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
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