Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

MEMOIRS OF BERTHA VON SUTTNER
THE RECORDS OF AN EVENTFUL LIFE

AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION

VOLUME II

PUBLISHED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF PEACE

GINN AND COMPANY, BOSTON AND LONDON

1910

COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY GINN AND COMPANY

ENTERED AT STATIONERS’ HALL

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Athenæum Press

GINN AND COMPANY · PROPRIETORS BOSTON · U.S.A.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME II

PART SEVEN
[CONTINUED]

XL
FROM HARMANNSDORF AND FROM CHICAGO

Slow increase · Far-reaching endeavors from our quiet corner · Childlessness · With Aunt Lotti · My brother · The World’s Fair at Chicago, and the Peace Congress · Olga Wisinger-Florian · I am represented by Olga Wisinger · Congress of Religions · Petition of the various ecclesiastical bodies to the governments in favor of a court of arbitration

So now there existed in the capital of Germany a Peace Society, about which as a center branch societies would presumably group themselves in all the larger German cities. The proposed task of forming a widespread public opinion was, therefore, well underway. I saw with delight, in my imagination, an undeviating development of the movement. I clearly recognized, however, that the beginnings were comparatively insignificant. What were our two or three thousand organized members compared to the thousand five hundred millions that populate the earth? And how puny, not only in numbers but also in power and reputation, compared to the representatives and supporters of the old system! But what is the significance of the first violet-dotted patch of grass compared to the fields, stretching miles and miles, still covered with the snows of March? It signifies that the spring is at hand. What signifies the first gleam of dawn penetrating the mantle of night? It signifies that the sunrise is coming. Thus I accepted the modest results achieved up to that time by the peace idea, and harbored no doubt that the element of spring, the element of light that abides in it, must come to fulfillment in gradual but uninterrupted and ever swifter progression.

I have no doubt of it either, even at the present day; but I have learned from experience that such movements do not take place in so straight a line and in such a regular tempo as I then supposed. It is a zigzag line, now attaining great height and speed, then sinking down again; it apparently vanishes, and then with a new start reaches quite unexpected points. And all direct, methodical (zielbewusste) work—to use the tiresome, hackneyed word—is on the one hand hampered, on the other helped, by unanticipated, invisible secondary influences; more often helped than hampered, for, where any innovation is to be introduced, its forces converge from all directions.

Our life was now richly filled. We enjoyed two special blessings which one can hardly think of in combination,—impetuous reaching out into the wide world, and peace in our quiet corner. Full of hopes, expectations, struggles, in flaming enthusiasm or in overwhelming indignation, we set sail into the future; and a sheltered, safe little nest, beautifully pillowed with love and gayety, was ours at that time.

Many expressed their pity for us because we were childless. The blessing of children is, indeed, regarded as the highest happiness; but I have never expressed in these memoirs one single word of regret for this lack, nor have we, either of us, ever complained of it. Possibly, if we had known that good fortune, we should not have been able to comprehend how such a deprivation can be borne without pain; but it is a fact, our childlessness never cost us a sigh. I explain this in this way: not only did we find perfect satisfaction in each other, but that need of living for the future which lies at the basis of the desire to have offspring and to work and provide for them was satisfied in our case by our vocation, which also was striving for the future, and which delighted in something still in its infancy, but growing and flourishing. Besides, we had our literary activity, and it is well known and recognized in popular language that authorship is a kind of paternity (Autorschaft ist eine Art Vaterschaft).

And yet how absolutely different my life had shaped itself from what had been anticipated in my childhood and youth! I often had at this time occasion to turn my thoughts back to those days of youth and childhood, and to refresh my recollections of them. My old Aunt Lotti, Elvira’s mother, who was now quite alone in the world and had nothing to love except me, had moved into our neighborhood. She lived about an hour’s walk from Harmannsdorf, and I used to drive over to see her at least once a week, and chat with her for an hour or two, on old reminiscences for the most part. She took the liveliest interest in my domestic happiness and my labors, and yet we liked best to talk together of times gone by, of the days when Elvira and I played “puff” together.

Aunt Lotti was really the only link that connected me with my early life. My brother was still alive, to be sure, but, except for an exchange of letters once in a great while, we were quite out of touch with each other. So in these recollections I have had nothing to say of him. He was an odd fish, living perfectly aloof from mankind and isolated in a small Dalmatian city, occupying himself with floriculture and chess. His company consisted of a number of cats. Solitary walks along the seashore, the reading of botanical and mineralogical works, were his only passions. I had not seen him since 1872, and up to the time of his death, which occurred a few years ago, we never met again.

In the year of 1893 we did not attend any Peace Congress. Ever since I was carried away by this movement, I have counted the stations of my recollections for the most part by journeys to Peace Congresses, for these always brought visible tokens of the progress of the cause that was so dear to my heart and the possibility of taking an active part in helping it along. They brought me into touch, too, with the old friends, and led to the formation of new friendships; finally, they took us to new places in environments hitherto unknown, and they procured for us that enjoyment which My Own drank in with the greatest avidity,—travel itself. To get into a carriage together, and then to be off and away—it was an indescribable joy!

The Congress this year was held at Chicago, in connection with the exposition which was called the “World’s Fair.” Our means were not sufficient for such a long journey and we gave it up. I intrusted the duty of representing me at this Congress to my friend Malaria, the celebrated painter Frau Olga Wisinger. She had been with us in the Austrian delegation at Rome, and was an enthusiastic adherent of the cause; so the mission was in good hands. The name “Malaria” is only a nickname and does not refer in any way to the great artist’s feverish propensities. This was its origin: at Rome all the participants had to register their names and occupations, that a list of those present might be printed and distributed; so in the Austrian group we read, “Signora Olga Wisinger, Malaria,” for that was the way the Italians had deciphered the word malerin, “painter.”

During the World’s Fair, countless congresses were held in Chicago, and one of them was the Congress of Religions. All the great sects of the world had sent their dignitaries to represent them. This was certainly the first time that the promulgators of different creeds had come together, not to proselyte or to battle with one another, but to bring out the principles that are common to them all. And Christian bishops, Mosaic rabbis, Buddhist and Mohammedan priests, found themselves at one in the principle: God is the father of all; therefore all are brethren. So there was also a peace principle resulting from this Congress of Religions.

The actual Peace Congress which met August 14–19, in the Art Institute, under the Administrative Department of the Columbian Exposition, was presided over by Josiah Quincy, Assistant Secretary of State. Among the participants and speakers was William Jennings Bryan, who in the year 1904 ran as Roosevelt’s opponent for the presidency of the United States, and who may perhaps at some future election win the victory.

In this Congress delegates from Africa and China participated. Europeans were only slimly represented. The journey across the great pond, which means for Americans only “a trip,” still frightens the inhabitants of our continent. Dr. Adolf Richter went from Germany, Dr. Darby from England, Moneta from Italy, and from Austria—“Malaria.” The Americans of course were well represented and by distinguished men,—scholars, judges, statesmen. A soldier even, General Charles H. Howard, gave an address on the International Tribunal. A special church convention joined the movement by referring to the projected petition of the various Christian bodies of the world to the governments in behalf of the Court of Arbitration. This plan was carried out, and the petition, which was signed by about a hundred ecclesiastical dignitaries of all countries, was subsequently laid before all the heads of governments. I was intrusted with the duty of presenting the copy destined for the Emperor of Austria.

XLI
VASÍLI VERESHCHÁGIN

Vereshchágin in Vienna · He does the honors at his exhibition · “All Quiet before Plevna” · “Apotheosis of War” · Moltke standing before this picture · A picture of what Vereshchágin himself had seen during the war and painted · Concerning a picture which he could not paint · Further reminiscences of his military life · His Napoleon pictures · A remark of William II regarding them · War and hunting

Now I will tell about Vasíli Vereshchágin. When I learned that the great Russian painter, who was battling with his brush against the same foe that I was fighting with my pen, was staying in Vienna, where he was exhibiting a number of his pictures, I hastened to the city to see those celebrated paintings,—“All Quiet before Plevna,” the “Apotheosis of War,” and all those other variously named indictments of war. Even in the titles that he gave his pictures the artist expressed the bitterness which, next to the pain, animated his brush. The sentinel forgotten in the wilderness of snow, standing there until the drift reaches half to his breast,—that was what Vereshchágin’s genius saw back of the generals’ well-known dispatch, “All quiet before Plevna”; and a pyramid of skulls surrounded by a flock of flapping ravens,—thus he depicted the “Apotheosis of War.”

Even before I had managed to get to the exhibition, I received a note from the painter inviting me to come to the studio on a certain day at ten o’clock in the morning; he would be there and would himself do the honors. We were on hand punctually, My Own and I. Vereshchágin received us at the door. He was of medium height, and wore a long gray beard; full of animation and fluent in speech (he spoke in French), he had a passionate nature subdued by irony.

“We are colleagues and comrades, gracious lady”; such was his greeting. And then he led us from picture to picture, and related how each came to be painted and what idea was in his mind as he worked. At many of the paintings we could not suppress a cry of horror.

“Perhaps you believe that is exaggerated? No, the reality is much more terrible. I have often been reproached for representing war in its evil, repulsive aspect; as if war had two aspects,—a pleasing, attractive side, and another ugly, repulsive. There is only one kind of war, with only one end and aim: the enemy must suffer as much as possible; must lose as many as possible in killed, wounded, and prisoners; must receive one blow after another until he asks for quarter.”

As we stopped in front of the “Apotheosis of War,” he called our attention to an inscription in small Russian letters near the border of the picture.

“You can’t read that; it is Russian and means, ‘Dedicated to the Conquerors of the Past: the Present and the Future.’ When the picture was on exhibition in Berlin, Moltke stood in front of it. I was by his side, and I translated the words for him; the dedication was a dig at him too.”

Another painting represented a road buried in a thick covering of snow, with here and there hands or feet sticking out of it.

“What in heaven’s name is that?” we cried.

“No work of the imagination. It is actual fact that in winter, both in the last Turko-Russian war and during other campaigns, the road along which the regiments were passing was covered with corpses; one who had not seen it would find it hard to believe. The wheels of the cannons, the tumbrels and other wagons, would crush the wretched men, still living, down into the ruts, where the dead bodies were deliberately left that the road might not be injured; and they were pressed way down under the snow, only the protruding legs and arms showing here and there that the road was a thickly populated graveyard....”

“I understand,” said [I], “that you were blamed for depicting the most horrible things that you saw.”

“The most horrible? No. I found much dramatic material from which I absolutely recoiled, because I was utterly unable to put it on the canvas. For instance, I had the following experience: my brother,[^[1]] who was an aide to General Skobelef, was killed during the third assault on Plevna. The spot where he fell was held by the enemy, so I could not rescue his body. Three months later, when Plevna was in our hands, I went to the place and found it covered with bodies,—more correctly, with skeletons; wherever I looked I found skulls grinning at me, and here and there skeletons still wearing shirts and tattered clothes. They seemed to be pointing with their hands somewhere into the distance. Which of these was my brother? I carefully examined the tatters, the configuration of the skulls, the eye sockets, and I couldn’t stand it; the tears streamed from my eyes, and for a long time I could not control my loud sobbing. Nevertheless, I sat down and made a sketch of this place, which reminded me of Dante’s pictures of hell. I wanted to produce such a picture, with my own figure searching among all those skeletons—impossible! Again, a year later, two years later, when I began on the canvas, the same tears choked me and prevented me from proceeding; and so I have never been able to finish that picture.”

I am warranted in saying that I am repeating Vereshchágin’s own words, for I urged him then and there to incorporate in an article what he had just told me, and send it to me for my monthly periodical. He granted my wish, and in the seventh and eighth issues of Die Waffen nieder for 1893 Vereshchágin published these reminiscences and many others besides.

“In order to get a clearer idea of what war is,” continued Vereshchágin, “I made up my mind to be an eyewitness of the whole thing. I participated in an infantry charge on the enemy, and, as it happened, I led the attack. I have been in a cavalry skirmish and victory, and I have been with the marines on board of a torpedo boat in an attack on great ships. On this last occasion I was punished for my curiosity by a severe wound, which almost sent me to kingdom come, to continue my observations there.”

Well, we know to-day that it was indeed his fate to be dispatched into the next world by a Japanese mine. Almost the first news that startled the world at the time of the Russo-Japanese War was that of the sinking of the ironclad Petropavlovsk, which ran on a mine. Vereshchágin, pencil in hand, was on board, sketching. A shock, a cry of anguish from eight hundred throats, and down into the depths sank ship and crew! Vereshchágin’s intention was to observe and depict the events of the most modern of wars—what would those pictures have turned out to be? Perhaps it would have been as impossible to finish them as it was to reproduce the scene at Plevna. There are horrors which incapacitate the artist’s hand or darken the observer’s mind. The Russo-Japanese War brought the general madness to a head. Vereshchágin’s vibrant artist spirit would perhaps have been the first to become mad if he had ever tried to paint the scenes which have been enacted on barbed wire and in wolf-pits (trous-de-loup).

A few years later—let me here complete my personal recollections of Vereshchágin—I met him a second time. He was giving in Vienna an exhibition of his series of Napoleon pictures. It is said that Emperor William II, on seeing one of these paintings, remarked to him: “With these, dear master, you are battling against war more effectually than all the Peace Congresses in the world.”

Nevertheless, I believe that the artist’s intention was not in the least to engage in that sort of battle. He wanted to be true. He did not hate war at all; he found in it the excitements of the chase.

“I have many times killed men in battle,”—these are his own words,—“and I can say from experience that the excitement, as well as the feeling of satisfaction and contentment, that comes after killing a man is precisely like the sensation which comes when one has brought down uncommonly large game.”

XLII
THE COMMITTEE MEETING AT BRUSSELS AND ITS RESULTS

Committee meeting of the Interparliamentary Union at Brussels · Letter from Senator Trarieux · Address to Gladstone · Address to the French and Italian deputies · Warning as to the duties of the Union · The “inevitable war” between France and Italy · The case of Aigues-Mortes · Settlement through the friends of peace in both countries

It was decided at the Interparliamentary Conference which was held at Bern in the year 1892, that the next one should meet at Christiania; but this intention was frustrated by circumstances. The conflict between Sweden and Norway, which led, twelve years later, to the separation of the two countries, had even then taken such form as to make it clearly inadvisable to select the Norwegian capital as the seat of an international conference.

So the Conference itself fell through. As a substitute for it the members of the bureau, or managing board, of the Interparliamentary Union met at Brussels for a committee meeting. This board had been organized the preceding year at Bern, and consisted of the following members: Dr. Baumbach, member of the Prussian Upper House (represented by Dr. Max Hirsch); Baron von Pirquet, member of the Imperial Parliament (Austria); Don Arturo de Marcoartu, senator (Spain); Trarieux, senator (France); Right Honorable Philip Stanhope, member of the House of Commons (England); Marquis Pandolfi, deputy (Italy); Ullman, president of the Storthing (Norway), represented by Frédéric Bajer, deputy (Denmark); Rahusen, deputy (Netherlands); Urechia, senator (Roumania); Gobat, national councilor, head of the Interparliamentary Bureau (Switzerland).

I got very little information from the newspapers regarding the sessions of this committee. I only knew that Pandolfi wanted to propose the institution of a permanent diplomatic council for the adjustment of national quarrels, and Stanhope the establishment of an international tribunal. So, in order to get more definite information, I wrote to Senator Trarieux and received the following reply:

Senate, Paris, November 3, 1903

Dear Madam:

I was glad to learn from your letter that our Brussels Conference made a good impression in your country, and I thank you sincerely for the personal sympathy that you manifest toward us.

I believe, just as you do, that, although we must regret that we did not meet in a full conference at Christiania, in accordance with the vote at Bern, nevertheless we succeeded in counteracting this disappointment by the important transactions of our bureau.

Although each regular group of the Interparliamentary Union was represented by only one delegate at Brussels, yet we felt strong because of the assurances of confidence which were transmitted to us from thousands of colleagues; and our resolves, if approved, have scarcely less authority than if they had been the result of the votes of our mandators themselves.

Our chief labor was the final determination of the order of business which in the future is to obtain in the deliberations of the Union. I trust they will be accepted by the next Conference.

Above all we endeavored not to step out of the sphere within which we have from the start confined our undertaking. We cherish the conviction that in order to reach our goal we must not dream of being an academy in which all questions can be treated.

We do not desire to be confounded with revolutionary cosmopolitanism; we therefore exclude from our programme everything that might cause the governments to look on us with suspicion. We do not talk of changes in the map of Europe, nor of rectification of boundaries, nor of any attack on the principle of nationality, nor of a solution of those problems of external politics on account of which nations hold themselves ready for war; we take up only the study of those proposals which aim directly at doing away with war and substituting for it the solution of difficulties through a regularly constituted jurisdiction,—that is a ground on which the broad-minded patriots of all countries may meet.

We have not limited ourselves to the preparation of our programme, but have also passed several resolutions, the importance of which you must have recognized if they came to your knowledge.

Thus we voted to send to Mr. Gladstone a congratulatory address regarding the words which he uttered in the English House of Commons on the proposed court of arbitration; moreover, we have sent a petition to our colleagues of the regular groups in the French and Italian parliaments, urging them most strongly to work with all their energies for a rapprochement of their two great countries, which now are unfortunately kept apart through imaginary antagonism.

I am sending you, gracious lady, both of these documents, which, on account of the ideas expressed in them, deserved to be made publicly known throughout the whole world. They are only words, to be sure, but words which exert an influence, because they correspond to the highest endeavors of mankind and contain nothing that arouses criticism even from the most timid of the practical-minded. He who contemns them makes a mistake; contempt and skepticism are out of place when it is a question of penetrating into the secret thoughts of nations, of finding the way to their hearts, and of bringing new truths before the minds of rulers.

Kindly remember me to Baron Suttner, and accept, gracious lady, my most respectful homage.

L. Trarieux, Senator

Enclosed were copies of the addresses sent by the Bureau of the Interparliamentary Union to Gladstone and the French and Italian deputies. I here print the text of these documents, long since buried in the archives and forgotten, because I believe that they afford valuable information for those of my readers who are seeking from my memoirs to acquaint themselves with the history of the peace movement. In the letter to Gladstone can be seen the development of the principle of the court of arbitration, which a few years later found expression in the Hague Tribunal and numerous arbitration treaties. The actual origin goes still further back, to be sure; but the phase here elucidated gave the impulse to its speedy accomplishment, as is shown still more clearly in the report of the Interparliamentary Conference of the following year (1894) at The Hague.

To the Prime Minister, William E. Gladstone

Your Excellency:

We have just read the debates that have been held in the English House of Commons[^[2]] concerning the motion of Mr. William Randal Cremer and Sir John Lubbock relative to a permanent treaty of arbitration between Great Britain and the United States, and we take the greatest possible satisfaction in the following passage from your speech[^[3]]:

“I will only say in conclusion these few words; and although these declarations in favor of arbitration and in the general interests of peace, as well as against vast military establishments, are of great value, there is another method of proceeding which, I think, in our limited sphere, we upon this bench have endeavored to promote, and to which I have attached very considerable value, and that is the promotion of what I may call a Central Tribunal in Europe, a Council of the Great Powers, in which it may be anticipated, or at all events may be favorably conjectured, that the rival selfishnesses, if I may use so barbarous an expression, may neutralize one another, and something like impartial authority may be attained for the settlement of disputes. I am quite convinced that if selfishness were to be sunk and each state were to attain to some tolerable capacity of forming a moderate estimate of its own claims, in such a case the action of a central authority in Europe would be of inestimable value.”

These declarations and resolutions, sir, have interested us greatly, and while we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the powerful support they give to the ideas of which we have constituted ourselves the official representatives in the eyes of Europe, we take it upon ourselves to emphasize their political importance.

Thanks to you, it is now a certainty that the great states will accept the idea of breaking with the barbaric rule of war and, by means of a systematic organization of international law, of preparing the way for the peaceful solution of conflicts such as might arise between the different nations. It seems to us that your wise and noble words cannot have too wide a publicity, and we shall endeavor to circulate them as far as possible in the states which we have the honor to represent.

But we do not confine ourselves to offering this public homage to you; we are also bold enough to append a respectful request.

Words are forgotten and signify nothing without deeds. It is far more possible for you than for us to give them an effectual sanction by taking the initiative for positive resolutions,—of course, as far as is permitted by diplomatic considerations.

It seems to us that England is in a position to set a great example by making a proposal like that made by the United States of America, and it would delight us if you regarded it as possible, now that the official negotiations with that great power have been begun, to go a step further and offer to negotiate arbitration treaties with such other powers as should be favorably disposed, since you have so openly declared yourself in their favor. In our opinion these would be the best means of assuring peace among the nations.

We believe that no voice would have greater authority than yours in bringing these new ideas to the attention of the governments, and that the result of such a work would be the noblest crown of a glorious career, which perhaps appears more splendid by reason of the services which you have performed in behalf of humanitarian ideas than of those which you have rendered to your own country.

The second address shows very distinctly what views were held during the first year of its existence by the Interparliamentary Board regarding the tasks and duties of the members of the Union. Our contemporaries who follow parliamentary proceedings will, alas, be able to attest that these tasks were not accomplished.

Letter to the French and Italian Deputies

Your Board of the Interparliamentary Conference has just completed its labors, and you will receive its report; but it has thought it expedient, before separating, to call your most earnest attention to the obligation which is incumbent upon you, of working with all your might to dissipate the clouds which of late have been rolling up between your two great countries.

The strained relations between France and Italy could not fail to awaken the apprehensions of the Interparliamentary Board, and, while it does not wish to criticise diplomatic actions, the modification of which is not within its province, it desires, nevertheless, to express the opinion that there exist no grounds for insoluble disagreement, and that cordial relations, which are of such weighty importance for the peace of the world, can be resumed.

If existing alliances—as the contracting parties are continually asserting—are intended only to guarantee the European balance of power, then there can be no reason for nations which are united by the holy bond of common origin to live on a footing of such enmity as might at any moment degenerate into menace. Exaggerated sensitiveness or regrettable misunderstandings are alone responsible for a state of affairs which at all costs must be cleared up. The French and the Italian people are fundamentally inspired by an eager desire for peace. The idea of an armed conflict is repugnant to them both. A fratricidal strife which should bring them face to face on the battlefield would be a real crime and would mean a backward step in civilization. Public opinion, it would seem, might be easily roused against such a misfortune. To enlighten public opinion, to remind it of its real interests,—this it is for which you should exert your influence. Endeavor above all things to make your colleagues in the parliaments to which you belong, share in your anxieties, which doubtless are equal to those borne by us. Conjure the journals of both your countries to be serviceable to you by avoiding in their discussions everything that might embitter the controversies; or, better still, let them use their efforts to calm excited feelings. Make it plain to your fellow-countrymen that such insignificant motives should not be allowed to end in the most horrible of all disasters.

Your board has no doubt, honored colleagues, that this act of intervention would be worthy of you and that it would redound to the glory of the Interparliamentary Conference, and it begs you most earnestly not to let our appeal remain unheard.

The ill feeling between Italy and France referred to in this letter has long since given way to a friendly relationship. But at that time it had reached the point that seemed to give occasion for the certain “inevitable war” always seen by the military circles as everywhere threatening; that is to say, beckoning. Then there is incitement in this direction on the part of the press, there are irritations among the people, and it comes to brawls and fights which keep adding to the bitterness.

In the summer of 1893 a fight had taken place in a workshop in a village of southern France,—Aigues-Mortes,—where Italians were employed. What first gave rise to it was the fact that an Italian workman washed some dirty trousers in a French spring. I find the following observation regarding this circumstance jotted down in my diary:

September 8. The international affairs of Europe rest on such sound and reasonable foundations that such an occasion is all that is required to bring so-called “high politics” into action, and to make historians resigned to the necessity of entering in their annals beside the War of the White and Red Roses the War of the Dirty Trousers.

The incident gave rise to many articles in the papers—the Aigues-Mortes story was headed “Franco-Italian Friction”—and to national demonstrations.

But fortunately there was already a peace movement. The Italian Chamber on the one side, with four hundred members belonging to the Interparliamentary Union; on the other the action of the Frenchmen, Frédéric Passy, Trarieux, and others, managed to dispel the danger. Of course the “war-in-sight-loving” circles were not contented. The following dispatch from Rome was sent to the Figaro on the twenty-second of August:

The Conservatives have agreed to send an address to the King; they blame the Ministry for showing too great weakness in hindering the national demonstrations and putting up with the demonstrations favorable to the French.

So only hostile demonstrations are to be encouraged!

XLIII
FROM DIARY AND PORTFOLIO

Extracts from diary · Caprivi in support of the military bill · Bebel’s interpellation · Invention of a bullet-proof cloth · Settlement of the Bering question · King Alexander to his Servians · Dynamite tragedies in Spain · Visit of the Russian fleet at Toulon · Marcoartu’s letter to me · His letter to Jules Simon · General inquiry of the Paris Figaro as to a gift for the Tsaritsa · My answer to it · Exchange of letters with Émile Zola

When I look back for further recollections of the year 1893, and turn the leaves of my diary to refresh my memory, I discover that I was not interested in incidents of my own life, but rather in the events of contemporary history, and especially in such political phenomena as appertained to questions of peace and war. Among the complicated doings of the world, the features which I followed—and still continue to follow—with passionate interest were the phases of a battle,—the battle which a new idea, a young movement, had begun to wage with deep-rooted existing phenomena. After the manifestations and impressions produced by the powerful “Old,” I listened toward the future and followed with the keenest attention and hopefulness the growth of the as yet invisible and feeble “New,” whereof the great mass of people still had no knowledge. I saw clearly that the tiny plant had started to grow, but I was also well aware how stony the soil was, how harsh were the winds that opposed the development of its life.

How different are the contents of my diary and the pictures in my memory now from those of my youth! Then the center was my own person and all that concerned it,—plans for an artistic career and for marriage, worldly pleasures, domestic cares, and such a lack of understanding and of interest in the events of the day that I scarcely knew what was going on; and a contemporaneous war was noted only after it had broken out, and was disposed of with a line in my day’s records. But since I had become engrossed in the peace question my soul had become a kind of seismograph, which was affected by the slightest political shocks.

Here are a few extracts from my diary of the year 1893:

January 18. Caprivi’s speech in support of the military bill was pure fanfare. It almost signalized the advance of the hostile troops through the Brandenburg Gate, and once more brought into circulation the word “offensive,” which had in a large measure gone out of fashion; for in the last twenty years pleas for armaments have been made only in the name of defense. The Danish Peace Society entered a protest against the insinuation in the Chancellor’s speech in regard to the probable attitude in the next war. As if, indeed, the next war were thus to be announced! We talk about the horrors of a possible war of the future in Europe, but the definite article we do not like to use,—we do not speak of “the next auto-da-fé.”

March 1. The question of peace and arbitration came up yesterday for open debate in the German Reichstag. Bebel inquires whether the authorities are going to join with England and the United States in their endeavors to bring about a solution of international differences by a court of arbitration. Secretary of State von Marschall replies that the United States had, in their brief communication, made no tender in this direction. Nature makes no leaps; still less does official politics. The question came to debate without result, but it was not pushed aside with a smile.

March 20. A man named Dowe is said to have invented a bullet-proof cloth. If the contest between resistance and penetration, as it is carried on between torpedo and armor plate at sea, is to involve the land forces also, there will probably ensue the accelerated ruin of the nations and a reductio ad absurdum of all warfare. Just imagine! a new military bill for providing the millions of the army with bullet-proof wadding,—this voted and furnished at the same time in all countries; and this, if war should break out at this stage of the game, would afford a lovely campaign of unwoundable opponents! Then there would have to be a hasty majority demand for new offensive weapons with bullet-proof-wadding-pierceable bombshells (fired, wherever possible, from mines and balloons, from the frog’s- and bird’s-eye view), then the introduction of armored umbrellas and mine-proof overshoes,—and all this for “the maintenance of Peace.”...

April 4. To-day the arbitrators meet in the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris, to settle the Bering question. Such an event ought to give the editorial writers of the whole world subject matter for extended observations, and ought to be accompanied by magnificent pageantry.

April 10. Our papers have published the news of the Bering arbitration without comment. On the other hand, the Westminster Gazette writes: “If the intrinsic importance of events and the outward demonstrations were in proportion, the report of the Bering arbitration would ring throughout the world to-day.” And the Daily Telegraph: “The Bering arbitration, as well as that on the Alabama question, affords mankind to-day a majestic spectacle.” An estimate of the importance of the event—typical of the daily press—is afforded by the Paris Figaro, which adds the observation that the seal question, if it is decided by the arbitration commission in a humanitarian manner, will involve a rise in the price of sealskins and persuade our fine ladies to have economical recourse to rabbit skins!

September 8. King Alexander addressed his Servians on his seventeenth birthday; “Heroes! For ten years I have belonged to the army, and as your general in chief (oberster Kriegsherr) I will live for the glory of the Servian arms!” Ah, how delightful to be still a child....

This entry of my diary makes me especially meditative when I compare it with later events,—the slaughter of the king in the year 1903 by Servian “heroes” with Servian weapons.

Beginning of November. Terrible dynamite tragedies have taken place in Spain. Bombs hurled in the auditorium of the Barcelona theater, spreading death and terror (the coming revolution, if righteous social reforms do not obviate it, will be unthinkably terrible through its explosive weapons); and the catastrophe of Santander,—a harbor, a whole harbor, in bright flames; ships blown up, thousands of human beings on the ground, heaps of corpses, a whole railway train shattered, houses transformed into piles of rubbish; the air rendered pestilential by the smell of burning powder and petroleum mills; chimneys flying through space; anchors flung from the bottom of the sea, three hundred meters into the air; the sea beaten and roaring, not by a storm but by the explosion of twenty-five cases of dynamite,—all this gives a foretaste of the deliberate, not accidental, episodes of future naval battles, in which the explosion of mines and the like is already provided for. With the era of explosives and electricity an annihilating power is put into men’s hands which demands that henceforth humanity come to the truth. The beast and the devil, the savage and the child,—all these must be overcome in the human race, if, with such means at hand, they are not to turn the earth into a hell, a madhouse, or a desert waste.

An event of the year 1893 which aroused my liveliest interest was the visit of the Russian fleet to Toulon and the fraternal festivities that were associated with it. I followed with close attention the twofold effect produced by this incident. It gave rise to chauvinistic passions and at the same time to “pacifistic” sentiments. Demonstrations in the one or the other direction took place alternately or broke out simultaneously. On the one hand the Dreibund, or Triple Alliance, on the other the Zweibund, or Double Alliance, were celebrated as guaranties of peace or as organizations for offensive enterprises; between the two lay the conception that they signified the established equipoise.

The official Russian utterances were unwearied in declaring that the visit of the fleet to Toulon was a peaceful demonstration, and in reiterating that absolutely nothing of an aggressive or provocative character could be related to the festivities in France. The French journals were constrained to print these assurances and the Figaro hastened to add: “Of course! Une manifestation essentiellement et exclusivement pacifique”; besides, the French press, and especially the Figaro, would never in the world have upheld any other manifestation! But a few days later the same Figaro proposed that during the Russian festivities “Les Danicheffs” should be performed in the Odéon Theater, “in which piece one passage would be certain to elicit storms of applause,—‘As long as there are Russians and Frenchmen and wild beasts, the Russians and French will stand in alliance against those wild beasts’”!

The whole tone of a large part of the Parisian press during the period preceding the festivities was calculated to exacerbate hatred of Germany. After a time, however, the festivities took the form of peace assurances, and the gala performances in honor of the Russian guests ended with an apotheosis representing peace.

At that time I received the following letter from Senator Marcoartu:

Madrid (Senate), November 13, 1893

Dear Madam:

While in Paris I witnessed the Franco-Russian demonstrations in favor of peace. This once more awoke in me the idea which I promulgated in 1876 in my English work, “Internationalism” (or the ten years’ truce of God). Herewith I send you the letter that I wrote to Jules Simon. It seems to me that the friends of peace, instead of falling asleep under the tent of arbitration, should now start an agitation in behalf of a ten years’ truce. The thing would be feasible and salutary.

Another question of present moment to which I should like to call public attention is the neutralization of straits, isthmuses, and the like. On this point read the bulletin of the Société d’économie politique, Paris, 1892, p. 88, and in Le Matin of October 29, 1893, the interview which an editor of that paper had with me during the Franco-Russian festivities.

In cordial friendship, your very devoted

Marcoartu

Here is the letter to Jules Simon:

Paris, October 29, 1893

Dear Sir:

The congratulatory telegram from his Majesty the Emperor of Russia to the President of the French Republic, in which he declares his desire to coöperate in the confirmation of universal peace, has made such a vivid impression on me that I am addressing you with the following question:

Do you not believe that, in view of Gladstone’s speech in the English House of Commons, on the 16th of June, in which he urges the establishment of a permanent international court of arbitration, and in view of the Emperor’s telegram from Gatchina, the moment has now arrived for a sincere and honorable peace agreement for the whole civilized world? Since a very strong compact between the great empire of the North and the great French Republic for the establishment of universal peace exists; since, further, as you told me, the Emperor of powerful Germany has been outspoken in favor of peace; since the sovereigns and public opinion of Austria and Italy favor peace; since England has no thought of other than commercial conquests; since the whole world is sensible of the necessity of stable peace in order to diminish the colossal burdens which the present war footing, even in time of peace, entails upon the nations; would it not be possible to bring about a sort of truce of God, to last until after the World’s Exposition at Paris in 1900, which is going to demonstrate by its splendor the progress in civilization made by the nineteenth century?

An international agreement would have to bind nations to refrain from every hostile action during those ten years. Every question of war would be postponed; an Areopagus would have to settle all differences not determined diplomatically.

During this new peace era governments would be occupied in developing the resources of their countries, improving the condition of public health, furthering education and works of general utility, settling economic, social, and financial questions, or at least studying how finally to civilize countries still backward, so that by the year 1900 all nations would have the opportunity to show how far they had progressed intellectually and materially, and by how much human prosperity had been increased.

We have lived through twenty years of peace in constant dread of war; now let an attempt be made for once to bring about a ten years’ peace, free from the care and cost of war.[^[4]] Many years ago I wrote:

“In the first third of the century Steam said to the earth, ‘There are no mountains any more’; and the rails have made smooth the surface of the planet.

“In the second third of the century Electricity spoke to the waters: ‘There is no ocean any more’; and the thought-bearing wires encircle the globe.

“To-day I hope and beseech God that in the last third of the century Reason may say to men, ‘There is no war any more.’”[^[5]]

Accept, dear sir, my, etc.

Arturo de Marcoartu

Apropos of the Franco-Russian festivities the Paris Figaro published an inquiry as to what gift should be sent to the Empress of Russia as a memento of the Toulon days. I sent in an answer to the question. Together with many other suggestions, the paper (under date of October 7) printed mine, introducing it with the following words:

We award the prize to the jewel proposed by Baroness Berthe de Suttner,—an olive branch in diamonds, the significance of which she thus explains:

“Pacific demonstration,—such is the character which the Russian government has declared its wish to give to the visit of its squadron to France; therefore the jewel offered to the Tsaritsa to commemorate this event should be an emblem of peace.

“And precisely because the ultra patriots (les chauvins) of all countries will take advantage of the Franco-Russian festivities to attribute to them or see in them a defiant and threatening character, the partisans of peace must take this occasion to emphasize the opposite tendency.

“At the bar of history a peculiar situation will be presented by this year 1893: two groups of allied powers, believing themselves reciprocally threatened, having exhausted all their forces of sacrifice and devotion in preparing an efficacious defense, declare loudly, in the face of Europe, that their dearest desire, their most sacred mission, is to spare our continent the unimaginable horror of a future conflagration. Both of them, while making this solemn proclamation of pacific intentions, are at the same time exhibiting their formidable military forces, their keen swords, their invincible armor. Both sides have demonstrated that their alliances and their friendships are assured, that they are ready to fulfill all their obligations and kindle with every enthusiasm. Thus they find themselves face to face, equal in power, equal in dignity, and—with the exception of a few divergent secondary interests—desirous of the same thing,—peace.

“Unless one or both lie—and what right would one have to make such an accusation?—this situation can have logically no other end than a definitive pacification; consequently overtures might be made from one side or the other, or simultaneously, without the slightest imputation of weakness or of fear.

“Peace offered by the stronger may be humiliating for the weaker; and hitherto, in fact, treaties of peace have been signed only after a war and under the dictation of the conqueror. But in the present conditions, the element of the ‘weaker party’ having disappeared, a new element might make its advent into the history of social evolution, namely, the treaty of peace before—that is to say, in place of—war; in other words, the end of the barbarous age.

“If the days which are in preparation are called to facilitate the greatest triumph which the genius of humanity will have ever won, the jewel which shall commemorate them will be the most beautiful adornment which ever a queen wore. The olive branch inaugurated by the Tsaritsa might in future fêtes be adopted by the wives of all monarchs or presidents who were gathered together; and as the emblem need not invariably be in diamonds, the women of the people might likewise adorn themselves with it, for only the festivals of peace can be at the same time festivals of liberty.”

Here also let one bit of French correspondence be added from the year 1893. In connection with the annual meeting of my Union I desired to get from Émile Zola an expression of his sympathy, and I asked him for it. Here is his reply:

Paris, December 1, 1893

Madame:

Alas! I dream, as do all of you, of disarmament, of universal peace. But, I confess, I fear that it is simply a dream; for I see in all directions threats of war arising, and, unfortunately, I do not believe that the effort of reason and of pity, which humanity ought to make toward exchanging the great fraternal embrace within a brief time (pour échanger à bref délai le grand baiser fraternel), is within the range of possibility.

What I can promise you is to work in my little corner (mon petit coin), with all my powers and with all my heart for the reconciliation of the nations.

Accept, madame, etc.,

Émile Zola

I did not want to leave this letter unanswered. I wrote back:

Château de Harmannsdorf, December 13, 1893

Master:

Accept my sincerest thanks; your letter, containing the precious promise that you will work with all your heart for the reconciliation of the nations, has aroused the enthusiasm of our general assembly.

The fraternal embrace? Universal love?... You are right; humanity has not as yet got to that point. But it does not require mutual love (tendresse mutuelle) to give up killing one another. What exists to-day, and what the peace leagues are combating, is the system of a destructive, organized, legitimized hatred, such as does not in the last analysis exist any longer in human hearts.

There has been talk of late of an international conference, having in view a coalition against the danger of anarchy. Never will the foolishness of the present situation have been more glaring than when these representatives of states which are living together in absolute anarchy—since they acknowledge no superior power—shall deliberate around the same table on methods of protecting themselves against five or six criminal bombs, while at the same time they will go on threatening one another with a hundred thousand legal bombs!

Perhaps the idea might occur to them of saying: To unite in face of a common enemy, we must be reconciled; to defend civilization against barbarism, let us begin by being civilized ourselves; if we desire to protect society from the danger which the action of a madman may inflict upon it, let us, first of all, do away with the thousandfold more terrible danger which the frown of one of the mighty of the earth would be sufficient to let loose upon it; if we wish to punish the lawless, let us recognize a law above ourselves; if we wish to parry the blows of the desperate, let us cease to spend billions in fomenting despair.

But in order that the official delegates may use this reasonable language, they must have back of them the universal acclaim (la clameur universelle) to encourage them, or, better still, to compel them to do so.

The evolution of humanity is not a dream, it is a fact scientifically proved. Its end cannot be the premature destruction toward which it is being precipitated by the present system; its end must be the reign of law in control of force. Arms and ferocity develop in inverse ratio,—the tooth, the big stick, the sword, the musket, the explosive bomb, the electric war engine; and, on the other side, the wild beast, the savage, the warrior, the old soldier, the fighter of to-day (so-called safeguard of peace), the humane man of the future, who, in possession of a power of boundless destructiveness, will refuse to use it.

Whether this future be near or far depends on the work done in les petits coins. Allow me, then, monsieur, not to share in your hélas! but to congratulate myself in the name of all the peace workers to whom you have promised your powerful aid,—a promise which I note with a feeling of deep gratitude.

Accept my, etc.,

Berthe de Suttner

XLIV
VARIOUS INTERESTING LETTERS

Increase of correspondence · Countess Hedwig Pötting · Gift from Duke von Oldenburg · Schloss Erlaa · The duke’s consort · Peace efforts of Prince Peter von Oldenburg thirty years ago · Letter from this prince to Bismarck · Letter from Björnstjerne Björnson

My public activity brought numberless voices from all parts of the world into my house. Signed or anonymous letters; letters from my own country; letters from other parts of Europe and from beyond the sea; letters with explosions of admiration or of coarseness; letters requesting information or making all sorts of propositions for the surest and speediest attainment of our object,—a farmer proposed a special manure system, which, through the creation of good harvests and the consequent enrichment of the people, would unquestionably lead to national peace; manuscripts of from ten to a hundred pages, containing treatises on the problem of war; offers of lifelong zeal in the service of the cause, if only the person might be assured a satisfactory sum in compensation for giving up his profession,—all this sort of thing came to me by mail in ever-increasing proportions.

Of course it was not possible for me to answer them all, and this the more because I had not ceased to carry on my literary labors; at that time I was writing my novel Die Tiefinnersten, and My Own, who assisted me as much as he could in my correspondence and in editing the review, was working at a second sequel to his Kinder des Kaukasus.

Many of the letters were really so interesting that they could not be left unanswered. One day, after the evening meeting of the Peace Society, which had been held under my chairmanship, I got such a beautiful letter, glowing with such genuine enthusiasm, that the desire awoke in me to become acquainted with the writer. The signature was that of one of my own rank, also a canoness, and this very circumstance astonished me. It is not consonant with the nature of the aristocratic women of Austria, particularly of the elder canonesses (Chorschwestern) of the nunneries, to be enthusiastic in behalf of politically revolutionary ideas, and to give spontaneous and frank utterance to such enthusiasm. So I answered the letter by going myself to the writer’s residence, and, as I did not find her at home, I left my card with a few hearty words on it.

The following day she hastened to me, and as a result we formed a cordial friendship. To-day I have no dearer friend than the Countess Hedwig Pötting, and Hedwig has no truer friend than I. We absolutely understood each other. And an equally profound mutual understanding arose between her and my husband. Her views so absolutely coincided with his, that they came to the conclusion they must have been brother and sister in some previous incarnation, and they called each other Siriusbruder and Siriusschwester.

Intimate friendship rarely exists without nicknames, and so I used to be called, not only by Hedwig but also by My Own, not Bertha but Löwos, and I used to call Hedwig die Hex (the witch). That does not sound very friendly, but as it was the pet name which her own idolized mother—a splendid old lady of clear and open mind—called her by, I also adopted it. Die Hex helped me faithfully in my life work; she became one of the officers of the Union; she adapted my novel, Die Waffen nieder, for young people under the title Marthas Tagebuch (“Martha’s Diary”); she gave me much useful counsel; and in many trying hours was a support and comfort to me.

“Yesterday at Erlaa received a very valuable gift”; this entry I find in my diary of May, 1894. Erlaa is the name of a castle in the vicinity of Vienna, occupied by Duke Elimar von Oldenburg and his family. There we were often invited to dinner. The castle is surrounded by a splendid park, and I remember how, during that May time, the intoxicating perfume of elder blossoms poured in at the open terrace doors, and what a sweet tumult thousands of songsters made in the shrubbery. The duke’s consort—she was called duchess from courtesy, but, inasmuch as she was morganatically married, she had only the baronial title—was a striking personage of tall, overslender, willowy figure. Being very musical, she delighted in attracting artists into her house, and she herself, as well as the duke, used to spend many evenings at the piano and melodeon, or with the violin and cello. The duchess—since every one gave her that title, I will call her so too—was not particularly well disposed to me. I discovered that afterwards. Coming from a sternly puritanic family, she found my free religious views rather repugnant to her. I have letters from her in which she attempted to convert me to stricter articles of faith; but I learned through remarks that she made to others that she accused me of “materialism,” that my novel Die Tiefinnersten had particularly displeased her, because in it—according to her idea—I ridiculed everything ideal, profound, or sacred. Now the novel ridicules only the stilted and mystical style of those who are always making use of the words “profound” and “inmost,” when they cannot find anything clear to say.

The circumstances connected with the gift mentioned in my diary were these: in the course of a conversation at table, when the subject of peace was mooted, the duke said to me: “I am not the first one of my family, baroness, to be interested in your cause. My father’s brother, Prince Peter von Oldenburg, worked in his day for the abolition of war. Although on his mother’s side he was grandson of the Emperor Paul, and although he held the rank of a general in the Russian infantry and was at the head of the Stavodub regiment of dragoons, he was a militant friend of peace. He did not regard the matter simply as an ideal and as a dream to be realized in centuries to come, but worked strenuously to bring it about; he traveled from court to court, laid his ideas before the Queen of England and the King of Prussia; yet at that time, thirty years ago, his efforts remained fruitless....”

“What!” I exclaimed; “and nobody heard anything about it!”

“My uncle kept on resolutely with his efforts,” continued the duke. “I possess the draft of a letter addressed to Bismarck in 1873, in which he set forth his ideas,—also without result.”

“Oh, if I might see that letter!”

“It has never been published, but you shall have a copy of it.”

With the heartiest thanks I accepted the gift. Here is the letter written to the aged Chancellor:

Your Serene Highness:

Fearing that I may have no opportunity for a serious conversation with you during your busy sojourn in St. Petersburg, I am bold enough to present in writing what, by word of mouth, would probably be less explicit and evident.

My letters to your gracious sovereign, as well as my application to M. Thiers and the steps that I have taken in trying to induce my imperial master to assure the peace of Europe forever, are well known to your Highness. With the same object in view I applied to the ex-Emperor Napoleon in the year 1863, and I have reason to believe that during and after Sedan he must have regretted having acted in opposition to my views and those of so many other right-thinking men.

Who knows better than your Serene Highness the situation of Europe and Germany? Is it satisfactory or not? The answer to this question I leave to the great statesman whose name will be immortal in the history of the world.

Surely every right-thinking person was rejoiced at the meeting of the three emperors in Berlin. The visit of your Emperor at St. Petersburg strengthens the opinion that a guaranty for peace is to be found in the friendship of two powerful imperial states existing side by side. But how contradictory to the peace idea are the enormous military establishments of all states! Even Russia is now introducing the Prussian system of universal conscription, and, although the Prussians regard this as a guaranty of peace, yet that increase of the army and of the military budget is a heavy burden for Russia, diminishing its resources for prosperity.

During my visit with M. Thiers in Versailles last year he said to me:

“Que voulez-vous que nous fassions? Nous sommes les faibles, les vaincus, mais du moment qu’il y aura des propositions de désarmement de la part des vainqueurs, nous sommes prêts à entrer en négociations.”[^[6]]

I reported this conversation to my emperor and wrote as follows to yours:

“A solemnly serious, fateful moment has come. In the scales of Destiny the mighty word of the German Emperor is of heavy weight. The history of the world is the tribunal of the world (Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht). William the Victorious is chosen by the God of battles to bear the immortal name of the Blessed, as founder of peace.”

This historical mission he shall and must fulfill: God has aided him to make the volcanic center of revolutions harmless for a long time to come, and, we hope, forever. Now it must be his task to extirpate en principe the root of evil, the highest potency of sin,—war; for never will a permanent prosperity obtain on earth as long as governments (1) act contrary to Christianity; (2) stand in the way of true civilization.

What, according to the notions of the law, is the essential characteristic of the civis? Obedience to the laws. But war is a disorganization of legal conditions; therefore it is the renunciation of civilization. In the present circumstances civilization is only an illusion, consisting purely of intelligence for material objects, such as railways, telegraphs, and the invention of instruments of annihilation.

After the tremendous successes of the German arms in the last war the question arises, with whom and for what object shall any other war be waged? Prussia’s position in Germany and vis-à-vis to Austria and Denmark is clear; Italy united; France harmless and on good terms with Russia,—all this is a guaranty of peace.

What problem, then, is before us now? That of combating revolutionary, communistic, democratic ideas, that are opposed to religion, the monarchical principle, and the social foundation of the State.[^[7]] Subversive ideas, however, are not overcome by bayonets, but by means of wise ideas and regulations, which must proceed only from those who reign by the grace of God and are chosen by Providence to establish the happiness of nations.

The peace idea would be the very best means of meeting the French idea of revenge. Although the French are not to be relied on as a nation, I am persuaded that the notion of a perpetual peace would nevertheless appear plausible to the propertied and intelligent mass of the population, even if the government conducted by M. Thiers should be supplanted by another; for the motto of the French is gagner pour jouir, and I believe that the mass of the population would prefer jouissance rather than gloire.

Even in Prussia the multitudinous lawsuits against persons who try to get rid of compulsory service show how many feel that it is a burden; and God forbid that the alleviation should ever proceed from below instead of from above.

The latest history of Russia is an edifying example of what the will of a noble, humane, and magnanimous monarch can do to benefit his people. So when two monarchs, related by race and friendship, clasp hands, may God aid them to make their union a blessing for their countries and for suffering mankind.

In my memorial to your emperor I said, “Only a fool or a knave can think of a state without an armed force”; and in my letter to M. Thiers I wrote, abolir la force armée serait une idée criminelle et insensée.

One cannot express one’s self more energetically on this point. In Prussia, to abolish a system to which it owes its historical position would be as imbecile as for Russia to think of holding the Poles in control and of protecting the tremendous frontier from the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean against savage tribes, without an army. The question, therefore, is simply this: What numerical extension should one give to the principle of universal compulsory service, and in what proportion should the military budget stand to the other expenditures of the State?

In my humble opinion it should be thus regulated:

1. En principe abolish war between civilized nations and let the governments guarantee to each other the possession of their respective territories.

2. Settle questions at issue by an international commission of arbitration, after the example of England and America.

3. Determine the strength of armaments (die Stärke der bewaffneten Macht) by an international convention.

Even should the abolition of war be relegated by many to the domain of fairy tales, I nevertheless have the courage to believe that therein lies the only means of saving the Church, the monarchical principle, and society, and of curing the State of the cancerous evil which at the present time is preventing its perfection; and, on the other hand, through the reduction of the war budget, of procuring for the State the following means for its internal development and prosperity: (1) reduction of taxes; (2) improvement in education and promotion of science and art; (3) increase in salaries, especially of teachers and the clergy; (4) improvement in the condition of the laboring classes; (5) provision for beneficent objects.

The accomplishment of such lofty, purely Christian, and humane ideas, proceeding directly from two such mighty monarchs, would be the most glorious victory over the principle of evil; a new era of blessing would begin; one cry of jubilation would ring through the universe and find a response among the angels of heaven. If God is on my side, who can be against me, and what worldly power could resist those who would act in the name of the Lord?

This is the humble opinion of a man growing old, heavily tried by fate, one who, not fearing the opinions of the world or its criticism, looking to God and eternity, merely following the voice of his conscience, seeks nothing else on this earth than a quiet grave beside his dear ones who have gone before.

Dixi et salvavi animam meam.

With the highest consideration, I have the honor of being

Your Serene Highness’s most devoted servant

Peter, Prinz von Oldenburg

St. Petersburg, April 15 (27), 1873

What answer Bismarck gave, or whether he replied at all, Duke Elimar did not know.

There is surely nothing more interesting than such old authentic letters. They show how ideas later become facts, and how events which afterwards develop were, long before, thoughts in men’s minds. Here I find also among my correspondence the following letter from Björnson. In view of the disunion of the Scandinavian countries, which eventuated ten years later, it assumes a quite especial significance:

Schwaz, Tirol, July 20, 1894

My dear Comrade:

—But be consoled; when Norway becomes mistress of her external affairs (this is the object of the struggle) we shall go immediately to Russia and demand a permanent court of arbitration for all disagreements. If that succeeds,—and why should it not?—we will proceed to all other matters. As soon as our relationship to Sweden permits of it, we shall transform our army into an internal police force.

One example is stronger than a thousand apostles! The great majority of the Norwegians have wholly lost belief in the beneficence of armaments and are ready to set the example.

At the same time Sweden is arming on a scale quite extraordinary for a people not rich. The general feeling in Sweden—so I am told—threatens Norway with war, merely because Norway desires to have charge of its own affairs.

Sweden might educate us by means of war to be good comrades in arms! It would be the first time in history that the two great opposites had stood in such blunt opposition,—on the one side a permanent court of arbitration for all eventual quarrels, and no army any more; on the other side, war to compel us to keep a larger army and to enter a firmer military alliance.

But I trust that the struggle will end peaceably; I trust that the general feeling in Norway in favor of the principle of “arbitration instead of war” is also making progress in Sweden. In fact, already the spirit of freedom in Norway—to the great annoyance of the highly conservative court of the Swedish nobility and other great lords who are powerful there—has spread widely in Sweden.

Accept my heartiest congratulations and gratitude, my dear Baroness; were it not so far, I would come and make you a visit!

Your most devoted

Björnstjerne Björnson

XLV
PEACE CONGRESS IN ANTWERP AND INTERPARLIAMENTARY CONFERENCE AT THE HAGUE

Preparation for the Congress by the Belgian government · Houzeau de Lehaye · A reminiscence of the battlefield of Sedan · Concerning free trade · Audience with King Leopold · Invitation to the Interparliamentary Conference · Reception the evening before · Pithy sentences from Rahusen’s address · Opening · “No other cause in the whole world....” · Second day of deliberation · Stanhope · Gladstone’s proposal · Debate over the tribunal plan · Dr. Hirsch puts on the brake · Rejoinder by Frédéric Passy and Houzeau · Randal Cremer · Concluding festivities in Scheveningen

My memory retains as the most important events of the year 1894 our participation in the Sixth Peace Congress at Antwerp and in the Interparliamentary Conference which followed immediately at The Hague. Another festal journey into unfamiliar countries, and another stage of progress in the triumphant march of an Idea!

Before the assembling of the Congress the Belgian Minister of State, Le Bruyn, laid before King Leopold a report setting forth the remarkable growth of the movement and adducing as a proof of it the fact that in countries like Austria and Germany, which hitherto had held aloof from the cause, great peace societies had sprung into existence and found fruitful soil. The king’s reply to this report was the establishment of a committee whose duty it should be to forward the labors of the Peace Congress that was to meet at Antwerp. The committee, composed of thirty members, included the most distinguished names in Belgium, in large part officials connected with the government.

The opening session took place on the twentieth of August, in the great hall of the Athenæum. We had arrived the day before, and had looked about a little in the commercial metropolis of Belgium, and had spent the evening in pleasant intercourse with several of our friends who had journeyed thither from all parts of the world.

Our new president, Houzeau de Lehaye, was in the number,—a lively little man, full of wit and possessing the gift of fascinating eloquence. As chairman he conducted the proceedings with tact and firmness, and whenever in succeeding Congresses he took part in the debates, as he was particularly apt to do if any obstacles had to be avoided, one could always depend on his tact.

“Twenty-four years ago,” Houzeau told us that first day, “I visited the battlefield of Sedan. I have the impression of it still before me,—those corpses, those temporary graves, those flocks of ravens, the troops of maddened horses tearing over the plain, the wounded and dying lying in their gore, the teeth clinched in the agony of tetanus, the columns of prisoners of war, the heaps of discarded weapons, and in the midst of a grass plat the brass instruments of a military band surprised by the enemy in the climax of the saber song from ‘The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein.’ And I saw white sheets of letter paper, covered with the simple messages of love of mothers and sweethearts, flying round in the autumn wind until they fell into lakes of blood; and the horrible vision of countless bones and bleeding flesh all trodden down into the mire.... The peasants had fled from their villages across the neighboring boundary, and were then returning slowly to find misery and ruin, to which they would later have to succumb; and this,” he added, as he concluded his reminiscences with restrained passion, “is this to be the sum of civilization?”

Houzeau de Lehaye is a decided advocate of free trade. In his opening address, in which he depicted the errors and prejudices lying at the foundation of any defense of the institution of war, he said:

There is still another error which does not indeed involve a brutal battle of saber and cannon, but nevertheless is not much less calamitous. In spite of all the counter-evidence of the political economists, in spite of repeated results based on experience, yet how widespread is the prejudice that a nation becomes poor when the prosperity of neighboring peoples makes too rapid advances. And in order to preserve an imaginary equilibrium they hasten to have recourse to a protective tariff. And this war of the tariffs is not less destructive than the other. By a righteous retribution this weapon chiefly wounds those that wield it. And all these errors have their foundation in the false notion of the source of wealth and prosperity. It is worth while to note that there is only one source,—labor!

One would think that such simple truths would not require to be stated at this late day, for it is clear enough that wealth can be increased only from the creation of material things and not through mere change of place,—from Peter’s pocket into Paul’s; a transaction which, in addition, often means the destruction of the values shuffled this way and that. But the simpler, the more self-evident a truth is, the more it is wrapped up in the veils and fogs of old prejudices and current phraseology, and therefore it does much good to hear it once again spoken out so frankly and clearly.

This time there was a Portuguese at the Congress,—Magelhaes Lima, the publisher of the radical-liberal newspaper O Seculo. From America came Dr. Trueblood, who has never missed any of the European Peace Congresses.

I remember a lovely trip on the Schelde in a steamship put at our service by the government. Then a trip was made to Brussels between two sessions. A deputation of five members of the Congress, conducted by Houzeau, was received in audience by King Leopold. Frédéric Passy, Count Bothmer from Wiesbaden, my husband, and I made up the deputation. We drove from the railway station to the palace. In the audience chamber the king came to meet us,—recognizable instantly even at a distance by his long, square white beard,—and Houzeau presented the rest of us. I no longer recollect anything that was said; probably it was of small consequence. I only know that the king seemed to be on very jovial terms with Houzeau de Lehaye, for he slapped him several times laughingly on the shoulder. I remember one sentence that King Leopold said to us:

“The sovereign of a perpetually neutral state, like Belgium, must naturally feel interested in the question of international pacification. But of course,” he added,—and thereby all that he had said before was “of course” taken back,—“to protect this neutrality we must be armed.”

“What we are working for in our circles, your Majesty,” one of us replied, “is that the security of treaties should rest on law and honor and not on the power of arms.”

Houzeau did not wait to be dismissed, but himself gave the signal for departure. “The train does not wait—it knows no etiquette,” said he. There was another little tape d’amitié on our president’s shoulder: “You care mighty little for etiquette yourself, my dear Houzeau....”

Immediately after the Antwerp Congress the Interparliamentary Conference was opened. This year, having been invited by the Netherlands government, it met at The Hague. As we were not Parliamentarians we had no title to be present, but Minister van Houzeau had sent me the following letter under date of May 23:

Dear Baroness:

On account of my appointment as Minister I have left the committee on organization of the Interparliamentary Conference; yet I hope, as representative of the government, to give to the Conference the address of welcome in September. The limited space in the hall where the meetings are to be held will permit only a small number of guests and representatives of the press to be present; nevertheless the committee will doubtless assure so prominent an advocate of the peace cause a place among the very first. It will delight me to greet you as well as your husband here in September, and also our friend Pirquet and, if possible, others from your country.

Our hospitable city, with its splendid beach, will permit visitors to combine the useful with the agreeable; and the assured visit of many prominent men will, it is to be hoped, permit the Conference, in which the presidents of both our chambers will take part, to accomplish something beneficial in regard to the practical promotion of international arbitration.

With friendly greeting, your devoted

S. van Houzeau

Thus the opportunity was afforded us of being present during the notable debates of that national representative Conference which was the precursor—and, one may say the cause—of the later Conference of nations at The Hague.

On the day of the opening session, the third of September, there was a reception in the rotunda of the Zoölogical Garden. Here the participants and the guests met together. The president of the Conference, Rahusen, made an address to the foreign Parliamentarians, from which I took down in my notebook the following sentences:

If we pass beyond the boundaries of our country, do we imagine ourselves in a hostile land? Have you had any such experience in coming here? I believe that I am justified in saying No.

... It is a phenomenon of our time that we find a solidarity among the nations such as did not formerly exist.

... I know well that there are still men who ridicule such ideas; meantime let us rejoice that no one condemns them.

... The morning glow of international righteousness indicates the setting of the old war sun. If the last rays of this sun—which, decrepit with age, has already lost its blaze and its warmth—shall once be wholly extinguished,[^[8]] then we, or those who come after us, shall be filled with jubilant joy, and shall be astonished that the civilized world could ever have called in brute force as an arbiter between nations no longer inimical to each other but bound together by so many common interests.

After this official part of the evening the company sauntered out into the open air, where the friends, some promenading, some taking places at tables about the rotunda, met and remained chatting till midnight.

At ten o’clock the next morning the formal opening took place in the assembly hall of the First Chamber of the States-General, a hall not very large but as high as a house and having its ceiling decorated with splendid paintings. I had a place in the gallery and enjoyed the magnificent spectacle, as the representatives of fourteen different parliaments took their seats one after another at the green-covered tables, while the members of the government who were to greet the Conference took places on the president’s dais. Minister van Houten, of the Interior Department, made the first address:

“No other cause in the whole world,” said he, “equals in magnitude that which is to be advocated here.”

I must delay a moment over this statement. It expresses what at that time formed (and forms equally to-day) the substratum of my feelings, thoughts, and endeavors, and likewise explains why in this second portion of my memoirs the phases of the peace movement take up so much space.

“No other cause in the whole world equals this in magnitude,”—I am not expressing a personal opinion, I am quoting; this is a conviction so deeply and religiously instilled into my mind (this is usually called a vocation!) that I cannot confess it often and loudly enough. Even if I knew that nine tenths of the cultured world still disregarded and ignored the movement, and one of these nine tenths went so far as to be hostile to it,—that is of no consequence; I appeal to the future. The twentieth century will not end without having seen human society shake off, as a legal institution, the greatest of all scourges,—war.

In writing my diary I am accustomed, when I am making note of situations which are threatening or promising, to mark them with an asterisk, then to turn over twenty or thirty blank pages and write, “Well, how has it resulted? See p. —.” Then when, in the course of my entries, I come quite unexpectedly on this question, I can answer it. And so here I ask some much, much later reader, who perchance has fished this book out from some second-hand dealer’s dust-covered bookshelf, “Well, how has it resulted? Was I right?” Then he may write on the margin the answer,—I see the gloss already before me,—“Yes, thank God!” (19??).

And now, back to The Hague, 1894. The proceedings of the first day resulted in nothing noteworthy. The second made up for it! Whoever reads the report of that day’s proceedings from a critically historical point of view can detect in it the embryo of the later Hague Tribunal, which, in turn, is at present only the embryo of what is yet to be.

Goals attained? The believer in evolution does not require them for his assurance; the line which shows the direction taken is enough.

I took my seat in the gallery in the greatest excitement, as at the theater when an interesting star performance is promised by the programme. The order of the day ran: “Preliminary Plan for the Organization of an International Tribunal of Arbitration,” presented by Stanhope.

A new man,—the Right Honorable Philip James Stanhope, Lord Chesterfield’s younger brother and intimate friend of the “grand old man,” Gladstone. At Gladstone’s direct instance Stanhope had come to the Conference in order to put before it the outcome of June 16, 1893, when in the English House of Commons Cremer’s motion was carried, and the Premier, in supporting it, appended the dictum that arbitration treaties were not the last word in assuring the peace of the world; a permanent central tribunal, a higher council of the powers, must be established.

Stanhope began his speech amid the breathless attention of the assembly. He speaks in the purest French, almost without accent. And in spite of all his unruffled clarity he speaks with such fire that he is frequently interrupted with shouts of applause. After he had explained Gladstone’s proposal he proceeded:

It is our duty now to bring this demand courageously before the governments.

Everything which up to the present time appertains to so-called international law has been established without precise principles, and rests on accidents, on precedents, on the arbitrary decisions of princes. Consequently, international law has made the least progress of all sciences, and presents a contradictory mass of ambiguous waste paper (de paperasses vagues).

Two great needs stand before the civilized nations,—an international tribunal, and a code corresponding to the modern spirit and elastic enough to fit new progress. This would insure the triumph of culture and do away with the criminal recourse to deadly encounters.

As things are to-day, fresh military loans are demanded in every parliament, and we are lashed by the press until we give our consent.[^[9]] It would be otherwise if we could reply: “The dangers against which the armaments demanded are to protect us would be obviated by the tribunal which we desire.” Therefore a project ought to be elaborated which we might lay before the governments.

Here Stanhope developed a few points which were to be established as the basis of the organization, and he concluded with these words:

If next year we approach the governments with such a plan, and if our action were in unison, the future would give us the victory; at all events, the moral victory would be assured to us in having done our whole duty.

Then came a debate. The German deputy, Dr. Hirsch,—from the beginning the Germans have performed the function of the brake in the Peace Conferences,—speaks against Stanhope’s proposition, nevertheless recognizing the noble ideas so eloquently presented:

It is essential that the members of the Conference should pass only such resolutions as are comprehensible and practicable, and as may be presented to the parliaments with some probability of their being accepted; now Herr von Caprivi would certainly never take into consideration the project of an international tribunal. We ought to avoid also inviting the curse of absurdity through plans of that kind; for opponents are only too much inclined to ridicule the members of the Conference as dreamers.

Houzeau de Lehaye springs from his seat like a jack-in-the-box:

In view of such great ideas [he shouts] as those that have just been developed, in view of the establishment of a cause by such men as Stanhope and Gladstone, the word “absurd” should never be uttered again! [Applause.] I second the motion.

Now the revered Passy arises:

I should like to enter my protest against a second word which my honored friend, Dr. Hirsch, has used,—the word “never.” No great advancement, no innovation, has ever been carried through, but that the prediction has been made at the beginning that it could never be done. For example, that parliamentarians from all nations should meet to discuss the peace of the world, that they should do this in the assembly hall of the Upper House of a monarchical state,—if the question had been propounded five years ago, When will all this happen? who would not have answered, “Never!”

And, in fact,—Passy accidentally hit upon the very figure,—five years later, on the 29th of July, 1899, the International Tribunal was established in the very city where the plan for such a tribunal, proposed by Gladstone, was laid on the table. Dr. Hirsch’s “never” did not last very long! To be sure, this tribunal does not as yet possess a mandatory character; the protesters who were active in objecting to the establishment of the tribunal at all saw to it that it should not have this character. And all who cling to the institution of war are also persuaded that this shall never be.

Many other speakers supported the motion, and at last it was adopted with acclamation.

I felt deeply moved; so did My Own, who sat beside me; we exchanged a silent pressure of the hand.

The members were then chosen who should formulate the plan which was to be laid before the next year’s Conference.

This plan,—I anticipate events in order to show that that session was really historical,—this plan was presented to the Conference of 1895, at Brussels, was accepted and sent to all the governments, and assuredly contributed to the calling of the Hague Conference in 1898, and served as a basis for the establishment of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and its regulations.

That session brought one other sensation. After Stanhope’s motion was adopted, Randal Cremer mounted the platform. He was greeted with loud applause. He, together with Frédéric Passy, had been the inaugurator of the Interparliamentary Conferences. He had secured the signatures for the Anglo-American arbitration treaty, first in his own country and then, after crossing the ocean, in the United States; and it was due to him that the motion on that famous sixteenth of June, 1893, was adopted with Gladstone’s aid. His mode of speaking is simple and unadorned; he betrays clearly the former laboring man.

After the session he came up to us in the corridor and informed us that before leaving home he talked with Lord Rosebery; that he had not been permitted to repeat at the Conference what the Premier had said to him, but it had been of the most encouraging character. His feeling of confidence communicated itself to us.

The concluding banquet took place in the assembly room at Scheveningen. The orchestra played all the national hymns in succession. I sat between Rahusen and Houzeau. Stanhope delivered an extraordinarily keen and witty speech, the venerable Passy one full of eloquence and fire. I also had to speak. Fireworks were set off on the esplanade. The final apotheosis formed the words Vive la Paix, glowing in fiery letters, over which beamed a genius with a branch of palms.

What thoughts were in the minds of the guests of the watering-place as they promenaded by and stared at us? Probably none, and they were not so very far wrong; for what is left after the words have ceased, the toasts have been pledged, and the fireworks have been sent off? Nothing! From far down in the depths must the energies come through which epochs are changed....

XLVI
VARIOUS RECOLLECTIONS

In Harmannsdorf again · My husband writes Sie wollen nicht · Max Nordau’s opinion of it · My labors and correspondence · Rear Admiral Réveillère · Dolmens and menhirs · From the patriot of Brittany to the patriot of humanity · Réveillère’s views about social economy, the lot of the masses, professional politicians, etc. · A fine comparison · Deaths of Prince Achille Murat, Duke von Oldenburg, and Ruggero Bonghi

After our return from Holland to our beloved Harmannsdorf we resumed our quiet, happy, laborious life. My Own began writing his two-volume novel entitled Sie wollen nicht, which was to be his ripest work. Max Nordau wrote to him regarding it:

Forgive me for delaying until to-day to thank you for your highly interesting novel Sie wollen nicht. It takes a long time for me to find opportunity, in my over-busy life, to read 730 pages of prose, no matter how very easy and agreeable may be its style, unless it happens to fit in directly with my line of work.

What I think of your character I should not be permitted to tell you. I know that men of real character find any praise of their characteristics disagreeable. At any rate I may say in brief that I admire the German writer who has the courage to-day to create the figures of a Gutfeld, Zinzler, and Kölble. Artistically your novel stands high. Perhaps there are too many threads interwoven, and the web is, perhaps, not drawn tight enough. That the main drama is not introduced until the last chapters, with the appearance of Palkowski, is no advantage from the standpoint of composition; but all that is a trifle compared to the great advantage of its wealth of motives and the vital energy of the complicated multitude of personages. Old Jörgen alone would suffice to make your novel ever fresh in the reader’s memory.

At that time I was writing Vor dem Gewitter. The editorial work on my monthly periodical likewise gave me abundant occupation, and my correspondence even more. I wrote regularly to Alfred Nobel in order to keep him informed as to the development of the peace cause. I constantly had long, stimulating letters from Carneri as well as from Rudolf Hoyos, Friedrich Bodenstedt, Spielhagen, Karl von Scherzer, M. G. Conrad, and others. I found a new, and to me personally unknown, correspondent in an old French naval officer, Rear Admiral Réveillère. I cannot now remember whether he wrote to me first or I to him. Whether or no, our correspondence was based on similarity of ideas and a mutual knowledge of each other’s writings. The first time I ever heard of Réveillère was at the banquet of the Interparliamentary Conference of 1894, at Scheveningen, when Frédéric Passy, in proposing a toast to the sea which was roaring beyond the doors of the hall, said he was quoting the words of his friend Réveillère.

Born in 1828, in Brittany, he had long followed the sea, and now was living in retirement in Brest, his native city, known to fame as a savant and a writer. He occupied his leisure time in writing books and articles. He had participated in many naval battles and many battles of ideas. The list of the titles of his books shows to how many countries he had traveled in the performance of his duties, and also how manifold were the regions which he had explored as a poet and thinker: “Gaul and the Gauls,” “The Enigma of Nature,” “Across the Unknown,” “The Voices of the Rocks,” “Journey Around the World,” “Seeds and Embryos,” “Against Storm and Flood,” “The Three Promontories,” “Letters of a Mariner,” “Tales and Stories,” “The Indian Seas,” “The Chinese Seas,” “The Conquest of the Ocean,” “The Search for the Ideal”; still later came “United Europe” (Paris, Berger Levraut, 1896), “Guardianship and Anarchy” (Ibid., 1896), “Extension, Expansion” (Ibid., 1898).

He wrote me once how it happened that he, the son of conservative Brittany, grown gray in the naval service, had joined the pacifists:

Often we are inspired by two ideas which have no apparent connection, and it sometimes takes years before the bond that connects them is discovered. It has cost me much time and thought to explain the connection between the two ruling passions which possess me and which had seemed to me to have no relationship with each other,—a deep-seated enthusiasm for the federation of Europe, and an instinctive cult for dolmens and menhirs.

From my earliest childhood I have been fascinated by the riddle that is presented in stone on all sides in my Breton homeland; and ever since my childhood I have been in love with the beautiful dream of a European federation,—a dream which is bound to come true in spite of the prejudices of statesmen and the prepossessions of crowned heads. The great work of the European alliance must begin with the rapprochement of those nations whose customs and ideas have the closest analogy. The nations living along the Atlantic coast have been the only ones to assimilate the principles of the French Revolution: I mean the following countries: Scandinavia, Holland, Belgium, France, Portugal, and ancient Helvetia, the oldest of the European republics. England had, long since, already passed through her revolution.

Later my archæological studies taught me that this was the very region of the dolmens. All these nations had common ancestors,—the Megalithians; from the North Cape as far as Tangiers the same race occupied the coast; there were the same burial rites, always based on the same articles of faith; and the result was that to me the dolmens and menhirs came to stand as the symbols of a Western federation.

And another time:

The accident of birth made me first of all a Breton patriot. When I emerged from the narrow egoism of childhood, my first love was directed to Brittany. When the development of my intellect permitted me to realize the solidarity of my little homeland with the French fatherland, I became a French patriot. Later I learned from history that all the nations on this side of the Rhine once formed a glorious Federation; then I became a Gallic patriot. Still later study of the Megalithic monuments revealed to me a new connection,—that with the Megalithic race. As logic continued its work, I became a European patriot; finally, a patriot of humanity. In our day national love is an imbecile love unless it is illuminated by the love for mankind.

I have read only the three last-named works of the admiral; but he regularly sent me the articles that he published in the journal La Dépêche, in which he always took a consistent attitude—that of “illuminating” love for mankind—toward all the questions of the day; not, however, in the least in a visionary way, nor with any smack of mysticism, which so constantly stirs the spiritual lives of poetically inclined seafarers. He based his political ideals on actual and positive considerations, drawn particularly from the domain of national economy. Thus he wrote:

In order to meet the industrial rivalry of the United States of America and the yellow races, it would be desirable—in the interest of France and Germany—to see a customs union formed, embracing Germany, Belgium, Holland, and France, and including, at the same time, the colonies of these countries. It really seems almost impossible at the present time to swim against the stream of protective tariffs, and yet every nation is conscious of the necessity of extending its market. If there is opposition to this extension on European soil, why is not an effort made to gain it through a colonial union,—a union by means of which the federated countries might insure to their citizens, their vessels, and their products the same rights and privileges in all the colonies?

With regard to the lot of the masses, which so greatly needs to be improved, Réveillère says that this amelioration depends on the general production of useful articles. As long as the masses are wasting their energies in unproductive labors there is no alleviation possible for them, ... and at the present time the nations are wearing themselves out in unproductive and destructive labor. There is no halfway measure; either international anarchy (that is to say, the lack of a code of laws regulating the intercourse of nations), with poverty, or federation, with wealth.

My Breton friend was inclined not to mince words in speaking of the politicians: “Steam has changed everything in this world except the routine of our statesmen!” And in the following letter:

Engineers and scholars are all the time at work filling up the graves which the professionals in statecraft are digging; the engineers are expending all their energies in increasing the productivity of labor, the politicians are doing everything they possibly can to make it sterile.

Many persons are of the opinion that the end sought is too broad and distant, and the initiation of it is beset with too great difficulties, to be willing to attempt the regulation of a pacific mutual relationship among the European states; especially at the present time, when almost every state has to endure so much trouble and disturbance arising from the violent national and social battles which are raging within its own borders. An answer to this objection is afforded by the following passage from one of Réveillère’s books (“Extension, Expansion,” p. 23):

When a physician has to treat a case of consumption, his first care is to prevent his patient from breathing poisoned air. If he has to perform an operation, he sees to it that the room in which the operation is to take place is purified of every contagious germ. Exactly the same principle holds with regard to national diseases. No state can think of curing its internal ills before the European room is disinfected. Certainly it is the duty of every nation to do everything possible to modify the ills of its own people; but to claim that serious internal reforms can be carried out without having first secured European federation is just like caring for wounded men in a hall filled with microbes.

I kept up a correspondence with Admiral Réveillère for a long time. Of late years our letters fell off in frequency. A short time ago—in March, 1908—he died. Ah, when we have grown old, how often we have to report of our friends that they are no more! In childhood life is like a nursery; in youth, like a garden; in old age, like a cemetery.

Tidings of a death which affected us painfully—I am now telling of what happened in the year 1895—came to us suddenly from the Caucasus,—Prince Achille Murat had shot himself. Was it suicide or an accident? I never learned the exact truth. It happened in Zugdidi, in the villa which My Own had built for the Murats. Princess Salomé, who was sitting in the next room, heard the report of a shot in her husband’s room. She hastened in and found the unfortunate man fallen back in an easy-chair, with a pistol between his legs, the barrel pointing up in the air. Had he been cleaning the weapon carelessly, or was it weariness of life? As I said, I do not know.

And still another loss: On the 17th of October, 1895, Duke Elimar von Oldenburg departed this life, in his fifty-second year, at his castle of Erlaa. A short time before, he had given me a second article by his uncle, Prince Peter, entitled “Thoughts of a Russian Patriot,” which ends with these ringing words:

Let me be permitted to express the dearest wish of my heart, as I face God and Eternity,—an agreement of all governments in the interest of peace and humanity! May that happy day dawn when men can say, War between civilized nations is at an end.

Duke Elimar’s widow was completely overwhelmed by this sudden and premature bereavement. To my letter of condolence she wrote me the following answer, which throws a brilliant light on the noble characteristics of the departed and his consort:

Brogan, October 29, 1895

Dear Baroness:

Most hearty thanks for your warm, sympathetic words, and also for the splendid wreath sent by the Society of the Friends of Peace, which, with so many other gifts of love and tokens of respect, adorns the last resting-place of the deceased. There is no consolation for such hours. What I have lost no one can truly realize who does not know how the inner bond that united us, joining every fiber of our two lives together, had been interwoven in the nineteen years of undivided, untroubled wedlock, so that with the uprooting of one life the thousands and thousands of roots of the other were torn from the ground. The profound loneliness which has come upon me through this loss is often scarcely to be endured, and at the present time I can hardly imagine how in this life, on this earth, I can ever again take root. One who has lived for nineteen years in such intimate relationship with a man like my husband cannot easily become accustomed to other persons.

The pure, lofty idealism which—I may say—formed the very quintessence of his being and made him so extremely lovable, so winning, and so attractive to all who came into contact with him, I shall never again find anywhere so embodied as in him, and since he has gone from me I miss him always everywhere to such a degree that it is often simply unendurable for me to be with others. And yet the proofs of unofficial, genuine, heartfelt sympathy from so many good and noble people in these days has done me unspeakable good. To you also, my dear Baroness, my best and heartiest thanks once again for all your sympathy.

Your sincerely devoted

Natalie von Oldenburg

A few years later she sent me a volume of poems dedicated to the memory of the departed and breathing a pathetic grief.

And yet a third loss: On the 31st of October, 1895, Ruggero Bonghi, so beloved in our circle, died in Torre del Greco at the age of sixty-eight. Italy mourned in him the reformer of public education, the professor of philosophy, the editor of the Nuova Antologia, the founder and director of the orphan asylum at Anagni; we mourned the active apostle of our common cause, the man who from a lofty tribune had spoken these beautiful words: “We promoters of peace, who work for it with glowing zeal, have in the last analysis no other object than this,—that man shall become wholly human.” Our Austrian Union telegraphed the following words to Rome for the funeral: Sincero dolore e riconoscenza eterna. “Sincere grief and eternal gratitude.”

XLVII
FURTHER VARIED RECOLLECTIONS

The Union for Resistance to Anti-Semitism once more · Article by A. G. von Suttner · In the house of Christian Kinsky · Recollection of a home dinner with the Empress · War between Japan and China · Appeal of the Peace Congress to the Powers for intervention · Answer of the Russian Minister of War, Giers · The fruits of German military instruction in Japan · The Peace of Shimonoseki · Interparliamentary Conference in Brussels · Sending out the formulated and accepted plan for an arbitration tribunal · First appearance of the Hungarian Group, with Maurus Jókai and Count Apponyi at its head · Hopeful and distressful signs of the times · From the Congress of the Association Littéraire in Dresden · Trip to Prague · At Professor Jodl’s · Lecture in “The German House” · Banquet · La Busca · Visit at Vrchlicky’s · Trip to Budapest · Founding of the Hungarian Peace Society · War in sight between England and the United States · Removal of the danger

This year—I am still speaking of 1895, as I turn the leaves of the volume containing my diary for that period—we did not make any journey to a Peace Congress, for the simple reason that no Congress was held. But we did not on that account spend the whole year at Harmannsdorf. Trips were made to Prague, to Budapest (with lectures), to Lussinpiccolo, which I will describe later on; and we visited Vienna a number of times, whither we were called by duty and pleasure.

The business of his Union caused My Own much labor and much anxiety. Anti-Semitism, against which he was waging battle, had increased rather than diminished in violence. Dr. Karl Lueger, a leader in the Anti-Semitic party, had been nominated and elected by that party as mayor; but the Emperor did not confirm the election, to the indignation of a large part of the bourgeoisie and to the consternation of those higher circles who, under the influence of their spiritual advisers, supported the candidature of Karl Lueger.

An Austrian aristocrat holding an important position told me of finding himself in a company at court when the news of Lueger’s nonconfirmation was brought. “Oh, the poor Emperor!” cried the Duchess of Württemberg, daughter of Archduke Albrecht, “the poor Emperor—in the hands of the Freemasons!” And a year later, in the same circle, where my informant happened to be again when the news of Lueger’s confirmation came, the same princess raised her eyes and her clasped hands to heaven with the words, “God be praised! Light has dawned on the Emperor at last!”

That was the time when a Jew-baiting chaplain—Deckert was his name—preached from the pulpit and in pamphlets in the most vehement terms against the Jews—with success. This induced the “anti”-union to enter the field and to appear with a protest before the president of the House of Deputies. But I will let my husband himself have the floor. He published in the Neue Freie Presse the following article, the contents of which will best show what was going on in the camp of the Anti-Semites, and what thoughts and purposes were awakened thereby in the camp of their opponents:

The Present Situation

Now the wily old magician

Once again his leave has taken!

Spirits that owed him submission

Now shall at my call awaken.

I his cell invaded;

I have learned the spell!

I’ll do—spirit-aided—

Miracles as well!

Goethe: Der Zauberlehrling

For twenty years now the “Magician’s apprentice” (Zauberlehrling) has been trying his experiments in Austria. The old master who knew how to exercise and to exorcise the spirits has gone; constitution, parliamentarianism, the fundamental law of the state, have become mere documents, and the unbridled spirits are up to their mad tricks. And now, since it has resulted as all who were not hiding their heads in the sand saw that it would result, the cry of dismay echoes through the land:

Lord, the need’s immense!

Those I called—the spirits—

Will not vanish hence!

Or perhaps it will still be claimed that they were never summoned? Would any one wish to deny that we looked on with remarkable patience, endured them,—yea, verily, absolutely defended them,—instead of calling on the master who would have driven away the demons while there was still time?

Yes, if with us a system had not grown into a standard separating so-called “serious” politicians from dilettanti! The system, which is called in plain English “I dare not” (Ich trau’ mich nicht), has been wrapped up by the “serious” in a distinguished-appearing vesture, and elevated under the title of “Opportunism” to the concept of political wisdom.

What this Opportunism has on its conscience is fearful! It is the brake, the slave chain holding back every energetic activity, hindering everything, making every transaction impossible; it is the cause of the broken-winged condition that obtains to-day, of the distrust, of the fatalistic après nous le déluge; it is the cause of the universal discontent and apathy on the one side, of the loud shouts of triumph, the renewed efforts on that side yonder, which is now only one step away from its appointed goal.

Here I can add a word from experience, for I have been standing in the very midst of the stormy waves, and I shall still stand there as long as the office is intrusted to me of representing that portion of my fellow-citizens which has undertaken to oppose the assaults of the preachers of hatred and the apostles of persecution. By virtue of this office I feel myself called upon, indeed in duty bound, to put in my word and to speak of the experiences which the Union for Resistance to Anti-Semitism has had since it was founded.

I need only to point out the Rescue Society as an example of what opposition humanitarian associations meet with from the influential classes. Our Union was meant to be a rescue society in a certain sense, namely, for the purpose of rescuing the good old Austrian spirit, the spirit of patience, of justice, of brotherly love, the spirit that used to prevail at that time when, in the struggle for freedom and human dignity, Christians and Jews stood together in the very van, united in purpose and in genuine brotherhood, to conquer or to die. This spirit we desired to help rise to its old honorable condition; this was the reason for our emerging from our peaceful calm in order to take up the battle against poisoned arrows and every kind of disgusting weapon.

What was more natural and more justifiable than for us to yield to the expectation that every one who had any claim to culture and morality should joyfully join with us and thus raise a millionfold protest against the mad actions of the thoughtlessly unbridled spirits? What was more reasonable than to hope that in the influential circles in whose hands the reins are placed we should be greeted with joy as the breakwater against the onrush of the destroying billows, as the dam which is to be carefully repaired and made secure at a time when a freshet is expected?...

Yes, we believed and expected that, but we had forgotten just one thing,—Opportunism. Only gradually did we come to realize that warm feelings, honorable enthusiasm, fresh, fiery zeal, are ideal concepts which have found no place in the lexicon of higher politics; we learned that everything must be diplomatically weighed, accurately, even to milligrams, so that if possible, even in the most heterogeneous conditions, a transaction may be satisfactory to A and B and C; in short, that all things and everything must first be placed on the scales of the Opportune before there can be any departure from reserve.

We have, indeed, attempted to emancipate ourselves at times from this terrible thing, and to undertake several little coups d’état on our own responsibility, but even then the capital O had to appear on the door before it would open for us; and when we were admitted we heard nothing more comforting than that “in case of exigency,” that is to say, in case it should ever become opportune, our desires would be taken into consideration.

We have seen how these pledges were kept in the affair of the Rescue Society; in short, we were obliged to recognize that no support was to be found in the quarter where it should have been freely offered us.

And yonder in the camp of our opponents they were not blind. This buttoned-upness (Zugeknöpftheit) which we met with was a direct encouragement to them to continue in the direction marked out, and they have made the most of it in order to make capital out of it, in order to win new support. Was that not to have been foreseen? Ought we to wonder that in view of such official toleration the defection among officials and teachers over to that side should grow ever more and more serious?...

A frank, a decided word from above, spoken at the right time, in place of evasive circumlocutions which, like the answers of the ancient oracles, may be stretched and twisted to suit any interpretation, would have prevented what had to come to-day—nay, not had, but was allowed, to come. And this definite, frank utterance, open to no misinterpretation, is the right of that portion of our fellow-citizens who, contrary to all civil order, are exposed to the wildest insults and threats, without protection and practically declared to be outlawed. This frank utterance is: Anti-Semitism, in print, in word, and in deed, is a movement dangerous to society, deeply injurious to the existence of the state and the fundamental laws of the state. No government can permit it any more than anarchy or other endeavors which, through exercise of force, tend to disturb internal peace and to bring about civil war.

We have labored to have this or a similar judgment pronounced, and in so doing we have done our duty. Come what will, we will not desert the breach; for we have in our hearts the consciousness of occupying a standpoint which every right-feeling and right-thinking man must take. This consciousness is sufficient to keep up our courage. In our ranks there is not one who is striving for any personal advantage from the realization of these principles; on the contrary, we know that to-day we stand just as unprotected, just as much exposed to all insults, as are those whose rights we desire to see secured.

But, in conclusion, an old proverb says, “God helps those that help themselves,” and it must come to self-protection if this particular form of anarchy, which is already making the doors of Austria ring with its blows, shall succeed in breaking them down. Let us rally if it must come to that!

A. Gundaccar von Suttner

I said above that duty and pleasure took us to Vienna. Our pleasure consisted chiefly in going to the theater. Oh, it was indeed a delight to attend plays with My Own, who was so keen to enjoy, so thoroughly one of “the thankful public”! Especially in jolly plays he could laugh as no one else did! And next to the theater came social intercourse with sympathetic friends. We had long chats on literary and pacifistic topics with Carneri and Hoyos, with Groller, Herzl, and various other men of the pen.

Great pleasure was afforded us also in visiting at the house of my cousin, Christian Kinsky. Every time we came to Vienna we were invited to dine with him and his thoroughly sensible wife, Therese. Christian was then provincial marshal of Austria. The burden and dignity of his office took nothing from his coruscating humor, from his inexhaustible wit. And at the same time such free, clear-cut views of things! Therese also was very liberal-minded in all matters. Quite the contrary was Christian’s sister, Countess Ernestine Crenneville, who often came up of an afternoon with her handiwork for a little gossiping (Plausch). She occupied a lower floor in the Kinsky house in the Laudongasse, and, like the generality of the Austrian aristocracy, was very religious and ecclesiastically inclined. She had many times tried to convert her brother, but he always evaded the issue with laughter and bantering; and they got along together very well. It would indeed have been hard not to get along well with Ernestine, for her piety was tolerant, and she was goodness and gentleness itself. I had known her in her blooming, youthful beauty; now she was old, but still a pretty little lady, and had much that was interesting to tell of her life.

Once I jotted down in my diary a reminiscence of hers. The conversation had turned upon our Empress and her mania for traveling about the world so restlessly.

“I remember,” related Ernestine, “how one day we were sitting together after a little dinner at the Empress’s—a very small party, the Archduchess Valerie, the Duke of Cumberland, and I. A few ladies of the court were near. The Empress was very silent and sad. Suddenly she cries out, ‘Oh, let us go outside, out on the green grass and far away!’ Archduchess Valerie springs up: ‘For mercy’s sake, mamma....’ The Duke of Cumberland exclaims soothingly, ‘You are right, your Majesty,’ and whispers to her daughter, ‘Only never let her go alone, never alone.’”

War had broken out between Japan and China. Such events no longer left me so indifferent as they did when I was young. Even though this tragedy was being enacted far away, in another quarter of the globe, the fact that the fiend against whom our party was fighting had broken loose again indicated a setback for our movement; for who could tell what future wars, in which Europe might also be involved, this war would bring in its train?

Even during the Peace Congress at Antwerp, in the autumn of 1894, the Sino-Japanese conflict was rising threateningly above the horizon, and I remember that among the resolutions at that time one contained an exhortation to the two empires, and also to the other powers, to avoid the outbreak or the continuance of the war by means of arbitration or intervention; but we were not heard. The only government which paid any attention to this action was the Russian. From that came the following answer:

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, St. Petersburg, October 15, 1894

M. A. Houzeau, President of the World’s Peace Congress

Dear Sir:

I received in due time the letter which you addressed to the Imperial Government, urging the great Powers in common to take steps to put an end to the bloody war between Japan and China. The success of such intervention would, above all, depend on unanimity of views and endeavors, which latter his Majesty’s government will always be ready to support for the possible avoidance, diminution, and prevention of the horrors of war.

In giving you this assurance I beg you, my dear sir, to accept the expression of my especial consideration.

Giers

And when the battles had begun, then the whole world again listened with the keenest interest. Yet this was noteworthy: little Japan proved to be more than a match for huge China. There was no little pride manifested in German military circles at these Japanese victories, since the complete system of armament and of tactics in the Land of the Rising Sun was the fruit of the instruction which German military instructors had given the Japanese army. We Europeans are the bearers of culture. Perhaps it is also going to be our province to make the Chinese into a first-class fighting nation. Attempts in this direction are not lacking; this comes under “unanimity of views and endeavors.” Quite naturally, he who possesses a set of white chessmen and likes to play chess must provide for an opponent with an equivalent number of black ones.

In May, 1895, the Asiatic war came to an end. The Peace of Shimonoseki was signed, and secured to the Japanese important advantages from the victory. This the European Powers would not endure, and they united in advising the Japanese to renounce various fruits of their triumph over China; otherwise they would feel compelled to back up this request by recourse to arms. Fortunately Japan yielded, and this “recourse” was not required. But why did the Powers not unite before the war in intervening and demanding that the Korean question should be submitted to a court of arbitration?

The Interparliamentary Conference of the year 1895 met at Brussels. Although we were invited, this time we did not attend; but our correspondents kept us informed of the course of events. The principal features of this Conference were:

Submission and acceptance of the plan for a national tribunal determined upon the preceding year, and formulated by Houzeau, La Fontaine, and Descamps.

Resolution to send this plan to all governments.

Participation in the Union for the first time of a Hungarian group. At the head of this group, Maurus Jókai, and, as its most brilliant representative, Count Apponyi, whose eloquence makes a sensation.

Invitation of the Hungarians to hold the next—the seventh—Conference at Budapest at the time of the Millennial Festival; accepted.

All these tidings filled me with joy. Once more a few important steps forward had been taken; an elaborated plan for a national tribunal was now placed before the governments, and the project did not emanate from unauthorized dreamers in private life, but from statesmen, the representatives of seventeen countries; and the whole thing came from the initiative of one of the strongest and most distinguished men of his day, William E. Gladstone. Moreover, it could be seen how the nucleus of the peace endeavor was gaining new force—this time from the acquisition of Hungary, with one of her most influential statesmen, Apponyi, and her most celebrated poet, Jókai.

It was as if there could be seen on the horizon something still small and distant, but slowly growing bigger, and certainly ever coming nearer. No longer a vision of the fancy, no mere “pious wish,” but something substantial, actual, which to be sure may still be attacked and hampered, but no longer flatly denied. And why attacked? Was it not good fortune and success drawing nigh? Ever larger would become the throngs of those who recognize it, and then they would all hasten to meet the approaching marvel and greet it with jubilation!

In our comprehension of this, My Own and I were happy, and we labored in the great work according to our feeble powers, full of joyous confidence. Not as if we did not see the obstacles in the way; we were painfully conscious of them, and we realized the opposition that was still to be overcome. Anything old and firmly rooted has very obstinate endurance, and the law of inertia gives it effective protection. Men do not like to be shaken out of their ruts; they avoid new roads, even though they lead them into paradise!

These were the thoughts that formed the basis of the novel Sie wollen nicht. The question of peace was not treated in it, but the question of social reforms in the domain of political economy: A landed proprietor introduces all sorts of improvements, desires to bring about conditions which shall give his laborers prosperity and independence, but “they do not want it”; they distrust him and ruin him.

Yes, the increasing, approaching ray of light on the horizon rejoiced us, but we had our trials in the immediate and the near which filled the world about us. Thus at that time terrible news began to arrive from Armenia,—butchery instigated, measures taken to exterminate a whole nation. From Spain also came gloomy tidings,—Cuba wanted to gain her independence, and, in order to retain her, her yoke was made ever more oppressive ... and the Madagascan enterprise of the French ... in brief, cause enough for horror and worriment all around! But also sufficient cause for hope and joy!

The Association Littéraire held its congress in Dresden. We were invited to attend, since my husband was a member of the society. I do not know what prevented us from accepting the invitation; but I find in my papers a report from there which at that time gave me great pleasure:

During a literary evening, at which the King and the Queen, the leaders of official society of Dresden, and all the participants of the Congress were present, J. Grand-Carteret, in an address on “German Women as judged by the French,” said these words:

“Spiritually the German woman has been presented to us by Luther and Johann Fischart, later by Goethe and Schiller, until at last, like an incarnation of the human conscience she stands before us as the apostle of peace and civilization, and with the Baroness von Suttner utters the cry which long since ought to have found an echo in the heart of every mother, Die Waffen nieder!”

At the banquet in Leipzig, Grand-Carteret returned to the same theme in his toast:

“... I drink to the book, that is to say, to the general expansion of humane thought.

“To the book that had its origin in Germany, en pleine nuit armée, to the book born on crossroads and to-day casting a light on the highway of the future; to the book which has arisen against the sword....

“I drink to the feminine Volapük of the future, which all by itself, if men continue to want to kill one another, will permit the women of all countries to utter the cry, Die Waffen nieder! For the first time in thirty-five years we have felt the soul of the people here vibrating. I drink to that soul to-day!”

At the same banquet Émile Chasles, Inspector General of Public Instruction in France, delivered a speech which closed with these words: “I salute the spirit of internationalism, which rises above the quarrels of men and governs nations with the aim of drawing them together.”

We made an excursion to Prague, the city of my birth. The Concordia Union had invited me to deliver a lecture. Before this affair, which took place at eight o’clock in the evening in the mirror room of the Deutsches Haus, we were invited to dinner at Professor Jodl’s. The famous philosopher—a friend of my friend Carneri—was then a docent in the University of Prague, while he is now a light in our Vienna Hochschule. It was a pleasant little meal, with few but choice guests. The professor’s young wife, Margarete, was a fascinating housewife, who had already won my heart, because I knew her as the liberal-minded translator of Olive Schreiner’s stories. This same Olive Schreiner, in her “Peter Halket,” has said a wonderful thing,—a thing that expresses beautifully my profoundest belief: “With the rising and setting of the sun, with the revolving flight of the planets, our fellowship grows and grows.... The earth is ours.”

Since I was to speak in a literary union, I had chosen the subject of peace literature, and as I was in Bohemia, I cited also Bohemian authors,—the two great poets Vrchlicky and Swatopluck Czech. In my absolute innocence I had no suspicion of the fact that it was something unheard of in Prague, so torn by national jealousies, to praise Czech geniuses in the Deutsches Haus. For a moment a certain feeling of restraint seems to have manifested itself in the hall, but when the splendid verses of the two princes of Czech poetry—paraphrased rather than translated into German by Friedrich Adler—rang out, the German auditors were disarmed and the ill-humor passed off. There is no field which would be better adapted to bringing about reconciliation between two contending factions than the field of supernational pacification.

At the banquet which followed the lecture I made the acquaintance of many interesting people, and particularly of the theatrical manager Angelo Neumann, and his wife, Johanna Buska. The latter was very much after the style of Sarah Bernhardt,—so delicate, so thin, so golden-voiced, so exquisitely elegant, and so many-sided in her art. There is no leading part in the repertory, from the naïve to the heroic, the sentimental, and the coquettish, which la Busca had not played and made the most of. That evening she recited a poem which Friedrich Adler had composed as a rejoinder to Carducci’s “Ode to War.”

The next day we went to see Vrchlicky. We were conducted by a maid into a little drawing-room, where we were kept waiting some time for the master of the house. When the door opened and he entered, I was rather disappointed. I have been so accustomed to find generally in the creators of beautiful works handsome people that I was literally horrified at Vrchlicky’s ugliness—for he is ugly, his best friend must admit it. A flat, potato-like nose, tangled hair,—only from the eyes shines forth his clear intellect, and in the metallic tones of his voice vibrates his fiery soul.

“I am very much delighted,” he said, as he shook hands with us, “that you have both come to Prague. You will find here a thoroughly intelligent public.”

“Well, the public, because of national antipathies, is surely not altogether receptive of our cause, as we discovered only last evening.”

“Oh!” exclaimed the poet, “there are no national passions in music.”

We did not understand the significance of this remark, and after a while the conversation took all sorts of turns, during which sometimes we and sometimes Vrchlicky showed the greatest astonishment in our faces, until it finally transpired that we were taken for Mr. and Mrs. Ree, the well-known piano virtuosos, who were going to give a concert that evening in Prague and had promised to call on Vrchlicky. When the misunderstanding was cleared away we warmed up to each other, and I saw that he was as enthusiastic an adherent of my cause as I was an enthusiastic admirer of his genius.

Our next little journey took us to Budapest—of course also in the interest of peace. “You have become genuine peace-drummers” (die reinen Friedens-Commis-Voyageurs), said my father-in-law banteringly.

Just as in the year 1891 it seemed a necessity to found a society in Austria, that the country might be represented at the Congress in Rome, so now, since the Interparliamentary Union had invited us to the Millennial Festival at Budapest, it seemed likewise necessary for a private society to come into existence there and invite the other societies to take part in a Peace Congress. Our Vienna Society took up the agitation of this matter in the Hungarian capital. Leopold Katscher, the well-known publicist, who had wide-branching affiliations in Hungary, where he had lived for many years, and who was now a member of our Union, made a trip to Budapest, and called on Maurus Jókai, and on the statesmen with whom [I], for my part, was assiduously corresponding. And the result? Instead of giving a detailed account of this I will quote the text of the following dispatch which was sent to the Vienna press:

Budapest, December 15. Peace Union established yesterday. Meeting conducted by B. von Berzeviczy, vice president of the Reichstag. Addresses in Hungarian by Jókai, and in German by Baroness von Suttner; a whirlwind of applause. Several hundred prospective members come forward. Voted to accept the invitation to the Seventh World’s Peace Congress. Influential personages chosen to serve on the directorate, among them two members of the former cabinet. Jókai, president. Unexampled enthusiasm shown by the press; all the Hungarian and German papers devote from four to ten columns to the reports. Prime Minister Banffy declared to Baroness von Suttner that both the Interparliamentary Conference and the World’s Peace Congress would be welcomed in Budapest, and that the government would not only assist but would take the lead in the arrangements, though they were not instituted by the government.

But simultaneously my diaries bring back the echo of very gloomy events and voices from that time. Under various dates of December I find the following entries:

“War in sight.” So it is reported in all the papers since this dispatch was received: “The President of the United States has spoken insultingly and imperatively now that England has rejected arbitration in the Venezuela affair.” Now England has no alternative—so run the leading articles—but to pick up the gauntlet. Fresh dispatches: All America aroused over Cleveland’s message; all England in a rage; demands for many millions for warships, torpedoes, fortifications; a hundred thousand Irishmen have offered their services to the United States. The war-prophesying tone of the leading articles is accentuated; the familiar “inevitableness” of the conflict is demonstrated. Every journalist on the Continent is able to point out with certainty what England cannot put up with except at a loss of her honor, what all Europe cannot permit without imperiling its interests.... What is going to be the result?...

The result I chronicled ten days later in the following words:

It was a test of strength. Only a few years ago, when the peace idea had not as yet taken form and utterance, the misfortune would have inevitably occurred. The greater part of the press, the chauvinists of all countries, the military parties, the speculators, those engaged in the industries of war, adventurers of all kinds who expected personal advantage from the general scrimmage,—all these have assuredly left nothing undone to promote the breaking out of war. On the other hand, negotiations were instituted. Not only our Unions, but also chambers of commerce and mercantile corporations took a stand against the war, and in almost all churches sermons were preached against it, and statesmen, interviewed as to their opinions, revolted at the thought of settling the question by an appeal to arms.

Lord Rosebery says, “I absolutely refuse to believe in a war between England and the United States over such a question, for that would be an unexampled crime.”

Gladstone says, “Simple human reason is here sufficient.”

The English heir-apparent and his son telegraph to the World, “It is impossible for us to believe in the possibility of a war between the two friendly states.”

How if the Prince of Wales had spoken out in as martial a tone for his nation as certain continental editors found it for their interest to do in the name of “all England”? How if he had sent a sword-rattling, fist-doubling dispatch? Or rather no dispatch at all? How did heirs to the crown happen to write to mere newspapers? The generality are gathered together, or at least recruits—so tradition likes to have it—and the requisite blunt threats are uttered. The future King of Great Britain acted otherwise.

My novel Vor dem Gewitter (“Before the Storm”) was finished. The newly founded Austrian Literary Society issued it as its first publication in an edition of three thousand copies, and this inauguration was celebrated by a banquet given by the publisher, Professor Lützow. The actress Lewinsky, from the royal theater, read a chapter from my novel; congratulatory addresses were made, and when the champagne went round a great success was predicted for the enterprise; but in a few years—Austria is no field for literary establishments—the business failed.

When I had written the word “End” on the last page of the book Vor dem Gewitter, I began another under the title Einsam und arm (“Lonely and Poor”). And My Own, besides working at his two-volume Sie wollen nicht, wrote many stories of the Caucasus region. We were as industrious as bees,—that must be granted us. There we sat evenings at our common worktable, generally until midnight or later—and wrote and wrote. We used to talk about what we were doing, but we did not read our manuscripts to each other; we did give ourselves the delight, however, of reading each other’s proofs.

Ah, those happy, lovely times! Even though they were full of cares,—for the Harmannsdorf stone quarries were getting more and more involved in difficulties, causing the whole family deep anxiety; for the fear ever increased that we should not be able to keep up the dear home. One sacrifice after another was demanded,—even the quite opulent rewards of our literary labors were swallowed up in the abyss,—all in vain; as I look back on those days the exclamation is nevertheless justified,—Oh, those lovely times! For I was sincerely happy and so was My Own, in spite of Venezuela, in spite of Armenia, in spite of Cuba, and even in spite of Harmannsdorf. Our kingdom lay elsewhere,—the kingdom of our closely united, laughing hearts.

And then our studies. It was our custom at that time to read aloud at least an hour every day to each other. We had then just discovered Bölsche. He introduced us into the halls of nature’s marvels, initiated us into the mysteries of the splendid universe. It often happened that when the reading had brought us a new revelation we would stop and exchange a silent pressure of the hand.

XLVIII
POLITICAL KALEIDOSCOPE

Gumplowicz: father and son · The Italian campaign in Africa · Utterances of King Menelik · The defeat of Adowa · The warlike press · Demonstrations against war · Victory of the peace party · Correspondence with Carneri · From Armenia and Macedonia · Insurrection in Cuba and a sharp proclamation · Professor Röntgen’s discovery · The Anglo-American arbitration treaty · Death of Jules Simon · A letter from Jules Simon.

Among the letters preserved from the year 1896 I find an interesting one from Gumplowicz, the professor of philosophy. How I came to correspond with him I do not remember. It is not to be supposed that I could have been drawn to his works in admiration and sympathy, for, together with Gaboriau and Joseph Chamberlain, he is one of the most influential defenders of that vicious race theory on which are based Aryan pride and German and Latin conceit, which are so hateful to my very soul. Probably his son was the occasion of this correspondence. As radical as the father was conservative, he had sent me for my periodical a series of poems, entitled “The Angel of Destruction” (Der Engel der Vernichtung), translated by himself in a masterly manner from the “Slave Songs” of the Polish poet, Adam Asnyk. Whether it was this translation or some other publication which had aroused the displeasure of the German authorities, all I knew was that the young singer of freedom was condemned to a long period of imprisonment. When, during my lecture in Prague at the Deutsches Haus, I quoted various poems, I read also some stanzas from “The Angel of Destruction.” I see from an old account of that lecture that I informed the public of the poet’s fate in the following words:

A soul of fire ... but not wise and prudent: what moved him—sympathy with human misery, indignation against human enslavement—he spoke out too clamorously and in the wrong place, and he is now atoning for it in state prison, with two years and a quarter of solitary confinement.... Do you realize what that means for a youth with exuberant powers of vitality, with a soul full of poetic inspiration, with eager yearning for work, for love, for helping the world to betterment,—seven and twenty months of solitude!... I believe it will rejoice his heart if word is sent him that his verses, so deeply penetrated with emotion, have been heard in this circle, and that his fate has touched a few noble hearts here—it will be to him like a greeting from freedom, for freedom.... And if you now applaud this sentiment, may every handclap count as applause for our imprisoned colleague.

The hearty applause that followed vindicated the defiant bard of peace in Plötzensee.

Here is the letter from the professor at Graz:

Graz, April 21, 1896

My dear Baroness:

Your note caused me great embarrassment. I am asked to give my views on your article, “Two Kinds of Morals,” which would necessitate uttering my opinion concerning your whole philosophy of peace. I will make you a counter-proposal,—fling me, together with the horrid Sighele, into a pot, and leave these naughty professors entirely out of consideration. There is nothing to be done with them. They only spoil your temper, drive you out of your dreams, and spoil that noblest enjoyment of yours which you find in agitating the peace idea. [I], at least, will not take it upon me to play such a rascally rôle in opposition to you. You desire to see the picture at Sais and I am to raise the curtain, am I? No, my dear Baroness, that I will not do. I have long made it my principle:

“Where’er a heart for peace glows calm,

Oh, let it be, disturb it not!”

Must I on your account go back on these principles? Again the poet warns me:

“Believe my word, that were a fault!”

Not for a moment do I yield to the illusion that I could persuade you; the chasm is too wide for me to be able to throw a bridge across, and I am not convinced that by doing so I should do any good. It would be a better thing if you could convert me; but hops and malt are lost on me,—I am even worse than Sighele.

The difference between us bad professors and you, Baroness, is this, that we are stating facts,—among them the fact of the “Two Kinds of Morals,”—while you are preaching to the world how it ought to be. I always listen to your preaching with great pleasure. I should have no objection, on the contrary I should be very happy, if the world would change in accordance with your ideas. Only I am afraid that it does not depend on the world to slough off its skin, and that your moralizing is in reality a complaint lodged against the dear God in heaven, who made the world as it is. Yes, if you could stir him to bring out his work in a second revised edition, that would be really a success!

By all means believe that if the world will only “have the will,” then everything will come out all right! Because of taking that very standpoint my son is in prison in Plötzensee. He, too, could not comprehend that the State is so “unmoral” as to let the unemployed go hungry while it has control of bread and nourishment in ample sufficiency, this being in direct contravention of the commandment about love for the neighbor. And so he went forth and gave the State a castigation, calling it a “band of exploiters,” a “legally organized horde of bandits.” From the standpoint of “the one and only morality” he was perfectly right. Since he has been in prison I have refrained from attacking this standpoint to his face. Why? Because this enthusiasm for this “one and only morality,” the bringing about of which he has been striving for, makes him happy and enables him easily to endure all the trials and privations of his dungeon. And just for the same reason I have no idea of attacking to your face the standpoint which you accept; for in your endeavor to make this clear to all the world you are certainly finding your greatest happiness. How could I satisfy my conscience if I willingly disturbed your happiness?

Go on your way, my dear Baroness, in peace; do not worry about the Sigheles; do not read Gumplowicz’s “Conflict of the Races”; it might cause you sad hours; and do remain always what you are,—the champion of a beautiful idea! In order to fulfill that mission stick to the persuasion that this idea is the truth, the sole and only truth. And of this belief may no professorial chatter ever rob you!

With this wish, I remain with the sincerest respect

Your most faithful

Gumplowicz

I have inserted this letter in my memoirs because I like to let the opponents, especially such eminent opponents, have their say. What reply I made to the professor I do not remember, but assuredly I did not leave uncontroverted the idea that I was pleased by the condescension with which he regarded my views as pleasing delusions! The morality that to-day is already beginning to influence the lives of individuals is not a fact handed down by tradition from the creation of the world, but a phase gradually won by social development and beginning to react on governmental life and to work on quite different factors from mere “hearts that glow calmly for peace.”

Italy at that time was trying to make war in Africa. It wanted to conquer Abyssinia; but that was not so easy. The Negus was victorious in many battles. The Italians had been obliged to withdraw from Fort Makoli. Then Menelik expressed his desire to enter into peace negotiations. General Baratieri sends Major Salsa into the enemy’s camp. But no conclusion of peace is reached. The Negus demands the evacuation of the newly acquired territories; whereupon Baratieri sends word that these propositions can neither be accepted nor be taken into consideration as a basis of further proceedings. So then, further prosecution of the war. Reënforcements are sent. The Riforma declares that Baratieri has done well in refusing the Negus’s overtures; they insult the dignity of the nation.

In place of Baratieri another generalissimo is to be shipped off, and the victory of Italy is assured. General Baldissera, Austrian born, who in the year 1866 had fought against Italy, is intrusted with this mission of conquest. So now let it be said that it can be something else than the most glowing patriotism that moves the mover of battles!...

And Menelik meantime? A French physician, drawn to the enemy’s camp during a journey of research, wrote from Oboch:

The Negus received me.... Is he really sad, or does he only put it on? He keeps affirming that he is to the last degree troubled about this war which has cost and will continue to cost the shedding of so much Christian blood. He is attacked—he defends himself; yet if he is too hard pushed and they want to try it again, then—Menelik seems confident as to the upshot of the war, but why so much blood?

Why, O swarthy Emperor? Because the white gentlemen in the editorial offices declare that it is the “duty demanded by honor.”

In Italy the protest of the people against the continuation of the war continues to grow louder. But since it is Republicans and Socialists who vote for the discontinuance of the campaign, their demonstrations are suppressed by the government. On February 29 a great anti-African banquet was planned in Milan, but forbidden by the prefecture. And on the next day comes the terrible news of the defeat in Adowa,—eight thousand men fallen—the rest put to flight—two generals killed—in short, a catastrophe; wild agony in Italy and sympathy throughout Europe. All the fury is concentrated on Baratieri because he attempted such a sortie.

Out of the multitude of reports about Adowa I have entered in my diary only one or two lines from Il Corriere della Sera of the eighth of March: “The soldiers of Amara, who are cruel brigands, hacked down the Italian wounded, mutilated them, and tore the clothes from their bodies.”

Gentlemen of the press, who have demanded the continuance of the war, does it not occur to your consciences that you are accessories in the mutilation of your fellow-countrymen? No, they demand that the blood of the fallen shall be avenged,—in other words, that still others, unnumbered, shall experience the same misfortune. L’Opinione writes:

Baratieri’s act was that of a lunatic; he wasted in a craven way the lives of eight thousand soldiers and two hundred officers. But our military honor remains unblemished. The material lost will be replaced within a month; our military power remains as it was. The country understands this and is ready to avenge the blood of the fallen. Those who think the contrary are a handful of people [that is to say, those who come out against the war—ah, why are they only a handful?], people without God and without a country. Nevertheless, these people can do no harm, for the nation is against them.

Was it?... A dispatch of March 9 says:

The anti-African movement is assuming great dimensions. In Rome, Turin, Milan, Bologna, and Padua, committees of ladies are active in getting signatures for a peace petition to Parliament. This has been signed by many thousand persons.

So acted the ladies; the women of the people were still more energetic. They threw themselves down on the rails before the cars that were about to carry away their husbands and sons to the place of embarkation, and thus actually prevented the departure of the trains.

Likewise in the barracks, a protest is made against sending more men to the African shambles, and large numbers of deserters are escaping over the border. What is beginning to take place in the whole country is a battle between the idea of war and that of peace.

The King, the first war lord, with a military education, grown up in soldierly traditions, sees only the possibility of continuing the war, of winning a victory, of brilliantly bestowing the honor of his arms,—would sooner abdicate than conclude peace now!... He would be glad to retain Crispi, but a storm is arising against him throughout the land and—Crispi falls. A new ministry is formed. Rudini—that name stands on the list of the Interparliamentary Union—becomes Prime Minister. What will he demand in the name of the government at the opening of Parliament? The Crispi journals and the papers representing the war party are fierce against any idea of peace: “Revenge for Adowa!” Guerra a fondo! (“War to the bitter end!”) And had it been a lustrum earlier, this cry alone would have come to the surface. Yet louder and more impetuously now arise the voices in protestation against the continuance of the unrighteous war. The movement of protest was organized; hence it was effective. Through Teodoro Moneta I learned all that was going on in this direction. It was a victory; for the new minister, Rudini, did not demand the continuance of the war....

It might be urged that what I am relating is really a political-historical chronicle, and not a biography. But it is my life’s history; for the very life of my soul was closely bound up with these events. My thoughts, my labors, my correspondence, were all filled with those performances on the world’s stage. And that I am repeating what is for the most part a matter of common knowledge, what was printed in the newspapers everywhere, and therefore is treasured in the memory of all,—this I do not believe. The forgetfulness of the public is great. What one day brings, the next swallows up again. I know from my own experience how, before I had begun to live for the peace cause, political events, even though they were important, disappeared from my memory without leaving a trace, if indeed they had attracted my attention at all. But now I noted in my diary everything that related to the struggle that was taking place between the new idea and the old institutions; this was the red thread which I followed in weaving the history of the day,—a thread which assuredly has quite escaped those who have not kept their eyes expressly fixed upon it.

A letter from my friend Carneri, written during the Italo-African war, shows that I had vigorously complained to him of the pain which that tragedy was causing me. The letter ran:

Marburg, March 5, 1896

My dear Friend,

Do not be vexed if I fail to attain my object, which is none other than to give you permanent comfort in your suffering over the present condition of the civilized world.

We two from the beginning have taken a quite different standpoint (you may still remember my hesitation at the first invitation to join the Peace Society, and that I yielded, much less won by the cause itself than by your own personal charm), and I should like to bring you to my way of thinking, which consequently should be yours.

“Consequently,”—how so? I hear you say. Because you, like me, accept the theory of evolution. This knows nothing of a complete cessation of conflict, and recognizes only a gradual amelioration of the methods of the conflict. It also knows nothing of a complete disappearance of want—not to be confused with the wretchedness of poverty, which can very properly be checked; this theory holds rather that want is the great stimulus to progress. A cessation of all want would be absolute stagnation, and therefore it is just as little thinkable as a world of nothing but good people, which would be a contradiction in itself, just as it would be to think of a day without night.

I believe firmly in progress; but I expect it to come not in a universal improvement of men, but as a gradual refinement of the good. If you could be content with this modest but firmly established view of life, you would not need to make any change in your activity in the cause of peace, but you would look at the world with that calmness with which one must face what is unalterable, and you would be safeguarded against disillusions as painful as they are superfluous.

The movement toward the quickest possible establishment of a general arbitration tribunal is now on, and must take its course. At least do not promote it; for if it remain without results, this would be far more favorable for the cause of peace than if such a court, which would have to be preceded by an international agreement, should make a perfect fiasco. The only practical thing to-day is that the contending parties should themselves choose arbitrators in whom they have confidence. This custom is, happily, getting to be more and more generally adopted, and all attempts to push it can only endanger it. To win more and more advocates for this custom is the task which will bring the greatest blessings from the work of these peace unions; but all the peace unions in the world have not as yet in all this time performed such a service for the idea of peace as my Martha alone with her matchless tale.

This is one thing you have to keep ever before you, and if you will join me in smiling at the Utopias of those who believe it possible to have a world of angels, then you will share my indifference in the way you regard that ancient beast, Man, and his constant readiness to heap up inflammables on inflammables.

Do you remember how I warned you against an American who counseled disarmament? They will yet, in alliance with Russia, threaten Europe; and I am thoroughly convinced that it is only the enormous armies, which no one would be able to command and provide for, that are to-day an assurance of peace and are smoothing the way for the arbitrators.

The defeat of the Italians in Africa pains me; but it is a wholesome lesson. If I were Crispi’s successor, I should have no scruple in openly declaring, “Italy has been deservedly punished for a great offense; let us not make the offense worse; we have something better to do,” and Italy would give jubilant ratification to

Your Carneri

I possess a copy of my reply, and I give some extracts from it:

Harmannsdorf, March 10, 1896

Dear Friend,

Your letter is a new proof of your affection. I have known for a long time that you are not one of us,—have known it from the day when you discovered that it would be money ill spent to contribute a legacy as a proof of respect to my life work. You find my work useless,—almost harmful; but at the same time you love Martha and Löwos, and would like to spare Martha pain. But, my dear, if I did not feel pain what would be the impulse for my work? Certainly not, as my enemies say, vanity? You surely do not believe that? No, pain at the way men stick to their barbarism is what penetrates me and compels me to oppose my weak activity against the general inaction. If one should keep waiting for the next century or so for things to be done of themselves, they would never get done. After the principle of railroads was discovered (they, too, were sufficiently opposed), locomotives and tracks had also to be built, without waiting until a future generation should be ripe for such a mode of travel....

The war that does not break out because of worry over the responsibility, that is to say, because of the excess of armaments, is not peace, for it is doubly precarious: in the first place, because the armaments are in themselves ruinous, materially and morally, for they exhaust all resources, they enslave and degrade men, and they must keep alive the spirit of war and the worship of force, which is happening in all schools at the present time; secondly, because the explosion of the powder magazine is left to depend on the arbitrary will of a few people....

Of course disarmament—especially of a single state—cannot begin immediately; but just as the interminable increase of armaments is the consequence of the anarchy that prevails in the mutual relations of states, so would disarmament be the consequence of their mutual relations based upon law....

And if only people would not keep saying to us believers in evolution that the progress of culture is slow, as if we did not know it! But, because of that, to leave the first steps to the next generations and stand still ourselves is not a correct way to apply our knowledge of the slowness of the general movement forward; for we ought also to know that this trifling advance of the whole mass is the result of the greatest haste and the greatest output of energy on the part of single atoms.

... Yes, you are right; one looks calmly into the face of the unalterable and is spared painful disillusionment; but you are not right in adding that with such a realization I could maintain the same activity; for I regard the present state of things as not unalterable, and my whole activity consists in nothing else whatever than in modest but steady coöperation, according to my ability, in bringing about the change.

Your scruples about the Universal Court of Arbitration now in process of establishment rest upon an erroneous conception of the plan. That is usually the cause of mistaken judgments. It is believed that Mr. X is aiming at something irrational, and one therefore hesitates about helping Mr. X. On the other hand, Mr. X knows very accurately all the objections to what is attributed to him; unfortunately, however, the real thing that he wants is not known....

“Share your indifference in the way I regard that ancient beast, Man, and his constant readiness to heap up inflammables on inflammables.” No, the “young God” in man cannot have this indifference if he is going to conquer the ancient beast in man. The great heaps of inflammables, which are to-day growing smaller and smaller, even though they are still predominant, must not be left under the illusion that their realm is inviolable; and besides,

“He is guilty of half the harm

Who, to stop it, will not lift an arm.”

What separates us two is faith. If you believed, as I do, in the possibility of the result, you would suffer as keenly as I do from the inertia of the world around us, but you would yourself take hold and act, and you would find your own pain and grief a small price for the beckoning reward; at the same time you would have the additional joys which often stir me when I see how the work is advancing; how, here and there, ever more numerous and ever more determined, are arising those who demand the accomplishment of what is already granted theoretically by the majority.

May the difference of our beliefs in peace matters in no respect embitter our old friendship, but do not attempt any more to free me from my worries; it is in vain. Only he can mitigate them who shares them and helps me in the battle, but helps not because he is “won by personal charm,” but because he believes in the possibility, in the necessity, of this battle.

B. S.

At this period I had still other political joys and sorrows. The persecutions of Armenians in Turkey were ever assuming more grewsome proportions. The Balkan tribes, in their distress, put their hope in the peace societies. One day I was surprised by the following dispatch from Rustchuk:

June 28

Bertha von Suttner, Vienna:

A meeting attended by more than two thousand persons was held to-day to express the wish that the twenty-third article of the Treaty of Berlin might be made operative in Turkey. It was voted in the name of the freedom of all the peoples of Turkey, and with a view to putting an end to the continual shedding of blood and preventing a possible European war, to urge you to enlist the services of the Peace League in recommending to the European governments the enforcement of Article 23 of the Berlin Treaty.

The Macedonian Committee in Rustchuk for the

Freedom of European Turkey

Koptchef

The insurrection of the unhappy Cubans, and the Draconic method of subjugation employed by the Spaniards, was a real paroxysm of the system of force. General Weyler, who was hated with a deadly hatred by the Cubans on account of his cruelties, was sent over as Governor General. On his arrival he issued a proclamation; the neat document is “sharp,” that must be confessed:

The death penalty for promulgation, directly or indirectly, of news favorable to the insurrection; death for assisting in smuggling arms or for failing to prevent same; death for the telegraph operator who communicates news of the war to third persons; death for any one who verbally or through the press or in any other way lowers the prestige of Spain; death for any one who utters words favorable to the rebels, etc.,—these punishments to be determined by a court-martial without appeal, and all verdicts to be immediately executed.

Thereupon great indignation in the United States regarding the Spanish dictatorship.

And now the joyful things which my diary contains:

A great event has happened: a professor in Würzburg,—his name is on all lips,—Professor Röntgen, has discovered a way of photographing the invisible by invisible rays. O thou wonderful world of magic! What splendid surprises hast thou still in store for us? Invisible rays which disclose the hidden—utterly new horizons open before us. Thus science enriches the world without having caused any increase of poverty or destruction. This is the true expander of empire,—a contrast to the sword which enriches one person only by what it has snatched from another, mangling him into the bargain!

And another joy I found in the progress of the Anglo-American arbitration treaty for the settlement of all differences, without any reference to the limitations that later treaties contain. It was not yet adopted and ratified, but the negotiations were powerfully urged on both sides of the ocean. The editors of the Review of Reviews (William T. Stead) and the Daily Chronicle, in coöperation with the English pacifists, established inquiries, meetings, demonstrations, petitions—in short, a popular movement, in which the most distinguished men of the day were enlisted and induced to take part. At the meeting which, on the third of March, brought six thousand people to Queen’s Hall, sympathetic letters were read from Gladstone, Balfour, Rosebery, Herbert Spencer, and others. The resolve of this meeting was communicated officially by its chairman, Sir James Stansfeld, a former member of the Cabinet and friend of Lord Salisbury’s, to the latter, whereupon the Premier replied that the matter had the sanction of the government. On Easter Sunday three English Church dignitaries issued a manifesto to the people. The issuer applied directly to Cardinal Rampolla, and he replied with the approval of the pope.

On the other side of the ocean there was the same movement in favor of the treaty. A national convention is called in Washington for the twenty-second and twenty-third of April for the same purpose, and the signatories are statesmen, bishops, judges, governors. President Cleveland is well known to be inspired with the same desire; in short, the conclusion of the treaty may confidently be expected to take place very soon; and a new epoch of the history of civilization will be thereby initiated.

Now death overtook the former French Prime Minister, in whom our movement had such a firm support,—Jules Simon. My friend Frédéric Passy was especially affected at this bereavement. It is a matter of common knowledge that Jules Simon had won the sympathies of Emperor William II.

I have a letter from the famous statesman and philosopher which shows clearly with what conviction and passionate eagerness he fought against the institution of war. I had written urging him to attend a festival meeting of our Union in Vienna, and received the following reply:

Senate, Paris, May 24, 1892

Madam:

You ask if I will come to the meeting at Vienna. Alas! no, and I am very sorry that I cannot. I have taken upon me all kinds of obligations which are devouring my life without any too great advantage to the causes I am serving. You thoughtlessly accept an engagement and discover the next morning that if you had not alienated your liberty you could make a better use of your energies.

I could do nothing which would be more in line with my ideas and my tastes, if it be permitted to speak of one’s inclinations when it is a question of duty; no, I could do nothing that would satisfy me better than to go to Vienna and fight under your leadership and that of your friends against this eternal war from which we are suffering in the midst of perfect peace, and which is becoming a disease endemic in the whole human race.

I know perfectly well that I should not say anything which has not been said and which ought not to be repeated again this time. I do not blush for our cause because of its antiquity, nor because of the necessity which rests on its defenders of reiterating unceasingly the same arguments and the same complaints. It is like a Catholic litany, which ceaselessly repeats the same words to the same music, and which, in its monotony, is none the less an energetic and passionate prayer. I should have liked to mingle my voice in that chorus of thousands of voices which will be raised in protest against the collective assassinations, against the official massacres, against the destruction of human life and property in this horrible hell.

As I am unable to go there and raise my voice, I find some consolation, madam, in sending you my lamentation; and permit me to add to it my perfect admiration for all you are doing, and the homage of my respect.

Jules Simon

XLIX
THE SEVENTH WORLD’S PEACE CONGRESS AND THE SEVENTH INTERPARLIAMENTARY CONFERENCE IN BUDAPEST

General Türr’s visit at Harmannsdorf · Anecdotes from his life · Garibaldi’s appeal to the governments · Our journey to Budapest · Reception and preliminary festival · Opening of the Congress · From Türr’s address · The historical Millennial Exposition · Élie Ducommun gives a report on the year’s events · Debate: Armenian horrors · Address to the pope · Letter from Dr. Ofner · Excursion to the Margareteninsel · The youngest member of the Congress · Exciting debate about dueling · Nepluief and his institution · Deputation from the Society for the Protection of Animals · Conclusion of the Congress · Preliminary festival of the Conference · Soirée at the Parkklub · Opening session in the House of Magnates · Second session · Soirée at the Prime Minister’s · From the protocol · Apponyi on the participation of Russia in the conferences · The Russian consul Vasily and his action · Excursion into the future · Visit at Maurus Jókai’s · Gala operatic performance · End of the Conference · Opening of the “Iron Gate”

Now we were getting ready to start for Budapest, where, during the Millennial Festival, the Seventh World’s Peace Congress and the Seventh Interparliamentary Conference were to be held.

General Türr was chosen as chairman of the Congress. On the twenty-sixth of August we were surprised by a dispatch from Türr announcing that he was coming to Harmannsdorf. He had arrived in Vienna from Rome, and before continuing his journey to Budapest he wanted to fulfill a promise made long before to visit us in our home.

It gave us great delight, and in order to show it we prepared a grand reception for him. Before the entrance to the palace a triumphal arch was erected, adorned with the inscription

WELCOME, STEPHAN TÜRR

and when the carriage that brought him from the station, whither My Own had gone to meet him, drove up, a double line of our foresters performed a fanfare. Türr was greatly pleased with the fun.

Although he was then seventy-one years old, he was as fresh and martial and elastic in his bearing as if he had been only fifty at most. At our house he added another to his conquests. Not to speak of myself, our pretty niece Maria Louise, who was twenty-two, was so fascinated by him that she begged a cousin who was a painter and happened to be with us to make a life-size portrait of the handsome old warrior. The portrait was painted and she hung it in her boudoir.

My diary has the following entry under date of August 26:

On arising I find a dispatch from Türr. Wire reply and make preparations. Arrival at four o’clock. Much fun over triumphal gate, banners, and fanfare; looks fine. At the very first, long chat in the billiard room about the Congress. Still much to be done in preparation, but the larger part has already been begun by his friends, and through his influence many advances by the government. Dinner with the whole family. Then black coffee in the garden. Very interesting stories. On the whole, he is full of gayety, goodness, and wit—like all men of the highest distinction who have been condemned to death two or three times!

Of the anecdotes from his experiences, which he intermingled with his conversation, I jotted down a few afterwards in a condensed form:

In the year 1868 he came to Vienna, commissioned by King Victor Emmanuel, whose adjutant general he was, to bring this message to Emperor Franz Joseph: “Tell the Emperor that in me he has not only a good relative but also a good friend.” Türr told us in what a friendly manner the Emperor received the message and the messenger—although he had once been proscribed and under the ban as a revolutionist.

Türr had no specially good things to say of Bismarck. From his conversations with the Chancellor he quoted the following remarks: “After supper I brought Rechberg to the point of letting me buy Lauenburg—I wanted to prove that this Austrian would sell what he had no right to.” And again: “I have not succeeded very well in persuading my king that we must wage war against Austria, but I have brought him to the very edge of the ditch, and now he must leap.”

Türr was once talking with a Chinaman about civilization. “Do you know,” remarked the man from the Middle Kingdom, “that your liberté, fraternité, égalité, are very fine, but a fourth thing is necessary.”

“And that is—?”

Un harmonisateur.

“What is that?”

The Chinaman, making a gesture suggestive of whipping, said, Le bambou.

Türr is also somewhat of the opinion that it would be a good thing if men could have some of their bad qualities whipped out of them, especially some of their stupidity. La bêtise humaine est in-com-men-su-ra-ble ... and that word is still too short!

Ach Götter,

Schneidt’s Bretter!

With this sigh of resignation he used to conclude his observations over this or that piece of immeasurable stupidity among men.

He told us ever so much about his life as a soldier. He had already passed his fiftieth year in military service, for he had entered the army in 1842. During this half century he had seen so much that was horrible on the various battlefields, that he had consequently become an enemy of war:

It was in May, 1860. We were marching with Garibaldi’s thousand heroes against Palermo. In the neighborhood of the market place of Partenio we had a glimpse of something that filled the hardest-hearted of us with horror. Beside the road a dozen Bourbon soldiers lay dead, and a pack of dogs were gnawing at their bodies.... We approached and saw that the soldiers had been burned. Garibaldi expressed his indignation at this in a terrible outbreak of rage. He could hardly hold in till he entered the little town. The inhabitants received him with joy, but he shouted to the exulting people in a voice trembling with wrath:

“I have seen here a barbarous deed—the partisans of freedom have no right to give way to such inhumane cruelty....”

The people listened in deep silence to the general’s outburst of passion. Finally some one came forward and said:

“We must acknowledge that we have done wrong, but before you condemn us, listen to what happened here; perhaps you will find our action comprehensible....”

And the people conducted the general to a group of houses. He was taken into four or five of these houses and shown a heap of women and children, all scorched and burned to cinders. “This is what the Bourbon soldiers have done,” they cried; “they drove the women and children into these houses, set the houses on fire, and would not let one escape. They guarded the doors until the wretched creatures struggled with death in the flames. We heard their screams of agony and hurried to help them; but it was too late.... In our bitter indignation we could only wreak our vengeance for the innocent victims by hurling the monsters into the fire in turn, and then we brought them out into the road.”

Türr told us also of the document that Garibaldi, after the campaign was concluded, sent to all the crowned heads of Europe, urging them to form a league of peace. No notice was taken of this action and it is generally unknown. The only trace of it still remaining is the remark in the encyclopedia under the name Garibaldi: “Brave, patriotic, disinterested, warm-hearted, but without deep political insight, a visionary.” But it was really General Türr who suggested that attempt. Again I quote his own words:

One evening at Naples I was with Garibaldi on the balcony. The general, according to his usual custom, was contemplating the sky full of glorious stars. For a long time he was silent; at last he said:

“Dear friend, we have again done only half a job. God knows how much blood will still have to be shed before the unity of Italy is established.”

“May be ... but, general, you can be contented with the great result that we have brought about within six months. The shedding of much blood might be avoided if better views should obtain among the rulers.... If, as far as it were possible, an agreement might be entered into by the European countries; if what Henry the Fourth and Elizabeth, Queen of England, centuries ago dreamed, and what Minister Sully so beautifully described, could be brought about,—who knows but the king’s noble idea might even then have been realized, if a fanatic’s dagger had not struck him down. But it would seem as if the time had now come to carry it out, so as to save Europe from other dreadful massacres and battles. General, you have accomplished a great work; you would seem to be the very one to bring an appeal to the rulers and the nations in the interest of peace and confederation.”

We talked for a long time about this, and the very next morning Garibaldi brought the appeal which, with a few modifications, we sent to the powers. Since that time I have often had that appeal printed. Whenever opportunity has offered I have striven to call the attention of those in power and the great public to Garibaldi’s lofty ideas. And now, when the peace workers and the representatives of the nations are about to assemble on the occasion of the Millennial Festival, I am going once more to bring forth the never-to-be-forgotten leader’s inspired words of exhortation. It will not fail to be interesting—amid the conservative tendencies—to hear ideas of the so-called “revolutionists and subverters,” dictated as they were by the purest philanthropy; for those men sought to overthrow nothing except the dikes that block freedom and progress.

General Türr pulled out of his pocket a copy of Garibaldi’s appeal and handed it to me. It is an interesting document, and it makes one realize how thoughts which are regarded as new have been conceived many years back, and how they are swallowed up in forgetfulness, no matter how eloquently they may have been spoken. Ever again and ever again they have to emerge, like something new, surprising people, until at last they become common property.

In this appeal Garibaldi points to the enormous armaments of the sixties (what would he say to-day!); he laments that in the midst of so-called civilization we fill our lives with mutual threats against one another. He proposes an alliance of all the states of Europe; then there would be no more fighting forces on land and sea (that we should be now building air-fleets he did not foresee), and the enormous funds that have to be withdrawn from the necessities of the nations for unproductive, death-dealing purposes might be made available for ends that would improve property and lift the level of human life; these latter are then enumerated.

The document also gives satisfactory answers to possible objections. “What will become of the multitude of men who are serving in the army and in the navy?”

Rulers would have to study institutions of common utility if their minds were no longer absorbed in ideas of conquest and devastation.... In consequence of the advance in industry and the greater stability of commerce, the merchant service would soon take care of the whole personnel of the navy; the immense and innumerable works and undertakings which would spring up because of peace, the alliance, and security, would employ twice as many men as are serving in the army.

The appeal concludes with warm words addressed to those princes to whom “the sacred duty is intrusted of doing good and cherishing that greatness which is higher than ephemeral false greatness,—that true greatness the foundation of which would be the love and the gratitude of the nations.”

General Türr returned that same evening to Vienna and went the next day to Budapest, where he finished the laborious preparations for the Congress.

Two days before the Congress opened we three followed him there. I say “we three,” for we took our niece Maria Louise with us; we wanted her to enjoy this journey and the social festivities with us.

I see us on board a Danube steamer. It was a beautiful, sunny September day. There was quite a little peace band of us,—Malaria, Dr. Kunwald, the Grollers, husband and wife, and Countess Pötting, “die Hex”; of friends from abroad,—Frédéric Passy, Gaston Moch and his wife, Yves Guyot the former Minister, publisher of Le Siècle and a great free trader before the Lord, the Grelix couple, and M. Claparède from Switzerland.

So we had already a little Congress on deck; even at meals our company clung together. We passed by Pressburg, by Gran with its proud episcopal palace, and at Waitzen a deputation from Budapest which had been sent out to meet us came aboard,—three members of the Congress committee, and with them a reporter of the Pesti Napló (the “Budapest Journal”). It was already evening and all the lights were ablaze when we slowly came into port. On the dock stood other members of the committee, among them Director Kemény, who greeted us with an address; and gathered about was a dense throng shouting Éljen! (“Hail!”) at the top of their voices. Carriages in waiting whirled us all to the Hotel Royal, where General Türr and a number of other colleagues were already awaiting us. That was the day of our arrival, September 15. By the entries in my diary I will now bring in review before my memory the week of the Budapest Congress and Conference.

September 16. Interviews the whole morning. Leopold Katscher brings me newspapers and tells about the preliminary labors. Luncheon in the Hotel Hungaria given by General Türr with only a few intimate friends. Visits with Karolyi, Banffy, and others. In the evening of this day before the opening of the Congress all the delegates are invited to a reception in the great drawing-rooms of the Hotel Royal. Türr and Count Eugen Zichy, the great Asiatic traveler, act as hosts. At supper various addresses: Pierantoni, a giant in stature, with a stentorian voice, speaks in Italian, and as fascinatingly as if he were a famous reader rather than a famous teacher of international law. I make the acquaintance of Dr. Ludwig Stein, professor in Bern University, whose philosophical feuilletons in the press have long been a delight to me. Frédéric Passy and Frédéric Bajer speak, and the “Peace Fury” is also obliged to take part.

September 17. Opening session in the council chamber of the new City Hall. Before the door, in the entrance hall, and on the stairs are stationed pandours, splendid in their lace-adorned uniforms and armor. It reminds one of the reception at the Capitol. The hall is packed. The galleries are densely crowded. Türr takes his place on the platform between the Minister of the Interior and the Mayor. He opens the Congress with a brief, vigorous address. Here is a passage from it:

Not so very long ago there were princes and noblemen who fought one another and exercised jurisdiction over their subjects and serfs. If any one at that day had told them that the time would come when they would be required to bring their quarrels before a judge, they would have declared that person a dreamer, a Utopian, or something worse. And now these great lords are compelled to appear before the judge, where all their former serfs stand on the same footing with them.

This change might be brought about also in the relations of the powers, and all the easier since it does not here concern two or three hundred princes and thousands of members of the high and lower nobility. We have to-day six great powers; and even these have united,—some in the Triple Alliance, the others in a friendly union; and all for the purpose of preserving peace.

Now then, only one further step is required. If these two groups unite, then the smaller states will join, and the free confederation of the European powers is accomplished.

After the session the participants in the Congress are conducted to the Millennial Exposition,—the “Historical Exposition,” ... a thousand years of Hungarian history, from the primitive simplicity of the semibarbarous time of Arpád down to the refined industry of the highly developed—let us say only quarter-barbarous—to-day. And if another thousand years pass by and again an exposition illustrates the course of development, will the little medals with the word pax on them, such as we all have attached to our clothes as tokens, at that time be found perchance among the articles of apparel?

In the evening a garden party in Oes-Budavar. Everywhere at the appearance of the troops of peace ring forth from the densely encircling public hearty shouts of Éljen!

September 18. An interesting session. Élie Ducommun reads the report about the events of the past year. In the first place the progress of arbitration and the other successes and labors of the League; then a survey of the military events in Egypt, Abyssinia, Cuba, and Madagascar; finally, the latest events in Turkey. “Whoever may have been the originators of the atrocities, every civilized man must condemn them, just as he must condemn those who permitted the atrocities.”[^[10]]

James Capper, the sympathetic Englishman with the white, apostolic head, with the hearty, ringing voice, gets the floor. “The report of the Central Bureau,” he says, “shows so clearly the absurdity of the so-called armed peace.... What! The many armies, the terrible engines of destruction, are for the purpose of furnishing and maintaining peace, are they? and yet six million soldiers have not sufficed to prevent the infamies that have been taking place in the Orient! We should not look idly on while brigands trample down a whole nation! If I see in the street a child attacked by villains, I consider it my duty to interfere with both fists in defense of the one attacked, and if in the struggle I should have to lose my life, I would do it willingly!” Loud applause. We all feel it would be a legitimate use of force to protect the persecuted against force.

A young French priest, Abbé Pichot, moves that the Congress send an address to the Pope, begging him to grant the movement his support: it is known to him that Leo XIII had the peace cause much at heart, and that a word of approval from that quarter would be of the highest value. I spring to my feet and second the motion. I also know for a fact that the Pope has frequently of late years spoken against preparations for war and in favor of the international arbitration tribunal; but it is not sufficiently well known, because these utterances were made to a Russian publicist and an editor of the Daily Chronicle. The Catholic press and the Church generally, as well as the whole Catholic world, have failed to hear those words. How very different would be the effect if the Pope should direct these observations of his directly to the millions of his faithful. So then, I urged, let the respectful request be submitted to him that he embody in an encyclical the expressions of encouragement already often pronounced by him in the presence of the advocates of peace. Some one objects: the motion could not fail to offend those of other beliefs, especially freethinkers; no religious tendency should be introduced. Frédéric Passy explains that we are dealing not with religious but with humanitarian demonstrations. The motion is carried.

In the evening, gala performance of the opera Der Geiger von Cremona.[^[11]]

I receive a letter from Dr. Julius Ofner, deputy to the Austrian Parliament. I give the text of it here:

... I should gladly have taken part in the deliberations on the international arbitration tribunal. The talk that is made on this point seems to me too timid, too much directed to the welfare of the states and too little to their duties; apostles do not flatter.

From a legal point of view there can be no doubt: no law without a judge; no one can decide in his own cause, and history teaches that if states desire even the most unrighteous things, they have always found crown jurists to defend them and declare them lawful. As long, therefore, as there is no tribunal erected for international differences, there will be international politeness, international morals, but no international justice. The strong is infallible; injured justice turns only against the weak. The appeal to sovereignty, which, it is said, must not be curtailed, is nothing but a cloak for the desire to be permitted to do arbitrary wrong. For all law limits the single individual for the advantage of the rest, limits arbitrariness for the advantage of universal liberty. Law and righteousness are at the foundation of all culture, and what Kant said in regard to mankind in general applies to states,—“If there were no law it would not be worth while for men to live on earth.”

There is nothing sensational in the session. The afternoon is spent at the Othon, a journalists’ club. In Türr’s company my niece and I make a call on Prime Minister Banffy.

September 20. Outing for the members of the Congress. We are taken on special steamboats to the Margareteninsel, where the committee provide a luncheon. The weather is splendid—the tables are set in the open air, surrounded by the wonderful grounds of the park. “Do you know, my dear colleagues and friends,” said General Türr, “this island was formerly a wilderness. The owner, Archduke Joseph, by clearing, cultivating, and decorating it, has made a paradise of it. So may that wilderness which to-day prevails in international life be turned by the civilizing power of the work of peace into a blooming land like the Margareteninsel.”

Of course others also speak. Deep emotion is caused, however, when an Italian delegate, a former captain on the general staff, Conte di Pampero, lifting up his eight-year-old son and standing him on the table, asks permission to speak in the name of the youngest member of the Congress, and, laying his hand as if in blessing on the lad’s head, adjures those present to bring up their children, just as he is doing, to hate war and love humanity....

September 21. Very lively debate over dueling. A delegate—Félix Lacaze from France—makes the motion that all Peace Societies shall require their members to agree to decline all duels. A great controversy arises. Count Eugen Zichy declares that if this is carried he must as a matter of honor resign from the Union. Such an obligation cannot be undertaken in certain countries and in certain circles. The English members, who are indignant that the duel is being discussed, are provoked and refuse to allow Count Zichy to have the floor a second time, although he declares he wishes to speak in the line of conciliation. Finally Houzeau de Lehaye, the ever conciliatory, offers a compromise resolution which, although declaring that nothing can be mandatory upon the members, nevertheless urges them to make every effort to discourage the use of the duel, as contradictory to the principles which they are supporting, and to secure the execution of the laws that relate to it.

I have made an interesting new acquaintance,—a Russian by the name of Nepluief. He introduced himself to me during a recess in the proceedings, and is urging me to support his ideas. He has founded in his country an institution based on the principles of education for peace. He gives the impression of being a grand seigneur, and at the same time a deeply religious man. His idea in coming here is to acquaint the Congress with the institution which he has called into life, and have it imitated everywhere. He called himself on his visiting card “Président de la Confrérie ouvrière de l’Exaltation de la Croix.” In this way he imparts an ecclesiastical tinge to his socialistic undertaking. A multimillionaire, possesser of wide landed estates and numerous factories in the Government of Chernigof, he began his career as a diplomat, but gave it up in order to devote himself wholly to the task of elevating the Russian peasants morally and materially. At his own expense he founded popular schools for industrial and agricultural training, and peasant unions which he calls “Brotherhoods.” From the first he gave these unions a share in the profits of his undertaking; later he turned over his whole property to their complete control, reserving for himself only the title of life president of these enterprises. But things did not run smoothly. For years he had to contend with the ill will of the Russian bureaucracy, which suspected him of being a socialist. Finally, however, his work of education brought him satisfactory results. He has explained his methods and experiences in a pamphlet, which he distributed to the members of the Congress. He himself departed from Budapest the same day.[^[12]]

In the evening a banquet is given by the city.

September 22. A deputation from the Society for the Protection of Animals call upon me and beg me to support their endeavors. I reply that I have at that moment a book under way, entitled Schach der Qual (“Check to Suffering”), in which there is to be a chapter pleading for our poor dumb fellow-creatures, that are so cruelly treated.

Final session. At half past one General Türr ends the Congress with the greeting Auf Wiedersehn. The “meeting again” takes place two hours later, in the Hotel Royal, where a farewell dinner is given to the president and the committee and the rest of us. Malaria—Olga Wisinger—had taken charge of the arrangements. But even now there is no general breaking up, for many of the participants remain here in order to be present at the opening to-morrow of the Interparliamentary Conference.

We were also among those who were going to remain a few days longer. As early as the sixteenth of August the following letter had reached us at Harmannsdorf:

Interparliamentary Conference, Hungarian Group

Budapest, August 15

Your Highness:

The useful zeal and the self-sacrificing and profitable labors which you have undertaken in the interest and service of universal peace make it a pleasant duty for us to invite you, as well as your husband, and your niece the Baroness von Suttner, to the Interparliamentary Conference which is to open at Budapest on the twenty-second of September.

As you are aware, only members of legislatures can take part in the Conference; yet it may interest you to follow the sessions from the gallery and to participate in the festivities and excursions.

In this hope, etc.

Koloman v. Szell, Chairman

Aristide v. Deszewffy, Secretary

of the Executive Committee

I return to my Budapest diary.

September 23. Yesterday, as on the eve of the Congress, a great soirée in the Parkklub, cards of invitation for which were sent out by Koloman von Szell. This clubhouse is really beautiful—massive, splendid, with English comfort. All the members of the Conference are present; we have a joyous meeting with old acquaintances,—Stanhope, Beernaert, Cremer, Descamps, and others. Many ladies of Hungarian society and the wives of the members of the Conference are there. Almost all the Hungarian ministers, Baron Banffy at their head; Counts Eugen Zichy, Albert Apponyi, Szapary, Esterhazy, and many journalists and artists. Our old Passy is closely surrounded. Maria Louise looks wondrously pretty and, it seems to me, is turning the heads of several of the Magyars! Also that northern maiden, Ranghild Lund, the beauty of the conference days at Rome, is here and arousing much admiration. John Lund comes up to me and brings me a message from Björnson. I make the acquaintance of a young Countess Kalnoky (unmarried and very independent), and her free and broad-minded views greatly appeal to me. Then we are joined by a Countess Forgac; she has much to tell us of Empress Elisabeth, among other things the following: Some spirit communications had been made (presumably at a spiritualistic séance) to the effect that the place where the Crown Prince Rudolf is staying is worse than hell and no prayers are of any avail; the Empress is full of despair about it. Melinda Karolyi and I exchange glances equivalent to many exclamation marks.

Servants bring round delicious edibles and drinkables. A journalist remarks, “One need not be a member of a peace league to find this sort of international meeting decidedly pleasanter than those where bombs and grenades are served.”

To-day the opening session takes place in the House of Magnates. Before the building, on the edge of the street, fastened together with garlands of flowers, stand masts, from which float the flags of all the nations that participate in the Conference,—an object lesson for the passers-by. That conception of a “European Confederation,” still so strange, is here expressed in the language of emblems.

We reach our places in the gallery before the members of the Conference make their appearance in the hall, so we watch them as they come in deliberately and take their places. In the ministerial chairs, where of late the King’s Hungarian councilors sat, now the foreign parliamentarians are taking their seats. Frédéric Passy is between Cardinal Schlauch and Minister Darany. Gobat mounts the platform and proposes that the president of the Hungarian House of Deputies, Desider Szilagyi, be chairman of the Conference. He accepts and delivers the welcoming address. Now follow the speeches of old acquaintances,—Pirquet, Descamps, Beernaert, Von Bar, Bajer, and others. Apponyi is new and surprising to me. What a speaker! He has a tall, elegant figure, a powerful barytone voice, and an easy mastery of foreign tongues.

At the second session at four o’clock begin the actual transactions. Point I: “Permanent International Arbitration Tribunal.” Descamps reports that he has sent to all the sovereigns and governments the memorandum in regard to this question, drawn up in accordance with the motion of the previous year. Most of the governments had replied favorably to the principles, but the most decisive answer came from St. Petersburg, from the recently departed Prince Lobanof.

In the evening a great soirée at the Prime Minister’s.

I see that my diary has not kept a very strict account of the various phases of the transactions of the Conference. But the official protocol lies before me and I will here dwell upon something that seems to me important in the historical development of the peace cause. In that session of September 22, 1896, the following resolution was offered by Pierantoni:

The Seventh Interparliamentary Conference requests all civilized states to call a diplomatic conference in order that the question of an international court of arbitration may be laid before it; at this conference the labors of the Interparliamentary Union shall serve as a basis for further resolves.

A Conference of Diplomatists. In this term does there not already ring—how shall I express it?—a note suggestive of the conferences at The Hague, in which, indeed, the labors of Descamps and La Fontaine served as the foundation of the establishment of the Hague Tribunal.

And still another debate of historical interest. During the session of the twenty-fourth of September the order of the day contains the question whether those nations that have no parliament may be able to participate in the Interparliamentary Conferences, and what their status shall be. Count Albert Apponyi, who has composed a memorial on this subject, which is distributed through the hall, makes the report. He refers to the memorial, and confines himself to a brief exposition. He reserves the privilege of again expressing his views at the conclusion of the debate; now he will only state the motion:

That an amendment be added to the statutes to the effect that the Conferences shall admit to their deliberations also the delegates of sovereigns, rulers, and governments, as well as of the Russian Imperial Council or any similar institution in nonconstitutional countries, in so far as such delegates are accredited by their governments. The Management (Bureau) shall be authorized to inform the rulers and governments of nonconstitutional countries that the Conference would be pleased to welcome their delegates to its deliberations.

Lewakowski, member of the Austrian Parliament, opposes Apponyi’s motion; its aim is wholly and solely the admission of Russia.

“We are here,” he declares, “as the representatives of the people, and we are working here in the spirit of our commissions. The Russian nation cannot send any representative that can have the same authority as we have.” Norton, Snape, Pirquet, Rahusen, and Passy speak in favor of the motion.

M. G. Conrad[^[13]] opposes the motion in the most violent terms: “Either we are a parliamentary conference or we are not. We do not need to know what the governments say; we want to hear the views of the people themselves. And the views of the Russian people you surely will not be likely to hear from the mouths of the delegates of the Russian government.”

Stanhope favors the adoption of the motion. The magnificent object of the Conference, he declares, would only be furthered by it. There actually exists in Russia something that corresponds to a parliamentary body, and, who knows? some day, directly through the influence of our Conference, something may develop that will lead to constitutionalism.

Then Count Apponyi brings the debate to a conclusion. He takes strong issue with his opponents. In reply to Lewakowski he declares that numerous gentlemen are sitting here who have not received their credentials from their nation and indeed are members of the upper houses appointed by their sovereigns. In the one scale are placed the objections that have been adduced, in the other the immense importance of the fact that such a great empire as Russia, occupying a third of all Europe, ought to share in our deliberations. This question came up for the first time in the Hungarian Group, and was agitated in the interest of those countries that have, to be sure, no parliaments, and yet desire to participate in our labors and to battle for the peace of the world. These also have the right to collaborate with us in the great work of civilization. We are all pursuing the one aim of helping a righteous cause to victory, and any kind of assistance can be welcomed by us. The honored president of the former Conference has sent to all the governments his memorandum regarding the Court of Arbitration, and the most sympathetic reply was that received from the late Prince Lobanof.

Descamps: “That is correct.”

Apponyi: “In Russia, as may be seen by many indications, the tendency to take part in European affairs is strong; for some time Russia has been represented at most Congresses. We must give her the opportunity to share also in our labors; it is indeed not beyond the bounds of possibility that the development of affairs in Russia will be in this way favorably influenced. At all events the sympathy of such a powerful state could only strengthen our endeavors.”

It is interesting to connect with this debate of September 24, 1896, the fact that on the 24th of August, 1898, the manifesto calling the Peace Conference at The Hague emanated from Russia.

One other circumstance must also be mentioned here. The then Russian consul, Vasily, was present at the sessions and exercises of the Conference at Budapest, and communicated to his government accurate and sympathetic reports. He was an unhesitating friend of peace. His report was, as I afterwards learned, cast in the form of an impassioned plea for cessation of war preparations. The suggestion did not receive the approval of his superiors, and remained for some time forgotten. A year later, however, when Lord Salisbury in his Guildhall address animadverted on the endless increase in armament among the nations, and declared that the only hope of escaping general ruin lay in the union of the powers in some kind of an international constitution, then M. Vasily presented anew his idea in behalf of an attempt to bring about an international understanding on this point. Vasily was attached to the ministry of foreign affairs; he naturally communicated his ideas to his chief, Count Lamsdorff, who, in turn, laid them before the Emperor.

When, in 1906, the Interparliamentary Conference met in London, a parliament was sitting in St. Petersburg which sent its representatives to England, not in the name of a group, but of the whole Duma. To be sure, on the very day when, at the opening session in Westminster Hall, the Russian delegate was to deliver his salutatory, the news arrived that the Duma was prorogued. The Russians were obliged, therefore, to quit London with their business unaccomplished, and Campbell-Bannerman, who opened the Interparliamentary Conference, was given the opportunity of perpetrating his mot, which afterwards became so famous: La douma est morte, vive la douma!

After this brief excursion into the future I return to the Budapest notes in my diary.

September 24. After the morning session, when the Russian debate was on, in which Apponyi distinguished himself and which Vasily and Novikof followed with great interest, we make a call on Maurus Jókai. An attack of indisposition prevented him from taking part in the Conference, but he is well enough to receive us. He lives in a villa of his own, not large but very beautiful, and surrounded by a garden. He shows us all his treasures,—his worktable, his books, and the gifts which he received at his Jubilee; among them the splendid offering from the Hungarian nation, the de luxe edition of his complete works, for the publication of which subscriptions of a hundred thousand gulden were paid in advance,—a gift of honor presented to the poet by his fellow-countrymen. Two very interesting hours. Jókai tells us much about his life. He gives me his photograph inscribed with his name.

In the evening a gala performance of the opera Bank-Ban, by Erkel[^[14]]; Bianca Bianchi trills like a nightingale.

September 25. Final session. Closing banquet in the festival hall of the Exposition. Eight hundred participants. On both sides of the vestibule stand Haiduks in gala uniform. At the table of honor, with the leaders of the various foreign groups, are Beernaert, Passy, Stanhope, Descamps, and others; and the Hungarians, Szilagyi, Szell, Apponyi, Szapary, Berzeviczy, Franz Kossuth, and Mayor Ráth as host. My neighbors are the English General Havelock and Count Koloman Esterhazy. After the toast to the King, offered by the mayor, Koloman Szell toasts the members of the Conference, “the masters and banner bearers in the greatest question in the progress of civilization.”

The exercises were not at an end even on the last day of the Conference. The participants were invited to help celebrate the opening of the “Iron Gate,” which was to take place in the presence of the Emperor. On the twenty-sixth of September, in the evening, two special trains took us to Orsova, where comfortable quarters were assigned to each and every guest. On the morning of the twenty-seventh, radiant with unclouded sunshine, we all went aboard the special steamboat Zriny, which, occupying the fourth place in the column, accompanied the imperial ship down the Danube; the second boat carried the generals, the third the diplomats. After the flotilla reached the Kazan pass, the imperial ship cut through a cable of flowers stretched across the Danube canal—the “Iron Gate” was opened.

“This festal occasion,” said Emperor Franz Joseph, “which brings us together to celebrate a great work of public utility, fills me with happiness, and in the conviction that this work will give a powerful and healthy impulse to the peaceful and advantageous development of international relations, I drink to the happiness and prosperity of the nations.”

The four steamboats now moved slowly past and sailed back to Orsova.

L
OTHER EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1896

Jingo criticism of Budapest · A prophetic chapter from Schach der Qual · A poem by Hoyos and a letter from Nathaniel Rothschild · Visits of the Tsar · Extracts from diary · Correspondence between the Austrian Peace Society and the English Department of Foreign Affairs · Treaty of peace between Menelik and Italy

Again at Harmannsdorf. The days at Budapest had left a joyous feeling of exultation. The meeting had given conspicuous testimony to the growth of the movement and to the impression that it was making in powerful political circles. Perfectly amusing and indeed comical in its malicious perversion of facts, its absolutely bottomless ignorance, was an article in the jingo press that I found in a mountain of press notices which had collected at home during our absence. The St. James Gazette of September 18 wrote:

There are more important transactions in progress at this moment in Europe than the Seventh Peace Congress, which has just met in the Grand Hall of the Municipal Palace in Budapest. None are more odd, or, in a way, better worth looking at. The good men who have met on the initiative of a most excellent lady, the Baroness Bertha von Suttner, author of “Down with Arms,” and creator of the Peace Congress, represent the fine flower of all that vaguely well-meaning, emotional, and unpractical class of persons which is to be found in most countries, and nowhere in finer feather than among ourselves. To see that there is something wrong in the world, and to propose a remedy which, on inquiry, turns out to be a radical change in human nature, is the same thing with them. They are active in many fields, or, to speak with more accuracy, they talk at large on many subjects; but they are nowhere seen in more complete beauty than when in congress assembled for the purpose of speaking of peace.... Carlyle wanted to know the meaning of the moralist who, in the conflict between Gods and Giants, put out his hand armed “with a pair of tweezers.” At this moment, when it is really not too much to say that all Europe is “a town of war, the people’s hearts yet wild, brimful of fear,” the good Baroness Bertha and like-minded persons come forward at Budapest with their pair of tweezers.... The value of the Baroness von Suttner’s picnic becomes fully conspicuous when we turn, etc., etc.

I sent Alfred Nobel a careful account of the events at Budapest, and corresponded also with Egidy about them. I worked steadily on my book, Schach der Qual, an imaginative story. A chapter in it is called Frohbotschaft (“Good Tidings”). It describes an “international conference for securing peace.” In his opening address the chairman speaks these words:

This meeting is called together at the initiative of one of the most powerful sovereigns of Europe, and after the assent to its principal object has been obtained from all the other governments; and almost all countries, great and small, with very few exceptions, have declared their agreement and are here represented.

The book was begun in 1895 and was published by Pierson at the beginning of 1897, so that the words here cited cannot be a reminiscence of the Hague Peace Conference, which was first summoned in 1898 by “one of the most powerful sovereigns of Europe”; but they are a prophetic announcement of it. This was a coincidence rare enough to make it worthy of remark.

Other incidents that interested me during the year 1896 I find jotted down in my diary:

October 2. No letter from Hoyos in a long time. He must be ill. I hope he will soon be well again, the splendid man! There are not many in our aristocracy who are so free and grand and magnanimous in their thoughts, and who are so entirely opposite to reactionary—almost socialistic. Note this example of it: Lately a collection was taken for the unemployed. Hoyos added the following verses to his contribution:

Sammlung für die Arbeitslosen

For the unemployed, collections,—

Coal, old clothes, and doles of bread,

Linen, hose,—they’re no corrections

For the want so widely spread!

Do not mitigate starvation;

See that hunger you expel;

Then you’ll make the demonstration

That you love your neighbor well.

Give not alms to your poor neighbor;

Stop the source of poverty;[^[15]]

Do not limit, hamper Labor;

Make its course forever free!

In the Code’s indwelling spirit

Let not Law o’er Duty stand;

Let them the same place inherit;

Let all men the Law command!

October 10. The Emperor of Russia has been in Vienna. From there he went to Breslau, Balmoral, Paris. The result of it is Pax et Robur. So at least some remark; others say the result is Revanche; still a third think that everything remains as it was before. But this last is not correct. It has brought about something new, to wit,—that in divided and split-up and hostile Europe the sovereign of one country travels to another and goes everywhere as a friend and is everywhere received as a friend. Indeed, if Europe were a civilized complex of states, that would be as natural and as much a matter of course as it is for a landed proprietor to make a series of visits among all the neighboring families. Not in half a century, perhaps, has the word “peace” been so frequently, so emphatically, so solemnly, so universally repeated in speeches and newspapers as it has been in consequence of this journey. That shows the tendency of the Zeitgeist; but it is still far from the peace that we mean. For the whole affair abounds in contradictions, especially the contradiction that exists between the new tendency and the old institutions, views, and political constellations still intrenched in power. Here is a monster of contradiction, such as the history of the world has never before displayed: two mutually opposed shields loaded with explosives; two hostile guardians of the peace, or two peaceable guardians of enmity,—Dreibund and Zweibund. Why not equally well Fünfbund?

October 15. Already 165,000 men in all have been sent to Cuba. The Spanish Ministry of War intend to dispatch 40,000 more, because yellow fever and other diseases have already greatly reduced the number of the effective. A loan of a milliard is planned.

October 18. Rear Admiral Tirpitz has elaborated a naval budget of 150,000,000 marks. The Post writes: “Tirpitz has made use of a long leave of absence, under orders from the supreme authority, to formulate from the strategic-technical standpoint a plan for organizing our fleet so that from the military standpoint it shall correspond to the demands of the present time.” When shall we ever plan from the ethical-humane standpoint how circumstances may be shaped so that from the standpoint of the philosopher they may correspond to the demands of a better future?

November 9. Yesterday our beloved Rudolf Hoyos departed this life at his Castle Leuterburg in Silesia. Ever more and more numerous the graves!

November 10. Telegram from Washington: “The English ambassador Pauncefote lays before Secretary of State Olney the proposals for the Anglo-American treaty pertaining to the settlement of all future controversies through arbitration.”

This news may announce the dawn of a new epoch of civilization. Yet our “serious” politicians do not touch upon it in their leading articles.

The following letters were exchanged between the Austrian Peace Society and the Department of Foreign Affairs at London on this occasion:

Austrian Peace Society

Vienna, November 17, 1896

My Lord Marquis:

The Committee of the Austrian Peace Society venture to express to your Lordship their deep gratification in the treaty passed at Washington, November 9th. This is the greatest triumph which the cause of civilization has hitherto attained, and posterity will never forget the part which, in this happy achievement, is due to your Lordship’s wisdom and energy.

We have the honor to be, respectfully

Baroness Bertha Suttner (president)

Prince Alfred Wrede (vice president)

To the most Honorable

the Marquis of Salisbury

London, Foreign Office

London, Foreign Office

November 21, 1896

Madam:

I am directed by the Marquis of Salisbury to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 17th inst., expressing the gratification of the Austrian Peace Association in regard to the negotiation between Great Britain and the United States on the question of arbitration, and I am to express his Lordship’s thanks for your communication.

I am, Madam, your most obedient humble servant

F. H. Villiers

The Baroness of Suttner, Vienna

November 20. The papers are full of the Bismarck disclosure.[^[16]] The explanations given right and left in the Reichstag by Prince Hohenlohe and Herr von Marschall set a limit to further extension. Yes, much was certainly disclosed in this affair, and particularly the rascally face not of this or that politician but of that folk-cheating intrigante called “high politics.”

November 25. Good news. Italy and Menelik have concluded peace. Only a few days ago the Trieste Picolo learned from a diplomat of high rank that the chances for a treaty of peace with Menelik were small; he was unwilling to submit to the condition that he should not put himself under the protection of any European power. “Let the Roman government circles take into account the probabilities that the prisoners must be left to their fate(!) and hostilities resumed.” But the diplomat of high rank was fortunately mistaken. The treaty of peace is signed. In a letter which Menelik on this occasion addressed to the King of Italy he said that it was a pleasure for him, on the twentieth of November, the Queen’s birthday, to be able to restore their sons to the Italian mothers; and thus he showed a tenderer feeling for the prisoners than the above-mentioned Roman government circles.

According to the tenor of the treaty Italy renounces the (falsely interpreted) treaty of Utshili, and the two belligerents resume their former boundaries. Consequently the status quo ante—why, therefore, the great sorrow, the gigantic expenditures, the heaps of corpses mutilated and putrefying in the torrid sun? Why? why?

LI
ALFRED NOBEL’S DEATH AND WILL

News of his death · His last letter to me · The will · Letter from Moritz Adler · The will is contested · Letter from the executor · Emanuel Nobel’s noble act · Fortunate solution · Distribution of the peace prize up to date

December 12. Alfred Nobel is dead.

I recorded this loss in my diary with this single line. The news—I found it in the newspapers—was a bitter blow to me. The tie of a twenty years’ friendship was snapped. The last letter which I received from Nobel was from Paris, dated the twenty-first of November, and ran as follows:

Paris, November 21, 1896

Dear Baroness and Friend:

“Feeling well”—no, unhappily for me, I am not, and I am even consulting doctors, which is contrary not only to my custom, but also to my principles. [I], who have no heart, figuratively speaking, have one organically, and I am conscious of it.

But that will suffice for me and my petty miseries. I am enchanted to see that the peace movement is gaining ground. That is due to the civilizing of the masses, and especially to the prejudice hunters and darkness hunters, among whom you hold an exalted rank. Those are your titles of nobility.

Heartily yours,

A. Nobel

The ailing heart on which he touches playfully brought him to his death. On the tenth of December—he was then at his villa in San Remo—he was suddenly snatched away by angina pectoris. No one was with him when he died; he was found in his workroom—dead!

Some time after the report of Alfred Nobel’s death the newspapers announced that he had left his millions for benevolent purposes, a part to go towards promoting the peace movement. But the details were lacking. I received, however, from the Austrian ambassador in Stockholm a copy of the will; and the executor of it, Engineer Sohlmann, entered into correspondence with me. So I became accurately informed as to the provisions of this remarkable last will and testament:

After payment of legacies to relatives, amounting to about a million crowns, the residue of the property—thirty-five millions—was set aside for the formation of a fund, from the interest of which five yearly prizes should be assigned to such as had contributed some notable service to the benefit of mankind. These were specifically:

1. For the most important discovery and invention in the realm of physics;

2. For the most important discovery and invention in the realm of chemistry;

3. For the most important discoveries in the domain of physiology or medicine;

4. For the most distinguished productions of an idealistic tendency in the realm of literature;

5. To that man or woman who shall have worked most effectively for the fraternization of mankind, the diminution of armies, and the promotion of Peace Congresses.

The Stockholm Academy is intrusted with the assignment of the first four prizes, the Norwegian Storthing with that of the fifth.

After the publication of the provisions of the will I received the following letter from the faithful collaborator on my Review, Moritz Adler, the author of the valuable essays Zur Philosophie des Krieges (“The Philosophy of War”).

Vienna, January 4, 1897

My dear Madam:

Allow me to congratulate you with all my heart on the New Year’s delight which the splendid Nobel foundation must have given you, of course modified by the drop of wormwood which the death of such a spirit and heart mixed with the nectar. Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit can be truthfully said of this great man now passed away. He left behind no sanitary train for future gladiatorial baiting of the nations, for it was far from his idea to wish to put to sleep the consciences of the mighty and to make them believe that he thought it possible for the disgrace to be repeated. He has not founded a hospital, either, for the other sick, who are not innocently condemned by society to wounds and death. But millions in days to come will rejoice in brighter life and health, and perhaps not one in a thousand will ever suspect that he owes it to Nobel alone that he is not a cripple or a candidate for an infirmary. Could we have believed it possible that Mammon, Mammon sprung from dynamite, should be so ennobled? I am happy to have lived until this day; it has been the richest joy of my life.

I kiss your hand with the profoundest respect.

Moritz Adler

Indeed, yes; this foundation was a deep gratification to me; again something new had come into the world: not the donors of alms, nor the lawgivers, least of all the conquerors, have been held up as the benefactors of mankind, but the discoverers and explorers, and the poets inspired by high ideals, and, in the same category, the workers in the service of international peace. Already the news of this last will and testament has aroused general attention; and every year, at the time when the prizes are awarded, this sensation will be repeated. It has been openly declared to the world, not by an overexcited dreamer, but by an inventor of genius (an inventor of war material into the bargain), that the brotherhood of nations, the diminution of armies, the promotion of Peace Congresses, belong to the things that signify most for the well-being of mankind.

Thus a guiding star is fixed in the sky, and the clouds that have hitherto obscured it are breaking away more and more; the name of this star is Human Happiness. But as long as men legally threaten one another’s lives, as long as they are at feud instead of being helpful one to another, there will be no universal happiness. Yet it must and will come. The increasing spirit of research puts into man’s hand a nature-controlling power which can make of him a god or a devil.

“Here you have a material,” said the living Nobel to his own generation, “with which you can annihilate everything and yourself as well....” But the dead Nobel compels us to look at yonder star and says to future generations, “Grow nobler, and you will attain happiness.”

It was five years before the distribution of the prizes began. It took this length of time because a lawsuit which was brought by certain members of the Nobel family against the validity of the will had to be decided, and then the estate had to be liquidated. If the then head of the family, Emanuel Nobel, had joined the rest in the protest, the will would have been broken, to his own great advantage; but Emanuel Nobel refused his consent to this step. He declared that his uncle’s will was sacred to him, and he took the ground that it must be faithfully carried out in all respects, even in regard to the fifth clause, which was especially endangered.

A letter dated April 13, 1898, from the executor of the will, brought me interesting particulars regarding the whole matter. Mr. Ragnar Sohlmann wrote:

... As you will have learned from the papers, certain members of the Nobel family have been attempting to break Herr Nobel’s will in the Swedish courts, and especially on the ground that no residuary legatee is constituted. The Nobel fund as created by the will itself lacks the necessary elements—so they claim—for performing its functions,—that is to say, administrators.

To this we shall reply that all necessary elements have been provided by the will, namely, the capital, the scope of action, and the institutions designated to perform the action,—the Swedish Academy and the Norwegian Storthing. The mere organization—so we shall urge—belongs evidently to the task conferred upon the executors and the Academy.

Originally the complainants conceived the plan of bringing the suit before a French court by endeavoring to prove that Herr Nobel’s legal residence was not in Sweden but in Paris. They regarded the French laws as more favorable to their claims than the Swedish, and this undoubtedly would have been the case. We have so far succeeded in preventing the execution of this plan, and only a few days ago the highest court of Sweden rendered the decision that Bofors was Herr Alfred Nobel’s legal residence.

The fact that Herr Emanuel Nobel, of St. Petersburg, and the whole Russian branch of the family decline to take part in the suit forms a very important factor in the coming trial. This circumstance assures the fulfillment of the will in so far as it concerns the corresponding portion of the property. In consequence, the will may be regarded as established regarding eight twentieths of the whole estate. That diminishes also the chances for a judicial declaration of the invalidity of the remaining twelve twentieths.

The chief danger for the will lies in the actual animosity which at the present time obtains between Sweden and Norway, and in the fear here entertained—even among the members of the government—that the whole thing might give rise to further irritation between the two countries. The conservatives especially believe—or pretend to believe—that the Norwegian Storthing might use the prize to “bribe” other countries to oppose Sweden. And they have certainly been given some ground for their fears by the appointment of Björnson, who is regarded as Sweden’s worst enemy and is on the committee which is to award the prizes. The truth of the matter is that the members of the Nobel family who are trying to break the will are supported by the conservatives here, even by some members of the government.[^[17]]

So far my correspondent, who indicated that these communications were confidential, not designed for publication. Of course, as long as the matter was undecided I did not give out the above information; but now, since the lawsuit was long ago decided in favor of the validity of the will, and the accompanying circumstances have become an open secret, I may be permitted to regard the injunction of privacy as removed. But it is a matter of universal interest to see how picayune politics everywhere harbors suspicions and enmities, and how, in general, the “conservatives” are distrustful of the peace movement and kindred matters. Now the Swedish-Norwegian controversy has been settled; Björnson is no longer counted as an enemy of Sweden. He received from the hand of the King himself the Nobel prize for literature, and, in company with Emanuel Nobel, dined at the royal table, on which occasion Oscar II conversed in the most friendly spirit with the Norwegian bard.

The first distribution of the prizes took place on the tenth of October, 1901, the anniversary of Nobel’s death. At commemorative exercises in Stockholm the King himself delivered to the laureates the four prizes assigned by the Swedish Academy. The peace prize was awarded by the Nobel committee of the Storthing.

In the eight years that have passed since then the peace prize has been awarded as follows: 1901, Frédéric Passy and Henri Dunant;[^[18]] 1902, Élie Ducommun and Albert Gobat; 1903, William Randal Cremer; 1904, Institut du droit international; 1905, Bertha von Suttner; 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt; 1907, Ernesto Teodoro Moneta and Louis Renault; 1908, K. P. Arnoldson and M. F. Bajer.

LII
FIRST HALF OF THE YEAR 1897

From my collections of letters · Signing of the Anglo-American arbitration treaty · The ratification fails by three votes · Insurrection in Crete · The concert of the powers · Outbreak of the Turko-Grecian War · Extracts from diary · The letter “to all good men” from Fortress Montjuich · Letter from Prince Scipione Borghese · Our literary labors · My audience with Emperor Franz Joseph I · Text of the petition submitted

Here let a few specimens from my collections of letters be reproduced. Some weeks before the annual meeting of my Union, which took place early in January, 1897, I applied to various personages, asking for communications to be read; and I received numerous replies, among them the following:

Political Department of the Swiss Confederation, Bern

December 10, 1896

My dear Madam:

Your letter of the fifth instant was duly received, and I thank you most sincerely for the congratulations therein conveyed from the Austrian Society of the Friends of Peace to the Swiss government.

The Parliament indeed follows with genuine interest the philanthropic endeavors to spare the civilized world the horrors of war, and it joins with great sympathy in the demonstrations that aim to make nations comprehend the priceless advantage of peace.

In expressing to you the best wishes for the complete success of your general assembly, permit me, my dear Madam, once more to thank you heartily and to assure you of my distinguished consideration.

The President of the Swiss Confederation

Lachenal

International Peace Bureau

Secretary’s Office

Bern, December 9, 1896

Honored Colleague:

Every isolated effort of the friends of peace resembles those tiny globules of mist, the condensation of which will afterwards form the rain for which the caravan is yearning. These particles are not noticeable; no one heeds them, and when the cooling rain is falling the atoms that so patiently worked to constitute it are no longer remembered.

“Who cares for that,” say our faithful prophets, “if only it rains?”

For more than five years the Austrian Society of the Friends of Peace has been resolutely pushing forward, and its efficacy has been gaining in breadth without losing anything in depth. It will have a significant share in the final success of our united effort, and it desires, just as we all do, nothing else than that the law of international peace may some day appear as much a matter of course and as self-originated as the law of gravity and the light of the sun.

In those happy days the peace unions and peace bureaus will exist only as mere traces in the recollection of a few archivists, who will have made the discovery that there were, in that strange epoch of cannons, anti-cannon endeavors also.

Accept for yourself, honored colleague, and for your worthy fellow-workers, the assurance of my perfect consideration and high attachment.

Ducommun

Honorary Secretary of the International Peace Bureau

Brussels, Chamber of Representatives

Office of the President, October 13, 1896

My dear Baroness:

I was absent from Brussels when your letter of the fourth arrived, and I reached home too late to be able to send in season the lines desired for the meeting.

It is now certain that Brussels will have the sequel of Budapest in the course of the coming summer. I hope that on this occasion we shall have the honor of seeing you again. This would greatly delight Madame Beernaert as well as myself.

Accept, etc.

Beernaert

Nice, December 6

... King Humbert told me that he had heard with great pleasure the fine results of the Peace Congress in Budapest. “I am for peace,” said his Majesty; “Italy needs peace, and you see that now a more friendly understanding with France is coming about.”

My best greetings to all of the old fellow-combatants

S. Türr

At that time somewhat strained relations existed between France and England. I had learned that Gladstone’s friend, our proved fellow-worker Philip Stanhope, was introducing an act which had for its object the improvement of the relations between the two countries. I wrote him asking for detailed information and received the following reply:

Algiers, December 11, 1896

Dear Frau von Suttner:

I am unfortunate in always being away from home when you do me the honor of writing me, and so it happens that your letter of November 23 reached me only day before yesterday.

It is correct that I am among those who are at the present time working for a combination to improve the relations between France and England. You, who follow with such keen attention the development of public opinion, are in a position to appreciate the dangerous tendency in those relations which has recently developed, especially in a portion of the press. These influences are difficult to resist, and the work required will demand much time and energy. The combination[^[19]] of which you have heard is as yet only sketched in very indefinite outlines; but on the reassembling of Parliament on the twentieth of January we hope to make some progress, and I will send you accurate details.

As regards the Venezuelan affair, the treaty in settlement of it has been definitely concluded between England and the United States; and we are just in receipt of the news that it has been accepted by the government of Venezuela. So this question is in a fair way to be settled by arbitration; and as regards that far greater question, namely, the conclusion of a general and permanent treaty between the two powers, President Cleveland in his message to Congress of December 7 announces that the negotiations touching it are on the point of coming to a favorable and definite conclusion.

So as soon as I reach London for the opening of Parliament, I hope to be in a position to send you a fuller résumé of this question,—which we may expect will then be definitely decided,—together with all the details that you may desire.

Accept, etc.

Philip Stanhope

The contents of these letters have a historical interest, as they show how leading men in influential positions were all the time working to bring the postulates of the peace movement to validity. On the other hand, these varied and occasional fragments from my extensive store of letters have also a biographical interest, for they mirror the course of development of that cause which ever more and more was becoming my vocation, my very life, my “one important thing”! And I was enabled to find therein such profound contentment for the reason that I knew I was in harmony with so many and such a rapidly increasing number of noble contemporaries, and especially in complete unanimity of soul with an endlessly beloved and loving life companion. Every inward experience and every outward event aroused in us both the same feelings. And therewithal was that full consciousness of peace, that absolute sense of security against all that might happen, which we feel when we know that there is a heart in whose fidelity we may have absolute confidence, a breast in which we may find a refuge from all the bitterness of fate—in a word, the boundless happiness of unconditional unity of love.

On the eleventh of January, 1897, the permanent arbitration treaty, which had been so long in preparation, between England and the United States was signed by Ambassador Sir Julian Pauncefote and Secretary of State Olney. President Cleveland designated the event as the beginning of a new era of civilization. The golden pen with which the treaty was signed was deposited in the National Museum. Queen Victoria said in her address from the throne that she hoped the example would be imitated in other countries. In the daily press and among the general public the news attracted no attention whatever.

It is true this first attempt did not come to fruition. The treaty had to be ratified before it could be made effective. In order that a law may be passed or an agreement become valid a two-thirds majority in the American Senate is required. When the arbitration treaty with England came up for ratification, three votes were lacking of this two-thirds majority, and thus it was defeated.

This in no respect altered the main significance of the fact that it was signed by the representatives of both governments; the forces that brought about the drawing up and signing of the treaty would in time also overcome the opposition of the Senate.

An insurrection breaks out on the island of Crete. Kanea is burning. The villages in the vicinity are on fire. Skirmishes between Turks and Greeks are taking place. Who began it? No matter; the island of Crete declares that it will shake off the Turkish yoke and join Greece. Street demonstrations in Athens; tremendous excitement. The Chamber in its session of February 25 votes to send war ships to Crete.

Something new makes its appearance,—the “Concert of the Powers.” The powers unite to restore order and quiet in Crete and guarantee Cretan autonomy.

In the entries in my diary during April, 1897, I find an echo of the way in which these proceedings were conducted. Let me introduce a few passages here:

That was an Easter gift!—the outbreak of hostilities between Greece and Turkey. So then the “Concert of the Powers” was unable or unwilling to hinder the misfortune? Probably both. In the circles of diplomacy and the regents neither power nor will are as yet sufficiently developed in the direction of the spirit of peace; they still remain under the curse of the thousand-year-old Genius of War.

That the war was so long controlled, that it is now to be localized, that the “European Concert” will prevent the general conflagration,—this is a victory of the New. That the war broke out at all, that the powers look on and hesitate to interfere,—this is a victory of the Old.

It is clearly shown how necessary and advantageous at the present time an effective European code of laws, a European tribunal, one European army, would be. The embryo of these things has shown itself, to be sure, but the development into a strong, healthy, living thing is yet to be.

Yes, tendencies toward a federation of the civilized countries are included in the “Concert.” If this has gone forward with little harmony and unsteady step, the fault lies in this fact: it is the might of the mighty, not the rights of the weak, that they want to support. Much stress is laid on the consideration that is due the will represented by the great powers, not on the consideration that should be given the cause of the weak. Compassion, righteousness, and liberty,—that is the triad that must lie at the basis of a genuine peace concert!

A picture from the campaign: Wild flight of the Greeks. For miles and miles around the darkness of the night was illuminated by the flashes of the shots which the fugitives in wild confusion fired at one another. Horses, becoming unmanageable under the blows of the whip, dashed off and overturned the wagons with all their contents. Helpless men and wailing women everywhere, over whom the fugitives, impelled by despair, like wild hordes, recklessly trampling everything and everybody under foot, dashed away through the night....

In the meantime, while the war is raging on one side, in perfect silence the conflicts obviated by arbitration are increasing in number. The controversy between the United States and England as to the Guiana boundary, and a similar controversy between France and Brazil, have been submitted to arbitration, the former on the fifth, the latter on the tenth, of April.

A war cloud, however, is rising between Great Britain and the Transvaal. Will public opinion be influenced strongly enough by our friends in England to avert the danger?

Egidy writes me that he has applied to the Spanish ambassador in Berlin with regard to the cry for help from Barcelona.[^[20]]

About that time I received the following letter from Prince Scipione Borghese, the same who ten years later was to make the great automobile trip from Pekin to Paris:

London, April 28, 1897

My dear Baroness:

Accept my heartiest thanks for your most encouraging letter, which was sent to me here from Rome.

The trifling service that I have done for the ideal of peace is only a shadow compared to what in greatness and brilliancy other and better men have done for the progress of mankind. In my opinion this perpetual struggling forward toward a better and more righteous life must be the end and aim of all our actions.

I am happy to be able to come into direct alliance with you, and I hope very much to make your personal acquaintance soon.

In the meantime, my dear Baroness, I remain respectfully,

Your most devoted

Scipione Borghese

Our literary labors do not rest. My husband is putting the last touches to Sie wollen nicht, and I am beginning the novel Marthas Kinder (“Martha’s Children”), the second part of Die Waffen nieder, having just finished the translation of an English book, “Marmaduke, Emperor of Europe.” Die Waffen nieder is appearing in a French translation in the Indépendance belge.

This same translation two years later was issued in book form by Zola’s publisher, Tasquelles (Charpentier). From the French public came now many newspaper notices and private letters which showed me that the theme treated in that book was waking a loud echo among contemporaries in other countries.

In May, 1897, I received from London, from the ecclesiastical Arbitration Alliance, a letter asking if I would be willing to present to the Emperor of Austria a copy of an address which a hundred and seventy dignitaries of the Church were sending to all rulers. I assented, and thereupon received the document, a beautifully engrossed copy of the text in a tasteful roll, with the autograph signatures of the petitioners. A special copy was provided for every potentate. At the head of the hundred and seventy names, which comprised only high ecclesiastical dignitaries, were the Archbishop of Dublin, the bishops of Ripon, Durham, and Killaloe, Queen Victoria’s chaplain, and others.

I applied at the office of the cabinet for an audience, and it was granted for the third of June at ten o’clock in the morning. I was obliged to state the object of my desire in my request for an audience.

On the day set, at the appointed hour, I presented myself in the imperial palace, accompanied by the vice president of my Union. There was a perfect swarm of uniforms in the anteroom to the audience chamber. Generals and staff officers were awaiting their turn to be summoned. We were not kept waiting long. When the door opened to permit the personage who had just been with the Emperor to pass out, we were immediately summoned. This preference was not at all due to the fact that the presiding officers of the Peace Society were bringing an “arbitration petition,” but simply because my escort was a prince (at court everything goes by rank and title).

I had my artistic-looking roll in my hands and a well-prepared speech on my tongue,—which at the crucial moment completely failed me,—and we passed through the door, which was held open by an adjutant and closed behind us. The Emperor was standing by his writing table and he took a few steps to meet us. After a low, courtly bow, which I am under the impression was a success, I gave utterance to my desire. My escort added a few explanatory words, and I handed the Emperor the document; he received it with a kindly smile. When I told him that the address was concerning an international arbitration tribunal he replied: “That would indeed be very fine ...; it is difficult however....” Then a few questions to us both, the assurance that the document would be carefully read and considered, an inclination of the head, with a gracious “I thank you,” and we were dismissed.

Here is the text of the petition which we presented, and which is now buried in the archives:

To his Majesty Franz Joseph I

Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary

King of Bohemia, etc.

Blessing and Grace and Peace!

In common with other organizations of the Christian Church we are taking the liberty of appearing, in all humility, before your Majesty, as the monarch of a great and mighty people, for the purpose of calling your Majesty’s attention to the method of peaceful solution of such difficulties as may arise between the nations of the earth.

The spectacle which Christian peoples present as they face each other with portentous armaments, ready at the slightest challenge to go to war and settle their differences by the shedding of blood, is, to say the least, a stain on the glorious name of Christ.

We cannot, without the deepest pain, look upon the horrors of war, with all the evils which it brings in its train, such as unscrupulous sacrifice of human life, which should be regarded as sacred; bitter poverty in so many homes; destruction of valuable property; interruptions in the education of the young and in the development of the religious life; and general brutalization of the people.

Even when war is avoided, the presence of a powerful army withdraws vast numbers of men from family life as well as from the productive occupations of peace; moreover, in order to support this state of things, heavy burdens must be laid upon the people. It is also true that the settlement of international differences by force of arms does not rest on the principles of right and justice, but on the barbarous principle of the triumph of the stronger.

What encourages us to recommend this matter to your Majesty’s benevolent consideration is the fact that already so much has been accomplished; as, for example, in the settlement of the Alabama question by the Geneva Court of Arbitration, or in the deliberations of the American Conference at Washington, not to mention other important cases. Happy for the world will be the time when all international controversies shall find their peaceful solution!

This is what we are earnestly striving for. Regarding the ways and means for attaining this end we refrain from all special suggestions, confidently intrusting to your Majesty’s superior intuition and wisdom all details in the domain of political life.

We offer our prayers that the richest blessings of the Prince of Peace may rest upon your Majesty’s realm and people, and especially on your Majesty.

I learned how the petition was presented to the other rulers. Frédéric Passy presented it to the President of the French republic. In Switzerland the President received it from Élie Ducommun; the President of the Confederation declared that the contents of the address corresponded perfectly with his ideas and those of the Parliament. Dr. Trueblood, of Boston, undertook the service for America, Marcoartu for Spain, and the address was presented to the Queen of England by Lord Salisbury. The Tsar also received it, but I do not know through whom.

The petitioners themselves could scarcely have expected that the action would have an immediate effect. Words of this kind scattered abroad are seeds of grain, or, by a better figure of speech, hammer blows. New ideas are like nails; old conditions and institutions are like thick walls. So it is not enough to hold up the sharp nail and give it one blow; the nail must be hit hundreds and hundreds of times, and on the head too, that it may be firmly fixed at last.

LIII
SECOND HALF OF THE YEAR 1897

Letter from Count Eugen Zichy · The Eighth Peace Congress at Hamburg · Letter from Prince Emil Schönaich-Carolath · Egidy’s début · Regarding the assassination of Canova · Public meeting in the Sagebiel · Egidy’s speech · New adherents · Henri Dunant · Appeal to the Oriental peoples · Extracts from diary · Bad news from all sides · Attitude of the press · The Russian Emperor in Darmstadt · Letter from Marie Büchner · The Dreyfus affair · Dispatch of the European squadron to the Yellow Sea

The enthusiasm for the peace cause which had flamed up at the Millennial Festival in Hungary had not proved to be merely a fire in the stubble, as so many pessimists had predicted it would be. I kept getting news of the progress and growth of the group in that country. The following letter bears witness to the opinions of one of the most brilliant members of the Congress, Count Eugen Zichy:

Vienna, December 4, 1897

My dear Baroness,

Most honored President:

To-morrow our delegations break up, and it has not been my good fortune, during our several weeks’ séjour here in Vienna, to see you. Twice I have made the attempt—alas! in vain. You were out of town—still in the country! So I will at least send you in writing my hearty respects and greeting. You must have read with delight Berzeviczy’s utterances in our delegation, and have rejoiced, likewise, at the reply made thereto by our skillful and masterly (takt- und sattelfest) Minister of Foreign Affairs. Great ideas are realized only slowly, but a healthy seed always brings healthy fruit, even if, as often happens, it takes a long time; so it is with the idea for which you, dear Baroness, and all of us are fighting. Gutta cavat lapidem! Over and over, and ever unweariedly, we must renew the battle, and at length it will, it must, win the day; for our aim is humanitarian,—the welfare of mankind.

And an idea that has this for its only object is not to become effectual? Impossible! That is the answer that hovers on my tongue, and “impossible” will at length be the shout of all reasonable human beings! And we shall be victorious! And the victory will then really be—universal peace! And even if the present does not recognize it, posterity will remember with gratitude those who turned the first sod.

I understand that in a few days—I believe about the middle of December—you are to hold your annual meeting in Vienna. Permit me, dear Baroness, to send my sincerest respects, and to beg of you to communicate to our peace friends my warmest greetings and good wishes. May your work be blessed!

I hope, dear Baroness, that you may for a long time to come have the most abundant health and strength to share in bringing your work to completion. And for my own self I desire that you continue to grant me your favor and good will, which I so highly prize.

May the Angel of Peace be with you and your work!

Your most faithful fellow-worker and admirer

Eugen Zichy

This year the meetings of the peace workers were not held, as hitherto, in the same place, but in different towns. The Congress met from the twelfth to the sixteenth of August at Hamburg, and the interparliamentarians had their sessions a few days earlier in Brussels.

We took part in the Hamburg gathering. Again we met all our old friends,—Passy, Türr, Bajer, Émile Arnaud, Dr. Richter, Moneta, Hodgson Pratt, Ducommun, and others. We had anticipated that the chairmanship of the Hamburg Congress would be taken by the writer of exquisite verses, Prince Schönaich-Carolath, but he declined to take it, though he was suggested for the office. What his reasons were may be seen from the following letter:

Haseldorf, July 19, 1897

Highly honored, gracious Baroness:

Allow me to thank you cordially for your friendly lines. The expectation that in all human probability I should be permitted to greet you in Hamburg has caused me much happiness, even though I look toward the Congress with a kind of solemn enthusiasm. Your kindly supposition that I have been intrusted with the chairmanship is in so far correct that the Hamburg local group at first, as I heard, thought of conferring that honor upon me. Later, I believe, a more official personage was found, and this saved me from declining with thanks; for I have not the gift of speech and the acquaintance with parliamentary usages requisite for the performance of the duties of such a position.

My wife and I regret that we cannot have the honor of seeing you and your honored husband at our house; my wife’s health unfortunately makes it impossible for her to entertain company in Hamburg as she had hoped. If ever Copenhagen should be selected for a peace gathering, we shall venture to ask you again, either before or after the Congress, to honor us with a visit in our more hospitable Danish home.

Begging you to remember me most warmly to the Baron, and with regards to yourself, gracious and kindly Baroness,

I sign myself yours devotedly

E. Schönaich-Carolath

A new fellow-champion came upon the arena,—Moritz von Egidy. It was a source of pride and satisfaction to me that I had won him over to take part in the Congress and to assist our cause by the fascinating power of his eloquence in the public meeting which had been arranged by the Congress.

At the first session,—all present being under the influence of the painful news, just received from Spain, of the assassination of Prime Minister Cánovas by an Italian anarchist,—Teodoro Moneta, in conjunction with R. Raqueni, editor of Il Epoca, in the name of the Italian group offered the following resolution:

The undersigned, citizens of the country from which, unhappily, came the fanatic who has murdered the Prime Minister of Spain, urge that the Congress, before it begins its labors, transmit to the widow of Cánovas del Castillo the expression of its profound sympathy. Devoted to doctrine which involves the harmonization of politics and morals, we insist that under no conditions must the principle of the inviolability of human life be transgressed, for on this principle our whole existence and the lofty aims that the Peace League has in view are based.

The public meeting, which took place on the first evening, brought together in the hall of the Sagebiel establishment an audience of five thousand of all ranks. Otto Ernst made the opening address. Then Richard Feldhaus recited a poem by Schmidt-Cabanis. And then Egidy. This was the first time I had ever heard him speak. Clear, assured, deliberate, vibrant, powerful. The real voice of command. “Be good!” is an injunction which is usually whispered mildly or spoken in an unctuous, preachifying tone; Egidy thundered it out like a command. The gist of his address was:

We must grow into the unmilitary age which we are fighting to bring about. A new mode of thought must take possession of our inmost being. War predicates the hostile opposition of man to man. We must oppose this hostility and put in its place the feeling of solidarity (Zusammengehörigkeit). In this soil is to grow the natural equality of all people and all peoples. This equality of birth leads to the right of every one in the nation, and of every nation taken collectively, to determine its own career under the limitations made by the duties that each one has in turn toward the whole. In a certain sense we have already entered upon the warless age; but we do not realize its blessings because we have not the courage to meet the transformation.

Egidy spoke also of other conflicts besides those of war:

The conflict between employers and employees, between consumers and producers, must cease. To every person in the community must be assured a dignified existence. Then every conflict will cease. In the unions we already have the beginnings of it.... Credal relationships must become different. The faith of the individual must be respected, but the discrepant evaluation and persecution of individual forms of belief must cease.

The French artillery captain, Gaston Moch, who was present at the Congress, was so delighted by the former Prussian lieutenant colonel that he subsequently published a book, L’Ère sans violence, in which he introduced Egidy’s doctrine and way of looking at things, together with several translations from his articles and speeches.

At the second session I announced that a new adherent had joined us,—Jean Henri Dunant, the founder of the Geneva Convention of the Red Cross. I stated that he would use his influence in the Red Cross societies so as to work through them for our cause, especially in the Oriental nations, amongst whom the Red Cross numbered many adherents and to whom a special appeal was to be directed in all the Oriental languages. I presented the text of this appeal. Dunant had sent it to me with a request that I should give it my signature and win the sanction of the Congress.

General Türr announced that he was prepared to procure its translation into Turkish and to have it disseminated.

Here are a few extracts from my diary:

August 14. Banquet given by the city at the Horticultural Show. My neighbors are Egidy and a senator. Three hundred persons present. Egidy as a table companion does not show his apostle or popular-preacher side; he is a jolly, amusing companion, versed in the usages of the best society.

August 16. Yesterday, after a session which was adjourned early, about five o’clock in the afternoon, we took a trip down the harbor and made an excursion to Blankenese. What a rush of traffic in the colossal harbor! What a host of ships docking and discharging! Our party had supper on the Süllberg; My Own was toastmaster. Novikof, Trueblood, and Ducommun made addresses. A general feeling of enthusiasm. It was after eleven o’clock when we got down to the float. The road was illuminated with Bengal lights. As the steamboat put off, the Süllberg Restaurant was so brightly lighted up that it looked as if it were bathed in fire. Music on the ship; as we sailed along, rockets flew up into the air against the cloudless, moonlit sky. These are the old instruments for celebrating,—toasts, music, fireworks,—which are indeed also employed in the celebrations of battle anniversaries; but how differently they act when they are accompaniments to the feelings of fraternity, of prospective redemption,—redemption from the curse of slaughter and hatred....

I will also copy the advice which Dr. Wagner, a Hamburg author and journalist, gave us. “It seems to me of dubious value,” he said, “for the Congresses to indulge in long and tedious debates over resolutions for the future, and merely to vote on them, perhaps with trifling majorities. Debates bring to the main issue more confused rubbish than serious, valuable thoughts. It would seem to me a far more useful activity for the cause if the members were presented with a series of vigorous reports and speeches, which, when accepted by the Congress after discussion, should be printed and disseminated as pamphlets in tens, nay hundreds, of thousands of copies, and also brought before the governments and parliaments.”

At the final session Lisbon was suggested as the next place for holding the Congress. The Interparliamentary Union, which had met at Brussels, decided upon Lisbon as the place for their 1898 meeting. But it was to result differently.

How did things look in the rest of the world while the debates regarding arbitration and peace were going on in Brussels and Hamburg? Of the “peace negotiations” between Turkey and Greece no end is in sight. Spain also is still a prey to discords. Fresh troops are constantly being sent off to America, and the reports from there announce terrible and increasing losses through sickness. Protests are raised in the country, among them that of Silvela, that concessions ought to be made to the Cubans, that a convenio with them should be entered into. But the government remains inexorable: First surrender, then talk of reform may be in order. This attitude wins much applause in the European press. “Liberal policy,” so run the leading articles, “is admissible in times of peace; in times of war it is equivalent to abdication. Besides, the moment would be ill chosen to make the United States any gift or concessions. All Europe is stirred by her aggressive and extravagant policy, and all Europe has an interest in seeing Spain stand firm. The government is, therefore, right in paying no heed to timorous and interested proposals. The undeviating policy which the Prime Minister has chosen, and to which he clings, is alone worthy of a statesman.”

So stubbornness, despotism, uninterrupted sacrifice of the country’s sons and the country’s money,—that is the only worthy attitude! And such views are borne out in millions of sheets from the editors’ tables. Lucky for these gentlemen that there are no great public scales in which their responsibility might be weighed!

The Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States, General Woodford, came to Spain in order to offer the services of his government for intervention, so that an end might be made of the Cuban war. The press and public opinion (it is well known how that is created!) assume a very hostile attitude to the American ambassador, who cannot understand it. Why should Spain decline mediation which would put an end to a war ruinous to the country?—Yes, why? As if ruin of country and people were to be taken into account when national pride is involved!

The Emperor and Empress of Russia were to spend the month of October in Darmstadt. I find in my correspondence a letter from Frau Büchner, the daughter-in-law of the author of Kraft und Stoff, who was persona grata with the late Princess Alice of Hesse, mother of the young Tsaritsa.

Darmstadt, February 13, 1897

Gracious and honored Lady:

Your very charming letter has made me more than happy, and I should have willingly answered it immediately to tell you how ready I am to fulfill your wish; but only to-day do I get to it. I have considered the matter from every side; it can be managed only in case the Empress should be here. It is expected here that she will take up her residence this summer at Castle Seeheim, near Darmstadt. If that should happen, my husband thinks that he might smuggle the book[^[21]] in through a chamberlain with whom he is personally acquainted. But I myself have no confidence in this scheme, for the gentleman in question seems to me not at all equal to the responsibility. I think the book should be sent directly to the Empress here in Germany, where watchfulness and exclusiveness are not so absolutely punctilious. Then the name of a Baroness Suttner would assuredly help it to make its own way.

That would not work in Russia, even through the mediation of the court here,—that is to say, of any person connected with it. Our sovereigns here are still young and take little interest in anything in particular, and consequently play no great rôle.

Oh, if a Grand Duchess Alice were still alive who made it her special purpose to support noble efforts, to look out for the general good, and to establish truly benevolent institutions! That wise woman had sympathy with the burgher class, and from it she selected her most efficient forces; and a Luise Büchner was her right hand in her useful undertakings. How easy such a matter would have been then! And yet even at that time my father-in-law did not get on with her sister, the Empress Frederick; she was very much interested in his works, and caused this to be intimated to him, and so he sent her the book of the two crowned Liberals, but she never again let him hear from her. And she was a comparatively liberally educated English princess!

Even here little is known about the character and opinions of the young Empress of Russia. From all that is heard it seems that the dowager Empress there wields the scepter, and it is said she has not become reconciled to the fact that her daughter-in-law is a German princess.

So the young woman will have little to say in her country. Nevertheless, I will let no opportunity pass of executing your commission; perhaps it will be more successful than I can now count upon. Perhaps, also, the Empress has inherited something of her mother’s energy and capacity and will be able in time to win a position and to maintain it. In that case I am firmly convinced that her influence will be good, since nothing but good has ever been heard regarding her character.

I have not lately told you that I know and prize your husband’s works also—especially the fresh, thrilling tales in Die Kinder des Kaukasus. Those wonderfully beautiful descriptions of nature have constantly brought before my eyes your own idyllic life there. It must be splendid to live in such a lovely land when you have the genuine, inspired feeling for such beauty. In fact, I think often of your life, your habits, your environment; just because you are both such talented people you must get double the enjoyment out of everything. Only I had always imagined that you lived in beautiful, gay Vienna; so I was greatly astonished that you were in the country. I was obliged to overturn your whole surroundings,—that is, as they existed in my imagination,—and conjure up a quite different frame for the picture of your life. In doing this I was helped by your Einsam und arm; that must have been written at Castle Harmannsdorf.

I should so like to know whether you took for Karl Binsemann a model out of real life. This interested me so very much because generally in real life it is just the opposite: As a rule a man who is in unfortunate circumstances is a reformer in his youth; it is then he has the genuine sacred fire for righteousness. By the time he reaches old age he becomes weary, indifferent, and selfish, by reason of cares or the eternal monotony of his days. Then he says to himself, “What is the use of puzzling one’s brains over insoluble enigmas, what is the good of becoming indignant over injustice—it does not prevent it!”

Of course I am speaking of men of the same rank in life and the same grade of culture as a Binsemann. If this figure were taken from life, or at least suggested by a prototype, it would make the book much dearer to me, because I have always believed that it is not in accordance with life for any one to be thoughtless of such things in his youth, and in old age to begin, for the first time, to think rightly. The descriptions are so true to reality, and everything is so vivid, that one cannot help feeling, just as in reading Die Waffen nieder, that they must be taken directly from life.

My father-in-law was greatly delighted to hear from you again. All the cordial greetings from yourself and your husband are most cordially reciprocated.

In the hope of being able to carry out your commission successfully, I am

Yours with deepest respect

Marie Büchner

During the month of November the Dreyfus case made the whole world hold its breath. My Own and I followed the affair with the greatest interest and sympathy. At that time Scheurer-Kestner, Bernard Lazare, and Émile Zola came out in favor of the reopening of the trial. The Figaro had published Esterhazy’s autograph; it was an ocular demonstration that the handwriting was the same as that on the bordereau. All the military, and especially the Anti-Semitic circles, were against a new trial. The interest which I took in the course of the affair is frequently reflected in my diary:

November 18. Probably the case will be taken up again. The mere possibility that the man banished to Devil’s Island is innocent would be horrible, supposing the sentence should stand ... and we are bound now to believe in this possibility. The public conscience would remain forever oppressed by this thought.... Again it has been strikingly shown that there is such a thing as a “European soul.” A French journal remarks, in a peevish tone, about the many comments in other countries, “In the last analysis, the matter concerns France only.”

No, no! such national exclusiveness has ceased in our day. If a catastrophe occurs in any country,—the assassination of a ruler, the burning of a charity bazaar,—expressions of sympathy stream in from all directions, making the afflicted country glad. But if it permits other countries to share in its good and evil fortunes, then it must also be willing that its right and wrong actions should be judged everywhere. The partisans of justice all over the world have an equal interest in the conquest of justice and truth over tyranny and concealment. And, vice versa, the partisans of authority, the race persecutors, are in the same camp all over the world; not only in France but also in Austria and everywhere are to be found passionate anti-Dreyfusards!

The two camps are growing more and more clearly divided. But the forces are very unequally distributed. The party that champions the right has certainly on its side the overwhelming power that is peculiar to its object,—universal human happiness; the other party has the actual power, however—has the cannon behind it....

Power engenders pride. Everything is permitted to it—so it thinks—and it wishes to make manifest that it is bold enough to attempt anything. So the whole Esterhazy investigation, the Esterhazy trial, and the shameful Esterhazy apotheosis are a pure satire on every judicial proceeding, a slap in the face of august Justice,—even more, a trampling of her scales under the spur-armed heel of the soldier’s boot! The people must knuckle under,—that must be borne in upon them so that another time the desire may pass of pulling down the General Staff’s sacred ensign of error! You wanted to run up against a res judicata, did you? Very well, now you have two of them. And quite right; the people knuckled under. “The affair is at an end” (Affaire liquidée is the heading over the leading articles in the papers); but a man got up and uttered the cry of his soul,—J’accuse,—one man against an army! The far-distant ages to come will praise this heroic action.

Even in our family circle there were disputes about the affair. My father-in-law, the conservative-minded, ardent reader of Das Vaterland, would hear nothing of the proofs in favor of the exile. He also believed in the “Jewish syndicate” that was bent on buying the rehearing. And my mother-in-law had nothing good to say about Zola; she had even gone so far once as to make a great auto-da-fé of such of his books as had strayed into the house.

The year 1897 closes with an event that might well arouse much anxiety among the partisans of peace. We know how it began, but we can never know how it will end; it carries war in its womb, for it is once more something undertaken under the emblem of force,—the voyage of the fighting squadron to the Yellow Sea.

So then ... Port Arthur besieged by the Russians, Kiauchau by the Germans,—that is the newly created situation. High Politics, that is fifty or sixty men and a following of newspapers, see to it that there shall never be any rest, that no progress can ever be made toward the healing of internal troubles, the elevation of human society. A cruel state of things for the champions of peace! For years there have been perpetual wars and rumors of wars, even while in the governmental circles there were constant assurances of peace. Japan and China, the Venezuela controversy, Spain and Cuba, Armenian massacres, Italy and Africa, Greece and Turkey, England and India, and now this East-Asiatic expedition! And all the time constantly increasing armaments and paroxysms over fleets. No wonder that the slow, as it were subterranean, peace movement remains unobserved by the masses.

LIV
A STIRRING HALF YEAR

Outbreak of the Spanish-American War · Article in mourning borders · Fridtjof Nansen’s lecture in Vienna · Extracts from diary · Bereavement in the family, Countess Lotti Sizzo’s death · Johann von Bloch’s book · Death of Bismarck · End of the Spanish-American War

The beginning of the year 1898 brought me much anxiety. Not domestic anxiety or heart sorrow or worry about money. My troubles—faithfully shared indeed by my husband—were far away from Harmannsdorf; they were on the distant ocean.

The United States warship, the Maine, blows up. The suspicion is rife that the ship was destroyed by the Spaniards; can it be true? In heaven’s name, what is not possible among men, who in general regard hate and slaughter as “political” weapons? In American jingo circles there is a mad craze to declare war on Spain as a punishment for this—“unproved”—crime. I have direct information that in government circles (with McKinley at the head) as well as in wide circles among the people, the peace sentiment is strong. In Spain also there is excitement, in the name of national honor. The journals Globo and Liberal (how everything calls itself liberal!) regard any concession in the Cuban question, any acceptance of an indemnity, as out of reason,—rather, utter ruin, “rather let us all perish!” And the Bishop of Madrid heads a subscription for the purchase of battle ships.

Long the scales waver this way and that. Our friends in America and also in Europe put forth their utmost efforts. Petitions are sent to McKinley, to the Queen Regent—but in vain. The May number of my magazine appeared with a black border, and printed the following text on the front page:

Bordered with mourning black we present here the tidings that in the last week of April, 1898—so short a time before the entrance of a new century—the grewsome fury and bearer of the old barbarism is again let loose.

What makes our trouble harder to endure is this: America, the cradle and shelter of the peace movement—America, which scarcely a year ago was on the point of putting into vigorous actuality the long-cherished ideal of the first permanent arbitration treaty—America, which is unacquainted with militarism—America must be the field where war is let loose!

By that outbreak the signal for a universal war may have been given, for who can foresee the consequences? There is a fire; the burning rafters are flying, and all our roofs are thatched with straw—with petroleum-soaked straw.

Once again has the mighty Ancient won the victory over the as yet not sufficiently strengthened New. Again Force chooses to set itself up as the judge and avenger of sins committed by Force, and heaps up sins on sins all calling for revenge. Cruelty and oppression in Cuba; that was the long-continued accumulation of the “unendurable.” Why could not the European Concert have swept this “unendurable” off the face of the earth? Because they will not grant the principle that peoples may be allowed to throw off the yoke.

Our movement has thus suffered a heavy blow. All the opposing elements are triumphing, yet we must not allow the results of the work that has already been done to be obscured. The forms of those—both individuals and corporate bodies—who stand for the ideals of a time free from manslaughter and oppression, remain unbowed; their voices still ring out loud and clear; their light, be it the torch swung high or a modest spark, still shines into the darkness. The present, though still so dark, must not make our faith in a brighter future grow faint.

Yet even this faith does not help to deaden the pain of the days that are before us. Misfortune—though perhaps deserved, yet none the less severe—has overtaken our poor race during these spring days.

On the sixth of May the famous Arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen came to Vienna, and gave a lecture that same evening in the hall of the Rathaus before two thousand people. We were prevented from going to the city, but I wrote Nansen the following letter, to reach him a few hours before the lecture:

Harmannsdorf, May 5

Dear Sir,

Highly and sincerely honored:

You have no time to read long letters; so I can only indicate, without offering reasons, what I desire to ask. You will, I know, meet with perfect sympathy what is only half said.

A new era must be dawning for the world,—after the old heroic age of war comes the heroic age of knowledge and investigation. Who would be better authorized than you to point out the way thither? This evening thousands of my fellow-countrymen will listen to you. I beg of you to weave into your lecture two lines which shall express this thought: the reign of war must yield; the future must belong to the right. The impression will be immense, just at this moment, when the sea is again desecrated with burning and exploding ships. Speak words like these and you will thus give the work of peace a powerful impulse forward.

With the most profound respect

Bertha von Suttner

The text of the lecture was published, from the manuscript, on the seventh of May, by the Neue Freie Presse. In it there was no reference to general questions of civilization. On the other hand, Das Tagblatt published a report taken stenographically, and there it said:

Nansen brought his lecture to a close as follows: “People will ask, what are the results of polar explorations? I reply, science desires to know everything. There must be no spot on the earth unseen by a human eye and untrodden by a human foot. Man’s lot is to fight the battle of light against darkness. There are still many problems to be solved. The time for great wars of conquest has passed; the time for conquests in the land of science, of the unknown, will last, and we hope that the future will bring us many more conquests, and thereby forward the interests of mankind.”

Further entries in my diary during May echo all kinds of events from abroad:

... The great sea fight which the public of the arena is so anxiously awaiting is still unfought. Epidemics are breaking out in Cuba and the Philippines, and “the red cock,” that dreadful bird, is flying from place to place....

... The craze for fleets has also reached Austria. Enormous plans for strengthening the navy have been broached. Unions of the great industries are pleading for it. The slogan “Protection for exports” is throwing a mantle of political economy around the wish to pocket great profits from manufacturing and furnishing supplies. Nevertheless Switzerland has an export trade, and without a fleet, either!

... Debates over the increased price of grain. Of course the price of bread is not raised by the American war and the closely guarded boundaries! Oh, no! Our political economists know better. The Stock Exchange is to blame for everything; and a sure means for relief of the distress has been proposed by a friend of our mayor,—hang three thousand Jews; or, still better, grind up all the Jews for artificial fertilizer. This last proposition was only meant humorously—gentlemen can also be witty....

... [The Dreyfus Affair.] The Zola case is to be brought once more into court. Esterhazy threatens to kill Picquart; the mob insults Zola—à l’eau! à l’eau!—and the persecuting press again resumes its system of abuse and slander.

... In England the Colonial Secretary gives utterance to a speech which has brought the whole European press into turmoil. He said that war should have been declared against Russia long before.... The speech is universally pronounced unstatesmanlike. Well, yes, the accepted course is to prepare for war, make plans, bring it on, and scheme for it,—that the diplomatists do; but to call it by name in times of peace, oh, never! The customary method demands that one must speak of the familiar “good relations.”

Chamberlain also jostles the Transvaal; he is bound that the sovereignty of England shall be recognized there. Kruger produces the text of treaties which make such a demand untenable, and suggests submitting the matter to an arbitration tribunal. Chamberlain and his organs haughtily announce that a question regarding Great Britain’s right of sovereignty shall never under any conditions be submitted to arbitration. How far below par has the splendid thought, “Right instead of Might,” everywhere fallen! The waves are hissing and roaring around it on all sides, are threatening to swallow it up; but this thought is a rock,—the billows will dash into spray and fall back, and the thought will tower on high.

Up till to-day (May 28) the two hostile fleets have not met. The great naval battle for which the whole body of spectators is waiting (glass-house owners who anxiously want to see how the stones fly) has not as yet taken place. Only a privateering game is played on the ocean. A prize court has been instituted in order to decide whether a ship is rightfully captured or not. Why not a court that shall discontinue the whole business of official piracy?

The month of June brought an unexpected bereavement into our family circle. One afternoon, I remember, my sister-in-law Lotti, the Countess Sizzo, came into our room and sank with a groan into an easy-chair. She held a great bunch of roses in her hand and had just come in from the garden, where she had got overheated in picking and watering the flowers. After a while she felt better, chatted quite gayly, and left us to go to her own room. There, as we were immediately informed, she fainted. She was put to bed. It was a slight stroke of apoplexy. A physician was summoned from Vienna. When he arrived she seemed better, and he announced that the invalid would be well in three weeks. It was about the twelfth of June, and with minds at rest we took our usual wedding anniversary excursion. When we got back our poor “Hendl”—this was my sister-in-law’s nickname, but I do not know why she was called so—had grown decidedly worse. The Vienna doctor had come again and was now ordering constant application of ice bags to her head. The sisters took turns in caring for her, and My Own also spent many hours by Lotti’s sick bed, for she seemed most grateful and happy to have her brother near her. On the eighth or tenth day the death agony began. The death rattle lasted from four o’clock in the afternoon until one at night. We were all gathered around her bed and in the next room,—the aged parents, the two sisters, Marianne and Luise, the families from Stockern, and also a cousin who had loved Lotti for years. I still see him before me as, hearing from the next room the heavy breathing, he staggered, leaned against the wall with outstretched arms like one crucified, and cried, “That is the end—the end!”

And it was the end. The pastor was summoned. Then it lasted an hour or two longer; the rattling grew more subdued, the breathing less frequent, and the last sigh was drawn gently.

The next day the body was borne into the castle chapel. Clothed in white satin, with her golden hair unbound, roses in her folded hands, a celestial smile on her lips, she looked as young and as lovely as a bride.

Although I had lived so long, it was the first time I had ever seen the dead body of one whom I had known in life. All those whom I had lost from my own circle—my mother, Elvira, Fritz Fürstenberg, the Dedopali, Mathilde—had died when I was far away, and I had always avoided looking upon the dead who were indifferent to me.

Very soon indeed I was to see more dead—among them one who was my world....

In July the news came of the appearance of a great work, in six volumes and in Russian, against war. The author was said to be a Russian state councilor, named Johann von Bloch. The book was entitled “The Future of War in its Technical, Economic, and Political Relations.” A German translation was shortly to appear. Permission to publish it had been granted only a short time before, after the author had had an audience with the Tsar.

News of hunger riots comes from Italy and Spain. For a time the danger has been acute that a United States squadron would attempt to land troops in Spain.

The Dreyfus affair takes its course: ever clearer proofs of Esterhazy’s guilt on the one hand, ever more insane adherence to la chose jugée on the other.

On the thirtieth of July comes the following entry in my diary:

Bismarck dead. The question arises whether the statesman is as yet born who shall be for the thought of humanity what Bismarck has been for German thought.

And a few days later:

In the cathedral at Berlin a funeral service is held at the Emperor’s command. Court preacher Faber quotes from the favorite psalm of the departed. The text[^[22]] runs:

Let the high praises of God be in their mouth,

And a two-edged sword in their hand;

To execute vengeance upon the nations,

And punishments upon the peoples;

To bind their kings with chains,

And their nobles with fetters of iron.

Sword and chains—well, yes, those were the Iron Chancellor’s ideals. Now he belongs to the past. The future requires other symbols,—instead of blood-dripping iron, the light-streaming diamond.

The Spanish-American War is at an end. The hostilities ceased on the fourteenth of August.

And ten days later the world was surprised by an event, the account of which I must give in a new part of these memoirs.

PART EIGHT

1898–1908

LV
THE TSAR’S RESCRIPT

Arrival of the good tidings · Extracts from editorials in Die Waffen nieder · Congratulatory letters from Moritz Adler, Dr. Karl von Scherzer, Björnstjerne Björnson, Balduin Groller, Professor Martens, Prince Dolgorukof, Vice Admiral Semsey, Hedwig Pötting, Kemény, Novikof, Henri Dunant · Objections of opponents

I was sitting in the summerhouse one beautiful August day, waiting for the arrival of the mail. My Own was in the habit of going himself to the postman to get the letters and newspapers that he brought. This was to me always the most interesting hour of the day.

This time he came back with flying steps and shining face and shouted, while still at a distance, “I am bringing the most magnificent, the most surprising news to-day....”

“What is it? Have we made a ten-strike?”

“Almost—listen! This is what some one wrote in last evening’s paper.”

He sat down and read:

“‘The maintenance of general peace and a possible reduction of the excessive armaments which weigh upon all nations—’”

“That is what we are always saying,” I interrupted, “‘present themselves in the existing condition of the whole world as the ideal toward which the endeavors of all governments should be directed.’”

“Should be, but are not—”

“‘The present moment would be very favorable for seeking, by means of international discussion, the most effectual means of insuring to all peoples the benefits of a real and lasting peace,—’”

“That article must be by Passy or one of our friends.”

“What a clever guess!—‘and, above all, of putting an end to the progressive development of armaments.’”

“Well, indeed—”

“‘Hundreds of millions are devoted to acquiring terrible engines of destruction, which are destined to-morrow to lose all value in consequence of some fresh discovery in this field.’”

“That is nothing new.”

“‘National culture, economic progress, and the production of wealth are either paralyzed, or checked in their development. Economic crises, brought on in great measure by the system of developing armaments to the utmost, and the constant danger that lies in this massing of war material, are transforming the armies of our days into a crushing burden which the peoples have more and more difficulty in bearing.’”

“That article must have been written by a social democrat!”

“More clever than before!—‘It appears evident, then, that if this state of things is to be prolonged it will inevitably lead to the very catastrophe which it is desired to avert, and the very thought of whose horrors makes every man shudder.’”

“Not every man—”

“‘To seek the means of warding off the calamities that are threatening the whole world is the supreme duty that is to-day imposed on all states.’”

“Yes, if only the rulers of states thought so!”

“Well, read for yourself—and rejoice!”

He handed me the paper—and what did I see? That was no article from socialistic or peace circles—it was an official document, addressed in the name of one of the highest war lords to all governments, with an invitation to meet in a conference which should have to deal with this “serious question”—a conference which—I cite the actual words—“would unite in one powerful combination the efforts of all states which are sincerely seeking to make the great idea of universal peace triumphant.”

Was not that like a dream, like a fairy tale?

I recollect that hour which, after receiving these tidings,—truly “Good Tidings,” as the chapter heading of Schach der Qual expressed it,—My Own and I spent together discussing the marvelous event from all sides; it was one of the loveliest hours of our lives. It was actually like counting over the amount of an unexpected windfall.

In the September number of my periodical I expressed my views regarding this event in the following words:

The news that stands at the head of this number, the Tsar’s rescript, is the greatest event which, up to the present time, the peace movement has had to show. It has filled us all with jubilation, for the colossal, and at the same time the unexpected, overpowers. The tidings filled the rest of the world with astonishment, and indeed many (especially the friends of war) with apprehension.

Deep feeling is expressed in the young monarch’s words. The conventionality of ordinary diplomatic phrases, which say nothing, is abandoned once for all. So the peace movement—and we have lived to see the day—has passed over into the sphere of accomplishment.

But the raison d’être of our societies is not abolished thereby. The Tsar’s act proceeded only from the public spirit which of late has been so strongly wrought upon; and the support of public spirit, the organized demonstration of the popular will, is required in order to support this action which has come from so high a source, in order to overcome the hostile forces which will assuredly even now stand in the way.

On the whole, from our standpoint, the event cannot be estimated highly enough. One of the most powerful of rulers acknowledges the peace ideal, comes out as an opponent of militarism; from this time on the movement is incalculably nearer its goal; new ways are opening before it, and it is to be carried on to a new basis of operations.[^[23]]

And in the next issue:

... Other periodicals may have already to a certain degree lost interest in the subject and may only treat it as a reality when the suggested conference takes place; but for us it does not mean a merely ephemeral event, but the most significant milestone in our history so far.

One of the most important and most difficult tasks of the peace societies—the making their purposes known—has been given a mighty boost, for from this time forth the knowledge thereof has not only penetrated into the masses but has also compelled the attention of every politician.

So in this respect the work is accomplished; but now comes the equally difficult task of assisting, according to our abilities, to secure the success of the conference, for the bringing about of which we have preached and voted so much.

Already pessimists and doubters and dealers in spiteful insinuations have arisen on all sides. “As if by a silent conspiracy a large part of the daily press has banded together for the annihilation of a plan which embraces the dearest hopes of humanity” (Concord). The great masses are as lacking in discretion and understanding regarding the rescript as they were in regard to the endeavors of the peace movement, the whole programme of which is contained in it in concentrated form.

One thing is forgotten in this controversy and dubiety. There is always an attempt made to calculate what is to be the result of the conference, and the marvelous fact is left unnoticed that the invitation itself—from such a quarter and with such a motive back of it—is really a triumph for the cause and instantly renders nugatory the hundreds of objections which have always been brought up against our endeavors under the pretext that it would be impossible for autocrats and the most powerful war lords ever to give up the growing armaments.

The settling up of the goal is now the great and cheering element in the event; the discussion of ways and means may be confidently left to those who are sincerely aiming to reach the goal. This is what our enemies feel, and that is why they throw doubt on the sincerity of the invitation. As if one could lie with such words! The rescript is absolutely lacking in the vague sinuosities of diplomatic verbosity. As if anything said should not be directly examined and accepted for what it is! That is the first right of every utterance of every ingenuous man who has not as yet been seduced into rascality.[^[24]]

During the days following the publication of the rescript numberless congratulatory letters and telegrams came to me. [I], too, sent congratulations to true-hearted allies. Egidy likewise received many tokens of rejoicing. He afterwards told me that a lady, a friend of his, put a copy of the newspaper containing the rescript in a cover and laid it on his writing table, with the inscription Geburtstagsgeschenk (“a birthday present”); it chanced that Egidy’s birthday coincided with this event.

Here is a selection from the letters that I received:

Ischl, August 29

Highly honored and gracious Lady:

Warm and most respectful congratulations to you and your husband from the depths of my heart! What feelings it must arouse in you! the noblest of all joyful emotions!

That I have lived to see this day I regard as the most incomprehensible and the most surprising delight of my life, which has been so rich in sorrows and so lean in hope. I could not have dreamed of this most noteworthy ex oriente lux, when in Wenn ich Kaiser oder König wäre (“If I were Emperor or King”) I attempted to bind the laurel of this day around the temples of William [I], or when in “The Strike” I let a wise prince pour out his heart as he stood facing the unripe nations. Now the dream has come true, and may these forever sleeping nations and inert consciences be aroused with the sound of the trumpet! Goethe hit it:

Thy spirit world is not forbidden;

Thy heart is dead; thy wits are slow!

Wake! student, lave thy breast unchidden

Within the ruddy morning glow!

I consider myself happy to be able to share your delight.

Most respectfully yours

Moritz Adler

Porto Rose near Pirano, August 31

My heartiest congratulations that your indefatigable endeavors continued throughout long years in the interest of universal peace have suddenly, by means of a word on the Neva, brought such a surprising and brilliant victory into happy prospect!

With heart and hand

Dr. Karl von Scherzer

Minister Plenipotentiary (retired)

Munich, August 30

... The Tsar has done a splendid thing. Whatever may come of it, from now on the air is throbbing with thoughts of peace,—even where yesterday they were deemed impossible. This will bring great and unexpected results. Now the Anglo-American treaty will be ratified, and ultimately all Germans will be at one—in such an air all things can come about. You see! it is worth while to preach, to have faith, to be a prophet, energetically and incessantly!

Björnstjerne Björnson

Vienna, August 30

Congratulations from the bottom of my heart! Salvos of victory! Now will the great socialist politicians still continue to scorn us!

Balduin Groller

Sondja, October, 1898

... I know from a very trustworthy source of information that the Emperor wrote this document after he had read Die Waffen nieder. Consequently this fortunate event is to be ascribed wholly to your influence.[^[25]] I learned quite incidentally, through the newspapers, of the rescript which has caused all the friends of peace so much delight, for I have, during the last few years, been very little in St. Petersburg. I take no part in political activities, as I have devoted myself to the interests of the zemstvo, which at the present time demand a great deal of labor and ever claim more and more the intellectual powers of the country. However, a few years ago I made the attempt to organize a Russian peace society. This attempt failed, either because a favorable soil for such a union had not been sufficiently prepared in advance or because I myself lacked the necessary qualifications for promoting it.

As far as the public opinion of the province is concerned, I can from personal observation assert that the most progressive element of society regards the plan of the peace conference from the same standpoint as the leading article of the inclosed newspaper,—favorably and hopefully. As is always the case while public opinion is forming, this is divided into two extreme camps,—the Utopians and the skeptics; the latter, unfortunately, in a majority. I am nevertheless persuaded that our young monarch will draw from the bosom of Russian society the same strength which his grandfather Alexander II thirty-six years ago had to help him in the accomplishment of another solemn deed,—the enfranchisement of the peasants from serfdom,—although then, too, there were many skeptics and people who were even strongly opposed to the reform. The labor and active effort in the question that is interesting us fall, in the present hour, both in Europe and in America, on the parliamentary forces, whose duty it is now to compel their governments to express themselves sincerely and without reservation in regard to the conference proposed by Count Muravieff.

By a strange irony of fate I learned of the imperial manifesto just as I was taking part in the maneuvers in my capacity as reserve officer. The officers regarded the matter without excitement, although the best among them could not help recognizing the correctness of the ideas embodied in the rescript. The others were of the opinion that all the peace projects concerned them very little, and that the military service to which they had been brought up would still for a long time fill their lives.

Our society was deeply moved and grieved by the death of your Empress. What a sad madness speaks in such deeds, and how much to be pitied is mankind when, besides the battle against war, we must also in the midst of peace think of the pacification of the classes.

Accept, etc.

Prince Peter Dolgorukof

Soras near Eperies, August 30

A storm of delight is rushing through the world in view of the mighty aurora that is shining from St. Petersburg. Whatever the result be, the mighty word of one of the mightiest can never be unspoken.

The Lord bless your efforts!

Vice Admiral Semsey

Velden, August 30

Hurrah for the morning glow in the East!

Hedwig Pötting

Budapest, August 29

Can it be possible, can it be true? Now the thing is to use this victory wisely. Something must and will be done. Now it is a pride and a joy to be a friend of peace.

I congratulate us all, and first of all, you. This will rouse many.

Kemény

Secretary of the Hungarian Peace Society

Beckenhorn, September 12

... What do I think of the manifesto? A thousand things. I was at the Lake of Lucerne. I had been enjoying a delightful walk, and in the evening after dinner I took up the Indépendance. I confess I did so almost reluctantly—politics is such an unsavory dish. One would willingly forget it when yielding to the witchery of lovely nature and recovering from the miseries of humanity in the undisturbed purity of the lofty mountain peaks. So, then, imagine my amazement! Instead of the usual diplomatic commonplaces, the Emperor’s manifesto! That absolutely staggered me!

But what do I think of it? In the first place, that we all, those of us who are of one mind with the spirit of the manifesto, ought to support Nicholas II with all our might, not only against his opponents but also against his own person. The undertaking is of great difficulty. He might lose courage in face of the obstacles. Then it will be necessary for liberal opinion in Europe, and especially for the peace unions, to give him unwearied, never-failing assistance.

Secondly, even if the manifesto should have no immediate results, it will undoubtedly have gigantic indirect influence. It establishes a new epoch in the history of Europe. That can never be changed.

Are you coming to Turin? That will be the place for us to lay out a complete plan of campaign. Though I do not belong to the Bureau, yet I am going there at any rate. If I do not have the good fortune to see you in Turin, I will on my way back make you that promised visit at Harmannsdorf.

Yours, etc.

J. Novikof

Heiden, September 21

... Allow me to express my congratulations on the great step which the Tsar has taken on the path to which your most zealous apostleship has been devoted. It is a gigantic step, and, whatever may happen, the world will not shriek, “Utopia!” Disdain of our ideas is no longer possible; even if accomplishment does not immediately follow the work of the conference, which will assuredly take place, still, at all events, a beginning will have been made. This initiative will forever serve as a precedent.

The Empress Elisabeth’s death has greatly saddened me—ah! if only our ideas had been made effective ten years earlier, there would not be any anarchists now.

Henri Dunant

Founder of the Red Cross

The replies of the governments to the manifesto soon began to be received,—almost all in the affirmative. But sincerity was lacking in the tone of the acceptances and in the whole treatment of the invitation. Everywhere, simultaneously, an increase in armaments was seen to be under way. Very deplorable was the attitude of the German Social-Democratic party, which holds that only by this party can militarism be driven from the world; if any one else tries to do it, one who—nota bene—has the power to do it, then it is fraud and farce.

The Neue Hamburger Zeitung sent a note to distinguished contemporaries, requesting opinions on the Russian manifesto. Very interesting replies were received. Among those who were in favor, many of them enthusiastically in favor, were Leo Tolstoi, Maurus Jókai, Otto Ernst, Ernst von Wolzogen, Peter Rosegger, Dr. M. G. Conrad, Cesare Lombroso, and General Türr. I am going to introduce here, however, only some of the replies sent by opponents of the peace movement, because it seems to me most instructive, for understanding the development of universal ideas and social conditions, to learn the obstacles which had and still have to be overcome.

Small differences, like the Caroline Islands question, can be settled by arbitration; greater differences will continue to lead to tests of power ... perpetual peace is in heaven. There is no heaven on earth.

Friedrich Naumann

Retired Pastor

The history of many thousand years unfortunately argues against the possibility that war will ever cease.... At all events the Russian proposal for disarmament is one of the cleverest diplomatic moves of modern times.

B. von Werner

These are questions of high politics with which I have nothing to do. In my opinion, so far as our trade is concerned, all interests are subordinated to one that is paramount, namely, that Germany be respected and feared, but so far as possible without being hated, in the world. Therefore the mercantile class has a vital interest in seeing the safety of the empire assured in the ways understood by those who are responsible for it.

Ferdinand Laeisz

Chairman of the Hamburg Board of Trade

I cannot assent to the general notion that armies prepared for battle are unproductive. Armies are a protection to the nations against attacks.... The idea of disarmament is unfortunate. We should be glad that slouchy men can be trained in a manly education.

Reinhold Begas, Sculptor

This noble enthusiasm will miscarry, just as in 1890 the International Assembly of Workingmen did under Emperor William’s auspices. A mighty state will never, without a struggle, submit to a verdict which offends its rights or merely its essential desires. A glance at the map is sufficient: our empire can resist the ever-possible double attack of France and Russia only by having all its powers in readiness.

I do not waste time thinking of Utopias. France lays down as a condition for every debate the return of the imperial lands; we lay down as our condition the exclusion of every discussion of this question. I think this is a sufficient answer. The talk of the private friends of peace is mere nonsense; the Tsar’s advocacy of peace is perhaps a stimulus to war.

Felix Dahn

Gastein, on the anniversary of Sedan

(September 2, 1870)

The present proposal of Tsarish Russia for disarmament is a fraud.

W. Liebknecht

The stronger the armaments the greater the fear of assuming the responsibility of starting a war. Disarmament would make wars more frequent. Reduction of the present force would withdraw a part of the people from the school of military discipline and very generally diminish their efficiency.... The vital questions of the nations will always be settled by war. Germany must always lead the great powers in its armaments, because it is the only country that has three great powers as neighbors and may at any time be exposed to the danger of waging war on three frontiers. With the increasing solidarity of states, wars will naturally become more and more infrequent. It is a dream to expect anything more, and not even a beautiful dream; for with the guaranty of perpetual peace the degeneracy of mankind would be confirmed.

Dr. Eduard von Hartmann

The reply that most unctuously dripped with wisdom was that furnished by Herr W. Metzger, the Social-Democratic delegate to the Reichstag from the third electoral district in Hamburg. He wrote to the editors that “he did not feel the slightest inclination to waste even a quarter of an hour on that Russian diplomatic trick.” So the third electoral district may be at rest—its representative is saving his time for higher interests than those that are moving the whole civilized world!

Those are the utterances of single individuals. As regards the voice of the newspapers, I collected a great number of clippings at the time. The following are typical of the tone of those opposed:

The Tsar’s proposal for disarmament goes against nature and against civilization. This alone condemns it. Baroness von Suttner, who a few years ago gave the command Die Waffen nieder, and thereby won among all men a brilliant success, is now indeed experiencing the great triumph of having the Tsar join in her summons; but there will be only a short-lived joy in this for Frau von Suttner and all good souls, for, as we have said, disarmament is contrary to nature and inimical to civilization, etc.—Heidelberger Zeitung, August 30.

When the Russian disarmament rescript appeared in August, one of the severest criticisms made upon it was this: “Prince Bismarck has been dead twenty-eight days.” This was as much as to say that care had been taken not to submit this question to European statesmen for discussion during this great stateman’s lifetime, but they waited until after he was dead to spring it. We do not question the correctness of this interpretation, but are of the opinion that if Prince Bismarck had lived to see the publication of the Russian note he would have used the full weight of his authority to prevent Germany from relinquishing at a conference even the very smallest part of its right and duty to regulate its armament absolutely according to its own discretion.—Hamburger Nachrichten, September 18.

A stranger official document than the Tsar’s peace manifesto, his summons to disarm and his proposal for a general conference, has never before thrown official and unofficial Europe into astonishment. The question rises to the lips, Is this an honest Utopia, or is there hidden behind it a deep calculation of Russian politics, which, as is well known, is excelled in slyness by the diplomacy of no other state? It remains at all events a Utopia, in spite of all the European “Friends of Peace,” and all the other chatter about international brotherhood.—Grenzboten, Number 37, September 15.

Our officials believed without any kind of real investigation that they must applaud that manifesto with drums and trumpets, solely for the reason that it had the mighty Tsar as its originator; and they kept up this policy of groveling when there was no more possible doubt that the originator of this manifesto was not the Tsar, but those international peace enthusiasts of the stamp of Suttner and her allies, whom hitherto no one has taken seriously. Our Emperor has found the only correct answer to the Tsar’s proposal; we can wait until his answer is taken to heart in the quarter for which it is intended, and then the Utopian idea of an international conference for disarmament, which is of no earthly use, will disappear finally from the programme.—Staatsbürgerzeitung, September 9.

At the banquet of the Westphalian Provincial Diet, on the eighth of September, Emperor William said:

“Peace will never be better assured than by a thoroughly drilled army ready for instant service, such as, in detachments, we at the present time have had opportunity to admire and to rejoice over. God grant us that it may be ever within our power to conquer with this always keen and well-cared-for weapon. Then the Westphalian peasant may go to sleep in peace.”

LVI
EVENTS AND MEETINGS

The Empress Elisabeth · The last days of my father-in-law · Egidy on the assassination of the Empress · Session of the delegates in Turin · Egidy evening in Vienna · Reminiscence of the campaign of 1866 · William T. Stead in Vienna on his pilgrimage · His portrait · His audience with Nicholas II · His meeting with Bloch · My interview with Muravieff · Conclusion of Spanish-American treaty of peace · Reply of the chairman of the Spanish Commission to a memorial from Émile Arnaud · Still the Dreyfus affair · General Türr with King Humbert · Egidy dead · Letter from his son

The Empress Elisabeth assassinated! An infamous dagger thrust into a quiet, proud, unworldly, and generous heart. Once again mourning and terror flashed through the whole civilized world with lightning speed. More and more it is shown that this civilized world has only one soul. The memory of this princess, so opulent in sufferings, so endowed with beauty, will go down in history as a radiant and poetic vision. And that vision will be haloed with a tragic charm—so shockingly sad though it is, so hateful the deed that was responsible for it—from the fact that she did not die in her bed of illness or old age, but fell under the deadly blow of a fanatic madman, just as she was setting out on a new voyage into the splendor of nature which she loved so well. Out of the gray monotony of the commonplace thou standest forth for all time,—a figure in shining black,—Elisabeth of Austria!

My father-in-law, then seventy-nine years of age, had been for some time, especially since Lotti’s death, very much shattered in health. He no longer took his daily walks, often dropped off to sleep, sometimes began to wander in his speech,—in short, his demise was evidently near at hand. Nevertheless he had his secretary and faithful attendant—my husband’s former tutor—read the newspaper to him every day. When the news of the assassination of the Empress arrived we made haste to warn Herr Wiesner (that was the secretary’s name, though at home we always called him “Dominus”) not to read to the old gentleman the passages regarding the tragedy. Attached with the deepest devotion to the imperial house, Old Austrian to his finger tips, an enthusiastic admirer of the beautiful Empress,—the news of her death would have terribly shocked him, and we desired to spare him that.

Only a few days after this event he died in My Own’s arms. At five o’clock one morning we were summoned to his bedside. The nurse thought that he was dying, but he soon rallied and lay peacefully. About nine o’clock—meantime the doctor had been called and all the members of the family stood about the bed—he sat up and took my husband’s hand.

“Artur,” he said, “you know I have always been an industrious worker—I must write a few letters to-day; ... there the Dominus stands waiting for me to dictate—but, Artur, I should like to rest to-day—I may, may I not?—just a little sleep—yes?”

My Own laid him gently back on the pillow. “Dear father—sleep!”