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?