—and few neighbors. In 1871, after the proclamation of the empire, William I rewarded the new Prince Bismarck with Friedrichsruh, an even larger estate of seventeen thousand acres near Hamburg. It had the same stately forest, rich stocks of game, and sense of isolation. Bismarck could roam all day, carrying his gun, or, increasingly, only a pair of field glasses. The house at Friedrichsruh, originally a hotel for weekenders from Hamburg, was even less pleasing to Johanna. Bismarck installed his family without bothering to remove the numbers from the bedroom doors, refused to bring in electricity, and permitted illumination only with oil lamps. Soon, the cellar was filled with thousands of books which he had been given but would never read. Bülow, a visitor, struggled to describe the primitive state of the Chancellor’s retreat: “Simplicity... complete lack of adornment53... not a single fine picture... not a trace of a library... The whole house seemed to reiterate the warning: ‘Wealth alone can destroy Sparta.’”
Bismarck complained constantly about his poor health but did nothing to improve it. He smoked fourteen cigars a day, drank beer in the afternoons, kept two large goblets—one for champagne, the other for port—at hand during meals, and tried to find sleep at night by drinking a bottle of champagne. Princess Bismarck believed that her husband’s well-being depended on appetite. “They eat here always until the walls burst,”54 reported a Chancellory assistant who visited Varzin. When the Prince complained of an upset stomach, Johanna calmed him with foie gras. When the pâté was brought to the table, the visitor reported, Bismarck first served himself a large portion, then followed the platter with his eyes around the table with such intensity that no one dared to take more than a small slice. When the platter came back to him, Bismarck helped himself to what remained. At night, he slept poorly or not at all. Often, he lay awake until seven A.M., then slept until two P.M. Lying in bed, he mulled over grievances. “I have spent the whole night hating,”55 he said once. When no immediate object of hatred was available, he ransacked his memory to dredge up wrongs done him years before.
He suffered and complained continually. “This pressure on my brain56 makes everything that lies behind my eyes seem like a glutinous mass,” he wrote to the Emperor in 1872. [I have] unbearable pressure on my stomach with unspeakable pains.” Between 1873 and 1883, he suffered from migraine, gout, hemorrhoids, neuralgia, rheumatism, gallstones, varicose veins, and constipation. His teeth tormented him, but he refused to see a dentist; eventually his cheek began to twitch with pain. He endured the twitching for five years and grew a beard to hide it. In 1882, when the teeth were drawn, the twitching stopped, but the pain in the cheek remained.
Bismarck’s appearance shocked those who saw him. His beard had come in white, his face and body were pink and bloated. His weight ballooned to 245 pounds. “The Chancellor has aged57 considerably over the last few months,” Holstein recorded in 1884. “His capacity for work is less, his energy has diminished, even his anger, though easily kindled, fades more quickly than in his prime.”
When the doctors announced to Johanna that her husband had cancer, she became sufficiently frightened to bring a new doctor, a young Berlin physician named Ernst Schweninger, to Friedrichsruh. Schweninger from the beginning confronted his patient head-on. At their first meeting, the Chancellor said roughly, “I don’t like questions.”58 “Then get a veterinarian,” Schweninger replied. “He doesn’t question his patients.” Bismarck immediately gave in. Schweninger became a member of the Bismarck household and dictated to the Chancellor as if he were a schoolbo
y. He prescribed an exclusive diet of fish, mainly herring, forced Bismarck to drink milk before bedtime instead of beer or champagne, and curtailed his drinking of alcohol at other times. Within six months, the Chancellor’s weight dropped to 197 pounds, his eyes became clear, his skin fresh, and he began to sleep peacefully at night. In 1884, he shaved off his beard. Schweninger left the household but returned often to monitor the Chancellor’s diet. This was necessary, Holstein reported, because Bismarck’s “inclination to transgress59 is reinforced by Princess Bismarck who is never happier than when watching her husband eating one thing on top of another.”
Bismarck’s affection for his three children, Marie, Herbert, and William (known all his life as Bill), was fierce, protective, and jealously possessive. At the height of the war with France, Bismarck, at army headquarters with the King, was told that Herbert had been killed and Bill wounded. He rode all night to find Herbert shot through the thigh but out of danger and Bill recovering from a concussion caused by a fall from a horse. Herbert, born in 1849, was his father’s favorite; no man was closer to Bismarck. As a boy, Herbert was handsome, quick-witted, and spoiled. As he grew older, the power and deference that surrounded his father and his family had a destructive effect on the impressionable son. Attempting to copy his father, Herbert exaggerated. Where Otto was lofty, self-confident, and ironic, Herbert became arrogant, flamboyant, and sarcastic.