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