Posted on Mar 18, 2020
Bismarck's Fall from Power, 1890 | H-German | H-Net
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On March 18, 1890, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck resigned after 19 years after adisagreement with German Kaiser Wilhelm II. From the article:
"Bismarck's Fall from Power, 1890 | H-German
[A struggle for power between Otto von Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm II broke out immediately upon the death of Kaiser Frederick III (1888). The "dropping of the pilot" and the setting of a "new course" in 1890 signified the end of an era, a watershed in modern German history. Many contemporaries looked back upon Bismarck's dismissal as a tragic mistake, believing that he would have avoided the foreign policy blunders that plunged the German Empire into the disaster of World War I.
But it was not foreign policy that drove kaiser and chancellor apart. The problem was what to do about organized labor. Clearly, the Anti-Socialist Laws of 1878 had failed to curb the growth of militant labor organizations. Bismarck aimed at confrontation, hoping that if the laws were allowed to lapse and workers went too far, he would be able to revise the Constitution of 1867-71 in an undemocratic fashion. Wilhelm, at least early in his reign, wanted to win the love of the workers, wooing them away from Marxist socialism with concessions. The occasion for the chancellor's resignation/dismissal was a technical matter over bureaucratic protocol. It only partially masked the true nature of the conflict, however. Wilhelm, ambitious to rule as well as reign, wanted to be free of Bismarck's overbearing influence. As one wit put it, Wilhelm wanted to be the bridegroom at the wedding, the corpse at the funeral. On the other hand, the irascible Bismarck clung desperately to power, unaware of his isolation or how his authoritarian ways with peers and underlings had alienated many who could have helped in his struggle. The gap in their ages and "styles" made for an intense contest of wills, but the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Bismarck had created an unassailable position for the monarch, immune even from the "iron chancellor."
The major players in these events do not differ markedly over the facts of the case but rather what the facts mean. Bismarck gives his side of the story in his memoirs, Gedanken und Erinnerungen. So damning and unforgiving of Wilhelm II and so embittered, these chapters were, according to an agreement between Bismarck's heirs and his publisher, to be withheld from publication during the lifetime of the kaiser. But when Wilhelm fled to Holland in the last days of World War I, the publisher felt himself free to produce a third volume of the chancellor's memoirs, over the protest of the family. Bismarck's character assassination of Wilhelm and all those who sided against him in the critical hour is masterful. He presents himself as an aged and loyal retainer who put up with great injustice and ingratitude out of a sense of responsibility to the nation. But along side the pathos, Bismarck makes ample use of innuendo, impugns others' motives, and casts many aspersions, all in an effort to justify himself to posterity and to have his revenge. Source: Otto von Bismarck, The Kaiser vs. Bismarck: Suppressed Letters by the Kaiser and New Chapters from the Autobiography of the Iron Chancellor. (New York, 1921; repr. 1971), pp. 55-67, 78, 85-91, 94-105, 117, 120-21. Translated by Bernard Miall.]
TEXT 1
When the Kaiser first began to entertain the idea of setting me aside, or when the resolve to do so was matured, I do not know. The idea that he would not share the glory of his future government with me was already familiar to him as a Prince, and was now ripe for realization. It was natural that place hunters...should attach themselves to the future heir to the throne as long as he was in the accessible position of a young officer. The more probable it seemed that the Prince would succeed to the throne soon after his grandfather's death the more animated were the efforts to win the future Kaiser's support in respect of personal or party aims. The cleverly calculated phrase applied by Count Waldersee had already been used against me--namely, that if Frederick the Great had had such a Chancellor he would not have been Frederick the Great.
The difference of opinion which had arisen out of the Stöcker affair,...ended in at least an outward reconciliation.[1] ...On January 1, 1889, I received the following letter:
Dear Prince: The year which brought us such heavy afflictions and irreparable losses is coming to an end. The thought that you stand faithfully beside me and are entering upon the New Year with fresh strength fills me with gladness and consolation. With my whole heart I pray that you may be granted happiness, prosperity, and, before all, lasting health, and I hope to God that I may be long permitted to work with you for the welfare and the greatness of our Fatherland.
Wilhelm, I[mperator] R[ex]
Until the autumn no symptoms of any change of mood were observable; but in October, in connection with the Kaiser's presence in Russia, His Majesty was surprised that I advised against the intended second visit to Russia, and by his behavior to me gave me to understand that he was not well disposed toward me....A few days later the Kaiser set out on his journey to Constantinople, during which he sent me friendly telegrams relating to his impressions from Messina, Athens, and the Dardanelles. None the less, it came to my knowledge later that he had heard "too much talk of the Chancellor" while abroad. An eventual breach over this matter was increased by the witty and calculated remarks of my opponents, which referred among other things to the "firm of Bismarck and Son."[2]
In the meantime I had gone to Friedrichsruh on the 16th of October. [3] In my old age I was not for my own sake anxious to retain my position, and if I could have foreseen my early departure I would have arranged it in a manner more convenient to the Kaiser and more dignified to myself. That I did not foresee it proves that in spite of forty years' practice I had not become a courtier, and that politics absorbed me rather than the question of my position, to which no love of power or ambition chained me, but only my sense of duty.
In the course of January 1890, it came to my knowledge how keenly interested the Kaiser had become in the so-called "protection of labor" legislation [4] and that he had conferred upon the subject with the King of Saxony and the Grand Duke of Baden,...
It was repugnant to my convictions and my experience so far to encroach upon the independence of the worker, in his professional life and his rights as the head of a family, as to forbid him by law to exploit his own working capacities, and those of his family, according to his own judgment. I do not believe that the workingman is in himself grateful because he is forbidden to earn money on certain days, and during certain hours, as he may choose, even though the question was undoubtedly utilized by the Socialist leaders for the purposes of a successful agitation, with the misrepresentation that the employers were in a position to pay an unreduced wage for the diminished hours of labor. As for the veto upon Sunday labor, I have found by personal inquiry that the workers agreed to it only when they had been assured that the weekly wage would be as large for six days as it had formerly been for seven. The prohibition or limitation of the work of children and adolescents did not commend itself to the parents of those forbidden to work, and among the adolescents it was welcomed only by individuals who followed hazardous ways of making a livelihood....
Be this as it may, it is a fact that the King of Saxony, in spite of all his good will for me, influenced the King's ideas in a direction which was opposed to that which I had advocated for years,...He had not anticipated that my dismissal from the service would be connected with this point of issue, and he deplored this result. [The Kaiser had been convinced by a number of high ranking ministers] that my senile obstinacy was a hindrance to his efforts to win over public opinion and to convert the opponents of the monarchy into adherents.
On the 9th of January the Reichstag reassembled. Even before Christmas, and again soon after, the Kaiser had recommended me, in a fashion that was equivalent to a command, not to come to Berlin for the session. On the morning of the 23rd, two days before the session ended, [Bismarck was informed] that a crown council [5] would be held at six o'clock on the following day, and upon my inquiring as to the object of the council, [the informant] replied that he did not know. My son...betook himself to the Kaiser during the afternoon, and in reply to his query as to the purpose of the council he received the answer that His Majesty wished to lay his opinion concerning the labor question before the ministry and desired that I should attend the council. On my son's remarking that he he expected me that evening the Kaiser said that I had better not arrive until noon on the following day, so that I should not be settled in the residence, nor appear in the Reichstag, where the expression of my opinion, which differed from that of the majority, might endanger the party truce (but this was not said in so many words), and would be incompatible with the intentions of the All-Highest.
I arrived at two o'clock on the afternoon of the 24th. I called a session of the ministers for three o'clock....I moved, and the motion was accepted, that we intended to maintain a provisionally receptive attitude in respect of the imperial revelations, if these should be important, in order that we might thereafter discuss them confidentially among ourselves. The Kaiser had asked me to arrive half an hour earlier than the other ministers [attending the council meeting], at half past five, from which I concluded that he wished to discuss the intended communication with me beforehand. Therein I was mistaken; he vouchsafed me no hints as to what was to be discussed, and gave me the impression, when the council had assembled, that he had a pleasant surprise in store for us. He laid before us two projects, worked out in detail; one in his own hand, the other written to his dictations by an aide-de-camp, both promising to fulfill the Socialist demands. One called for the drafting and completion of a decree of the Kaiser's, expressed in enthusiastic language, and intended for publication, in the spirit of the detailed scheme. The Kaiser had this read by [Karl Heinrich] von Bötticher [official of the Interior Ministry], who appeared to be familiar with the text. This, to me, was surprising, not so much on account of its businesslike grasp...as on account of the practical aimlessness of the scheme, and its pretentious and exalted tone; this could only weaken the effect of the steps announced, and threatened to allow the whole affair to come to nothing, as a sort of speech of popular felicitation.
Yet more surprising was the monarch's frank written declaration, before his expert constitutional advisers, that this proclamation was based on the information and advice of four men, whom he described as authorities, and mentioned by name. One was Privy Councilor [Georg Ernst] Hinzpeter, an educationalist, who presumptuously and unskillfully exploited the remains of his reputation as a teacher in his relations with his former pupils, [6] carefully avoiding responsibility; secondly there was Count Douglas, a rich and lucky speculator in mines, who had endeavored to enhance the consideration lent by a great fortune by the luster of an influential position near the sovereign; for this purpose, with ready and appreciative conversational powers, he established political, or perhaps rather politico-economic, relations with the Kaiser, and sought through friendly intercourse with the imperial children to contrive that the Kaiser should make him a count. In the third place there was the painter von Heyden, a society man, easily persuaded, who, thirty years before, had been a mining official in the office of a Schleswig magnate; today he was regarded as an artist in professional mining circles, while in artistic circles he was looked upon as a mining expert. He had, as we were told, based his influence over the Kaiser less upon his own judgment than upon his relations with an old workingman from Wedding, who served him as [an artist's] model for beggars and prophets, and from whose conversation he derived material for legislative suggestions which he made in the most exalted quarter.
The fourth authority whom the Kaiser upheld in the presence of his councilors was Governor von Berlepsch from Koblenz, who had drawn the Kaiser's attention to himself by his friendly attitude to labor during the strike of 1889, and had entered into direct alliance with him [thus circumventing Bismarck's authority]....
After the ensuing reading of the draft His Majesty declared that he had chosen the birthday of the great King [Frederick the Great] for this crown council, because the latter would provide a new and highly significant historical point of departure, and he wished the drafting of the decree alluded to in one of the detailed statements to be so expedited that it might be published on his own birthday (January 27). All the ministers who spoke declared that the immediate consideration and drafting of such refractory material was impracticable. I warned them what the result would be; the increased expectations and the insatiable covetousness of the socialist classes would drive the kingdom and the governmental authority on to precipitous courses; His Majesty and the Reichstag were speaking of the protection of labor, but as a matter of fact it was a question of the compulsion of labor, the compulsion to work less; and whether the deficiency in the income of the head of the family would be forcibly laid to the charge of the employers was questionable, because industries which had lost 14 per cent of their labor power through the Sunday rest would perhaps be incapable of carrying on, so that finally the workers would lose their livelihood. An imperial decree in the intended spirit would prejudice the coming elections, because it would alarm the propertied classes and encourage the Socialists. A further burdening of the costs of production would therefore be possible, and could be charged upon the consumers only if the other great industrial states were to proceed in a similar fashion....
The imminent close of the Reichstag session raised the question of a renewal of the [Anti-Socialist Laws], which would otherwise expire in the autumn. In the commission, in which the National Liberals struck the first blow, the authority to banish was expunged from the proposal of the Bundesrat; [7] consequently the question was raised whether the confederate governments would comply in this particular or whether they would wish to retain the power of banishment because of the danger that the bill might not be passed. To my surprise, and in contravention of my strict instructions to him, Herr von Bötticher proposed to introduce on the following day, when the last sitting of the Reichstag would take place, an imperial proclamation by which the projected bill would be revised in the sense desired by the National Liberals --that is, the power of banishment would be voluntarily renounced--which could not be accomplished in a constitutional manner without previous consent of the Bundesrat. The Kaiser immediately agreed to the proposal....I...demanded that we should wait for the resolution of the full [Reichstag]; if it submitted an inadequate law this would have to be accepted, but if now, on account of a refusal, a vacuum were to occur which could not be filled, it would be necessary to wait for the occasion of a more serious infringement, which was finally to be anticipated. We should in any case have to lay a severer measure before the next Reichstag. The Kaiser protested against the experiment with the vacuum; he could not in any case allow matters to come to such a pass, at the beginning of his reign, that there would be a danger of bloodshed; that would never be forgiven him. I replied that whether it came to insurrection and bloodshed depended not on His Majesty and our legislative schemes, but on the revolutionaries, and that bloodshed could hardly be avoided unless we, while confronted by no admitted danger, determined to give way no longer, but to make a stand somewhere. The later the government began to resist the more violent must that resistance be.
The rest of the ministers, excepting Bötticher and Herrfurth, expressed themselves in agreement with me, some of them giving detailed reasons for their agreement. Here the Kaiser [was] visibly annoyed by the negative vote of the ministers....
[Wilhelm was determined to publish a decree demonstrating his concern for the needs of labor. Bismarck's resistance was gradually undermined by ministers who were unwilling to brook the kaiser's will.]
In order to appease the Kaiser's impatience to some extent, I gave the two drafts in question (for the Imperial Chancellor and the Ministry of Commerce) a style corresponding to his character and his desire for emphatic expression. On presenting them I declared that I had prepared them only in obedience to his command, and urgently begged him to refrain from publications of the kind, to wait for the moment when properly formulated and detailed proposals could be laid before the Reichstag, or at all events to allow the elections to go by before the labor problem was touched upon. The indefinite and universal character of the imperial proposals would arouse expectations which it would be impossible to satisfy, and their nonfulfillment would increase the difficulty of the situation. I wanted to be able to remember, when after months or weeks His Majesty should himself come to recognize the danger and prejudice which I feared, that I had advised him against the whole proceeding in the most positive manner, and that I had supplied the completed text only out of the dutiful obedience of an official who is still serving. I concluded with the request that the drafts which had been read aloud might be thrown into the fire then burning in the grate. The Kaiser replied, "No, no, give them to me!" and with some haste signed both proclamations, which were published, without counter-signatures,...[in the official newspaper on] the 9th of February [1890]. [9]
[Bismarck's hopes that the state council and an international conference on labor problems would modify or nullify the kaiser's decrees were disappointed. Foreign powers were all too willing to see the kaiser's government embark on a course of "self-injury," according to Bismarck. Individuals in the state council, on the other hand, lacked independence and moral earnestness. He concedes victory to Wilhelm in this matter.]
From his behavior to me, and from communications made to me later, I can only draw more or less accurate conclusions as to the changes of mood and opinion that occurred in the Kaiser during the last weeks before my dismissal. Of the psychological changes in myself alone I can give some account, thanks to contemporary notes made from day to day. Each of us, of course, exerted a reciprocal influence, but it is not practicable to represent synoptically the parallel events which occurred on both sides. In my old age I did not cling to my position--only to my duty. The ever-increasing signs that the Kaiser--who was allowed to believe (by Bötticher, Berlepsch, etc.) that I was an obstacle to his popularity with the workers--had more confidence in Bötticher, Verdy, my councilors, Berlepsch, and other unofficial advisers than in me, made me consider whether and how far my complete or partial withdrawal without prejudice to the interests of the state might be advisable. Without any ill feeling, on many a sleepless night I considered the question whether I could and should extricate myself from the difficulties which I foresaw as imminent. I always came to the conclusion that I should be conscious of a feeling of disloyalty if I refused the conflict which I foresaw. I found the Kaiser's disinclination to share the glory of his coming years of rule understandable from a psychological point of view, and, any sensitiveness apart, he was clearly within his rights. The idea of being free of all responsibility, in view of my opinion of the Kaiser and his aims, was to me extremely seductive; but my sense of honor showed me this aversion from conflict and work in the service of the Fatherland as incompatible with a courageous sense of duty. I feared at that time that the crises which, as I believed, were before us would be upon us quickly. I did not foresee that their advent would be postponed by the abandonment of all anti-Socialist legislation through concessions to the different classes hostile to the Empire. I was and am of the opinion that the later they occur the more dangerous they will be. I regarded the Kaiser as longing for conflict, as he was, or remained while under alien influence, and I held it my duty to remain beside him, as a moderating influence, or eventually opposing him.
In the second week of February, when my impression was confirmed that the Kaiser wished to develop at least the socialist affair, in the belief that he could conduct it in a propitiatory manner, without me, and more indulgently than I thought advisable, I resolved to have the matter plainly understood, and said, in a colloquy, on the 8th of February, "I fear that I am in Your Majesty's way." The Kaiser was silent, signifying his assent. I thereupon amiably unfolded the possibility that in case I were first of all to resign my Prussian offices, retaining only that for which I had been recommended by my opponents more than ten years previously, that of the "old fellow at the Foreign Office," I might still continue to make the capital of my experience and confidence which I had won for myself in Germany and abroad useful to the Kaiser and the Empire. His Majesty nodded in agreement with this part of my statement, and finally asked, in a vivacious tone, "But I suppose you will still move the military requisitions in the Reichstag?" I replied, without knowing their extent, that I would willingly support them....I offered without more ado to postpone my resignation from the Prussian administration, if His Majesty so desired, until the day of the elections (February 20), so that it would neither seem a result of the elections nor yet affect them; for I considered that they were already imperiled by the the Kaiser's manifestoes....
In the ministerial session of the 9th of February I intimated my intention of resigning from the Prussian administration. My colleagues were silent, the expressions on their faces were various....I said to my son, "At the idea of being rid of me they all said, `Ouf!' relieved and gratified!"....
Although I was fully convinced that the Kaiser wished to be rid of me, yet my attachment to the throne and my doubts as to the future made it seem cowardly to desist before I had exhausted all means that might guard the monarchy from danger or defend it. [The elections for the Reichstag turned out badly from Bismarck's point of view.] On account of the composition of the Reichstag, and in order to advocate the [Anti-] Socialist policy hitherto followed, as well as the military requisitions, I now held that it was all the more necessary for me to remain until after the first parliamentary conflicts, so that I might help to insure our future against the Socialist peril. [Bismarck is led to believe that the Kaiser, in light of the Reichstag elections, has given up his policy of indulgence toward the Social Democrats and that he fully backs his chancellor's intention to meet the socialist challenge head-on. Gradually, Bismarck learns otherwise.]
While I was thus working for the realization of the imperial program the Kaiser himself, I am forced to believe, had given it up, without giving me any hint of it. I shall not attempt to decide whether he had been particularly in earnest over it. I was informed later that the Grand Duke of Baden, advised by [Baron Adolf] Marschall [von Bieberstein of the Foreign Office], had in those days warned the Kaiser against a policy which might lead to bloodshed; if it came to a conflict "the old Chancellor would be in the foreground again." ...according to my observations the Kaiser's resolution to allow the plan of campaign [against the Socialists] to drop dated from the period between the 8th and the 14th of March. I suppose it was repugnant to him to extricate himself openly in my presence, and instead of this, to my regret, the method was chosen of allowing me to remain in office until the June term [of the Reichstag]. The usual methods of business intercourse, with which I had until then been favored, underwent a decisive alteration during these days, so that I am obliged to conclude that the Kaiser not only regarded my services as unnecessary, but also as unwelcome; and that His Majesty, instead of telling me this in a friendly manner, with his former candor, urged my retirement by ungracious methods. Hitherto I personally had felt no ill humor. I was honestly ready to help the Kaiser to shape affairs as he desired. This mental condition of mine was first disturbed by the steps taken on the 15th, 16th, and 17th, which exempted me from any personal responsibility for my resignation from service and necessitated my breaking up a household which had existed for a lifetime at a day's notice; [10] yet to this day I have not with absolute certainty learned the actual reason of the rupture.
...On the morning of the 15th [of March], at nine o'clock, I was awakened with the news that His Majesty had just had it announced that I should make a report in...my son's official residence. There we received the Kaiser....I began my report: "I am able to inform Your Majesty that [Ludwig] Windthorst [11] has come out of his burrow and has sought me out." The Kaiser thereupon cried out, "Well, of course you had him thrown out." I replied...that I had naturally received Windthorst, since I had always been accustomed, as minister, to receive any member of parliament whose manners did not make him impossible, and since I was in duty bound to do so when any such member presented himself. The Kaiser declared that I should first have inquired of him. I differed from him, indicating my liberty to receive visits in my own house, particularly such as it was my official duty to receive, or such as I had a reason for receiving. The Kaiser insisted on his pretensions, adding that he knew that Windthorst's visit had been arranged through the banker, von Bleichröder; "Jews and Jesuits" always held together. I replied that I was greatly honored that His Majesty should be so exactly informed concerning the private occurrences in my house;...the choice of an intermediary was Windthorst's, not mine, and did not concern me. In connection with the constellation in the new Reichstag, it was a matter of great importance that I should know the plan of campaign of the leader of the strongest faction, and I was pleased to hear that he unexpectedly wished me to receive him. I had discovered, in the course of this conversation, that Windthorst intended to make impossible demands...To ascertain his intentions had for me been a professional necessity....
The Kaiser asked me nothing as to Windthorst's plans, but began: "I receive scarcely any reports now from my ministers; I have been told that you have forbidden them to give me reports except with your consent or in your presence, and that you are relying on an old yellow order that was completely forgotten."
I explained that this was not the case at all. This order of September 1852, which had been in force as long as our Constitution had existed, was indispensable to every prime minister; it required only that he should be informed in the case of important proposals, which were new in principle, before the Kaiser's decision was obtained, for otherwise he could not shoulder the collective responsibility; if there was to be a prime minister, the substance of this order must be authoritative. The Kaiser asserted that the order in question limited his royal prerogative, and demanded its revocation. I called attention to the fact that His Majesty's three predecessors had governed the country under this order; since 1862 there had been no question raised in respect of it, for it had always been observed as a matter of course.... [12]
I then turned the conversation upon the dispatches which had come to hand concerning the visit to Russia, which His Majesty had announced for the summer. I again sought to dissuade him [from going], and in support of my arguments mentioned certain secret reports from St. Petersburg, which...contained unfavorable expressions which the Tsar was said to have employed concerning His Majesty and the last visit which His Majesty had paid him. The Kaiser demanded that I should read him a report of the kind which I was holding in my hand. I explained that I could not bring myself to do that, because the verbal contents would wound his feelings. The Kaiser took the paper from my hand, read it, and appeared to be justly wounded by the wording of the Tsar's supposed remarks. [13] ...I had hoped that the Kaiser would have listened to my decided refusal to inform him of the tenor of [the] report, as his father and grandfather would undoubtedly have done, and I had on this account confined myself to paraphrasing these passages, with the intimation that it followed therefrom that the Kaiser's visit was not welcome to the Tsar; that he would rather that it should not take place. The wording of the document whose perusal the Kaiser insisted upon, literally with his own hands, was undoubtedly extremely displeasing to him, and was intended to be so.
He rose, and offered me his hand--in which he was holding his helmet--more coldly than usual. I accompanied him to the outer steps before the door of the house. He was just about to step into the carriage before the eyes of the servants when he sprang up the steps again and shook my hand vigorously.
While already the Kaiser's whole attitude toward me could only produce the impression that he wanted to disgust me with the service and increase my ill humor to the point of seeking to resign, yet I believe that his fully justified irritation concerning the affronts [contained in the reports]...had for the moment encouraged the Kaiser in his tactics against me. Even if the change in the Kaiser's methods, and in his consideration for me, had not been intended, as I had incidentally supposed, to determine how long my nerves would hold out, it was nevertheless quite in the monarchical tradition that the bearer should be the first to suffer for the insult which might be contained in a message for the King. History ancient and modern contains examples of messengers who were sacrificed to the royal anger on account of the contents of messages of which they were not the authors....
At the close of the discussion I asked His Majesty whether he insisted upon expressly ordering me to withdraw the order of 1852, on which the position of the prime minister depended. The answer was a curt "Yes." I did not as yet decide upon an immediate withdrawal, but proposed to take the command, as one says, "Sunday fashion," and to wait until I should receive warning to withdraw [the cabinet order], when I would ask for a written order and bring it forward for discussion by the cabinet. I was even then convinced that I should not have to assume the initiative, and therewith the responsibility, for my retirement.
On the following morning, the 17th of March, [Chief of the Military Cabinet Wilhelm von] Hahnke returned, in order regretfully to inform me that His Majesty insisted on the revocation of the order, and was expecting, from the report which he, Hahnke, had given him of his conversation with me on the previous day, that I should forthwith hand in my resignation. I was to go to the palace in the afternoon, in order to take it myself. I replied that I was not well enough to do so and would write....
On the afternoon of the 18th of March I sent in my resignation. My draft of this resignation ran as follows: [14]
[Bismarck gives a reprise of all the conflicts, domestic and foreign, recounted above and then closes with:]
"It is very painful to me, in my attachment to the service of the Royal House and to Your Majesty, and after long years of familiarity with conditions which I had regarded as permanent, to sever myself from the accustomed relations with Your Majesty and the general policy of the Empire and of Prussia; but after conscientious consideration of Your Majesty's intentions, which I should have to be prepared to carry out were I to remain in the service, I cannot do otherwise than most humbly beseech Your Majesty graciously to please release me, with the statutory pension, from the offices of Imperial Chancellor, Prime Minister [of Prussia], and Prussian Minister of Foreign Affairs.
"After my impressions of the last few weeks and the disclosures which I gathered yesterday from the communications of Your Majesty's Civil and Military cabinets, I may in all respects assume that I am meeting Your Majesty's wishes by this my request for leave to resign, and also that I may safely assume that Your Majesty will graciously grant my request.
'I would have submitted the request for my discharge from my offices to Your Majesty a long time ago, if I had not had the impression that it was Your Majesty's wish to make use of the experience and the capacities of a faithful servant of your predecessors. Now that I am sure that Your Majesty does not require these, I am able to retire from public life without the fear that my decision will be condemned as untimely by public opinion.
von Bismarck'"
"Bismarck's Fall from Power, 1890 | H-German
[A struggle for power between Otto von Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm II broke out immediately upon the death of Kaiser Frederick III (1888). The "dropping of the pilot" and the setting of a "new course" in 1890 signified the end of an era, a watershed in modern German history. Many contemporaries looked back upon Bismarck's dismissal as a tragic mistake, believing that he would have avoided the foreign policy blunders that plunged the German Empire into the disaster of World War I.
But it was not foreign policy that drove kaiser and chancellor apart. The problem was what to do about organized labor. Clearly, the Anti-Socialist Laws of 1878 had failed to curb the growth of militant labor organizations. Bismarck aimed at confrontation, hoping that if the laws were allowed to lapse and workers went too far, he would be able to revise the Constitution of 1867-71 in an undemocratic fashion. Wilhelm, at least early in his reign, wanted to win the love of the workers, wooing them away from Marxist socialism with concessions. The occasion for the chancellor's resignation/dismissal was a technical matter over bureaucratic protocol. It only partially masked the true nature of the conflict, however. Wilhelm, ambitious to rule as well as reign, wanted to be free of Bismarck's overbearing influence. As one wit put it, Wilhelm wanted to be the bridegroom at the wedding, the corpse at the funeral. On the other hand, the irascible Bismarck clung desperately to power, unaware of his isolation or how his authoritarian ways with peers and underlings had alienated many who could have helped in his struggle. The gap in their ages and "styles" made for an intense contest of wills, but the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Bismarck had created an unassailable position for the monarch, immune even from the "iron chancellor."
The major players in these events do not differ markedly over the facts of the case but rather what the facts mean. Bismarck gives his side of the story in his memoirs, Gedanken und Erinnerungen. So damning and unforgiving of Wilhelm II and so embittered, these chapters were, according to an agreement between Bismarck's heirs and his publisher, to be withheld from publication during the lifetime of the kaiser. But when Wilhelm fled to Holland in the last days of World War I, the publisher felt himself free to produce a third volume of the chancellor's memoirs, over the protest of the family. Bismarck's character assassination of Wilhelm and all those who sided against him in the critical hour is masterful. He presents himself as an aged and loyal retainer who put up with great injustice and ingratitude out of a sense of responsibility to the nation. But along side the pathos, Bismarck makes ample use of innuendo, impugns others' motives, and casts many aspersions, all in an effort to justify himself to posterity and to have his revenge. Source: Otto von Bismarck, The Kaiser vs. Bismarck: Suppressed Letters by the Kaiser and New Chapters from the Autobiography of the Iron Chancellor. (New York, 1921; repr. 1971), pp. 55-67, 78, 85-91, 94-105, 117, 120-21. Translated by Bernard Miall.]
TEXT 1
When the Kaiser first began to entertain the idea of setting me aside, or when the resolve to do so was matured, I do not know. The idea that he would not share the glory of his future government with me was already familiar to him as a Prince, and was now ripe for realization. It was natural that place hunters...should attach themselves to the future heir to the throne as long as he was in the accessible position of a young officer. The more probable it seemed that the Prince would succeed to the throne soon after his grandfather's death the more animated were the efforts to win the future Kaiser's support in respect of personal or party aims. The cleverly calculated phrase applied by Count Waldersee had already been used against me--namely, that if Frederick the Great had had such a Chancellor he would not have been Frederick the Great.
The difference of opinion which had arisen out of the Stöcker affair,...ended in at least an outward reconciliation.[1] ...On January 1, 1889, I received the following letter:
Dear Prince: The year which brought us such heavy afflictions and irreparable losses is coming to an end. The thought that you stand faithfully beside me and are entering upon the New Year with fresh strength fills me with gladness and consolation. With my whole heart I pray that you may be granted happiness, prosperity, and, before all, lasting health, and I hope to God that I may be long permitted to work with you for the welfare and the greatness of our Fatherland.
Wilhelm, I[mperator] R[ex]
Until the autumn no symptoms of any change of mood were observable; but in October, in connection with the Kaiser's presence in Russia, His Majesty was surprised that I advised against the intended second visit to Russia, and by his behavior to me gave me to understand that he was not well disposed toward me....A few days later the Kaiser set out on his journey to Constantinople, during which he sent me friendly telegrams relating to his impressions from Messina, Athens, and the Dardanelles. None the less, it came to my knowledge later that he had heard "too much talk of the Chancellor" while abroad. An eventual breach over this matter was increased by the witty and calculated remarks of my opponents, which referred among other things to the "firm of Bismarck and Son."[2]
In the meantime I had gone to Friedrichsruh on the 16th of October. [3] In my old age I was not for my own sake anxious to retain my position, and if I could have foreseen my early departure I would have arranged it in a manner more convenient to the Kaiser and more dignified to myself. That I did not foresee it proves that in spite of forty years' practice I had not become a courtier, and that politics absorbed me rather than the question of my position, to which no love of power or ambition chained me, but only my sense of duty.
In the course of January 1890, it came to my knowledge how keenly interested the Kaiser had become in the so-called "protection of labor" legislation [4] and that he had conferred upon the subject with the King of Saxony and the Grand Duke of Baden,...
It was repugnant to my convictions and my experience so far to encroach upon the independence of the worker, in his professional life and his rights as the head of a family, as to forbid him by law to exploit his own working capacities, and those of his family, according to his own judgment. I do not believe that the workingman is in himself grateful because he is forbidden to earn money on certain days, and during certain hours, as he may choose, even though the question was undoubtedly utilized by the Socialist leaders for the purposes of a successful agitation, with the misrepresentation that the employers were in a position to pay an unreduced wage for the diminished hours of labor. As for the veto upon Sunday labor, I have found by personal inquiry that the workers agreed to it only when they had been assured that the weekly wage would be as large for six days as it had formerly been for seven. The prohibition or limitation of the work of children and adolescents did not commend itself to the parents of those forbidden to work, and among the adolescents it was welcomed only by individuals who followed hazardous ways of making a livelihood....
Be this as it may, it is a fact that the King of Saxony, in spite of all his good will for me, influenced the King's ideas in a direction which was opposed to that which I had advocated for years,...He had not anticipated that my dismissal from the service would be connected with this point of issue, and he deplored this result. [The Kaiser had been convinced by a number of high ranking ministers] that my senile obstinacy was a hindrance to his efforts to win over public opinion and to convert the opponents of the monarchy into adherents.
On the 9th of January the Reichstag reassembled. Even before Christmas, and again soon after, the Kaiser had recommended me, in a fashion that was equivalent to a command, not to come to Berlin for the session. On the morning of the 23rd, two days before the session ended, [Bismarck was informed] that a crown council [5] would be held at six o'clock on the following day, and upon my inquiring as to the object of the council, [the informant] replied that he did not know. My son...betook himself to the Kaiser during the afternoon, and in reply to his query as to the purpose of the council he received the answer that His Majesty wished to lay his opinion concerning the labor question before the ministry and desired that I should attend the council. On my son's remarking that he he expected me that evening the Kaiser said that I had better not arrive until noon on the following day, so that I should not be settled in the residence, nor appear in the Reichstag, where the expression of my opinion, which differed from that of the majority, might endanger the party truce (but this was not said in so many words), and would be incompatible with the intentions of the All-Highest.
I arrived at two o'clock on the afternoon of the 24th. I called a session of the ministers for three o'clock....I moved, and the motion was accepted, that we intended to maintain a provisionally receptive attitude in respect of the imperial revelations, if these should be important, in order that we might thereafter discuss them confidentially among ourselves. The Kaiser had asked me to arrive half an hour earlier than the other ministers [attending the council meeting], at half past five, from which I concluded that he wished to discuss the intended communication with me beforehand. Therein I was mistaken; he vouchsafed me no hints as to what was to be discussed, and gave me the impression, when the council had assembled, that he had a pleasant surprise in store for us. He laid before us two projects, worked out in detail; one in his own hand, the other written to his dictations by an aide-de-camp, both promising to fulfill the Socialist demands. One called for the drafting and completion of a decree of the Kaiser's, expressed in enthusiastic language, and intended for publication, in the spirit of the detailed scheme. The Kaiser had this read by [Karl Heinrich] von Bötticher [official of the Interior Ministry], who appeared to be familiar with the text. This, to me, was surprising, not so much on account of its businesslike grasp...as on account of the practical aimlessness of the scheme, and its pretentious and exalted tone; this could only weaken the effect of the steps announced, and threatened to allow the whole affair to come to nothing, as a sort of speech of popular felicitation.
Yet more surprising was the monarch's frank written declaration, before his expert constitutional advisers, that this proclamation was based on the information and advice of four men, whom he described as authorities, and mentioned by name. One was Privy Councilor [Georg Ernst] Hinzpeter, an educationalist, who presumptuously and unskillfully exploited the remains of his reputation as a teacher in his relations with his former pupils, [6] carefully avoiding responsibility; secondly there was Count Douglas, a rich and lucky speculator in mines, who had endeavored to enhance the consideration lent by a great fortune by the luster of an influential position near the sovereign; for this purpose, with ready and appreciative conversational powers, he established political, or perhaps rather politico-economic, relations with the Kaiser, and sought through friendly intercourse with the imperial children to contrive that the Kaiser should make him a count. In the third place there was the painter von Heyden, a society man, easily persuaded, who, thirty years before, had been a mining official in the office of a Schleswig magnate; today he was regarded as an artist in professional mining circles, while in artistic circles he was looked upon as a mining expert. He had, as we were told, based his influence over the Kaiser less upon his own judgment than upon his relations with an old workingman from Wedding, who served him as [an artist's] model for beggars and prophets, and from whose conversation he derived material for legislative suggestions which he made in the most exalted quarter.
The fourth authority whom the Kaiser upheld in the presence of his councilors was Governor von Berlepsch from Koblenz, who had drawn the Kaiser's attention to himself by his friendly attitude to labor during the strike of 1889, and had entered into direct alliance with him [thus circumventing Bismarck's authority]....
After the ensuing reading of the draft His Majesty declared that he had chosen the birthday of the great King [Frederick the Great] for this crown council, because the latter would provide a new and highly significant historical point of departure, and he wished the drafting of the decree alluded to in one of the detailed statements to be so expedited that it might be published on his own birthday (January 27). All the ministers who spoke declared that the immediate consideration and drafting of such refractory material was impracticable. I warned them what the result would be; the increased expectations and the insatiable covetousness of the socialist classes would drive the kingdom and the governmental authority on to precipitous courses; His Majesty and the Reichstag were speaking of the protection of labor, but as a matter of fact it was a question of the compulsion of labor, the compulsion to work less; and whether the deficiency in the income of the head of the family would be forcibly laid to the charge of the employers was questionable, because industries which had lost 14 per cent of their labor power through the Sunday rest would perhaps be incapable of carrying on, so that finally the workers would lose their livelihood. An imperial decree in the intended spirit would prejudice the coming elections, because it would alarm the propertied classes and encourage the Socialists. A further burdening of the costs of production would therefore be possible, and could be charged upon the consumers only if the other great industrial states were to proceed in a similar fashion....
The imminent close of the Reichstag session raised the question of a renewal of the [Anti-Socialist Laws], which would otherwise expire in the autumn. In the commission, in which the National Liberals struck the first blow, the authority to banish was expunged from the proposal of the Bundesrat; [7] consequently the question was raised whether the confederate governments would comply in this particular or whether they would wish to retain the power of banishment because of the danger that the bill might not be passed. To my surprise, and in contravention of my strict instructions to him, Herr von Bötticher proposed to introduce on the following day, when the last sitting of the Reichstag would take place, an imperial proclamation by which the projected bill would be revised in the sense desired by the National Liberals --that is, the power of banishment would be voluntarily renounced--which could not be accomplished in a constitutional manner without previous consent of the Bundesrat. The Kaiser immediately agreed to the proposal....I...demanded that we should wait for the resolution of the full [Reichstag]; if it submitted an inadequate law this would have to be accepted, but if now, on account of a refusal, a vacuum were to occur which could not be filled, it would be necessary to wait for the occasion of a more serious infringement, which was finally to be anticipated. We should in any case have to lay a severer measure before the next Reichstag. The Kaiser protested against the experiment with the vacuum; he could not in any case allow matters to come to such a pass, at the beginning of his reign, that there would be a danger of bloodshed; that would never be forgiven him. I replied that whether it came to insurrection and bloodshed depended not on His Majesty and our legislative schemes, but on the revolutionaries, and that bloodshed could hardly be avoided unless we, while confronted by no admitted danger, determined to give way no longer, but to make a stand somewhere. The later the government began to resist the more violent must that resistance be.
The rest of the ministers, excepting Bötticher and Herrfurth, expressed themselves in agreement with me, some of them giving detailed reasons for their agreement. Here the Kaiser [was] visibly annoyed by the negative vote of the ministers....
[Wilhelm was determined to publish a decree demonstrating his concern for the needs of labor. Bismarck's resistance was gradually undermined by ministers who were unwilling to brook the kaiser's will.]
In order to appease the Kaiser's impatience to some extent, I gave the two drafts in question (for the Imperial Chancellor and the Ministry of Commerce) a style corresponding to his character and his desire for emphatic expression. On presenting them I declared that I had prepared them only in obedience to his command, and urgently begged him to refrain from publications of the kind, to wait for the moment when properly formulated and detailed proposals could be laid before the Reichstag, or at all events to allow the elections to go by before the labor problem was touched upon. The indefinite and universal character of the imperial proposals would arouse expectations which it would be impossible to satisfy, and their nonfulfillment would increase the difficulty of the situation. I wanted to be able to remember, when after months or weeks His Majesty should himself come to recognize the danger and prejudice which I feared, that I had advised him against the whole proceeding in the most positive manner, and that I had supplied the completed text only out of the dutiful obedience of an official who is still serving. I concluded with the request that the drafts which had been read aloud might be thrown into the fire then burning in the grate. The Kaiser replied, "No, no, give them to me!" and with some haste signed both proclamations, which were published, without counter-signatures,...[in the official newspaper on] the 9th of February [1890]. [9]
[Bismarck's hopes that the state council and an international conference on labor problems would modify or nullify the kaiser's decrees were disappointed. Foreign powers were all too willing to see the kaiser's government embark on a course of "self-injury," according to Bismarck. Individuals in the state council, on the other hand, lacked independence and moral earnestness. He concedes victory to Wilhelm in this matter.]
From his behavior to me, and from communications made to me later, I can only draw more or less accurate conclusions as to the changes of mood and opinion that occurred in the Kaiser during the last weeks before my dismissal. Of the psychological changes in myself alone I can give some account, thanks to contemporary notes made from day to day. Each of us, of course, exerted a reciprocal influence, but it is not practicable to represent synoptically the parallel events which occurred on both sides. In my old age I did not cling to my position--only to my duty. The ever-increasing signs that the Kaiser--who was allowed to believe (by Bötticher, Berlepsch, etc.) that I was an obstacle to his popularity with the workers--had more confidence in Bötticher, Verdy, my councilors, Berlepsch, and other unofficial advisers than in me, made me consider whether and how far my complete or partial withdrawal without prejudice to the interests of the state might be advisable. Without any ill feeling, on many a sleepless night I considered the question whether I could and should extricate myself from the difficulties which I foresaw as imminent. I always came to the conclusion that I should be conscious of a feeling of disloyalty if I refused the conflict which I foresaw. I found the Kaiser's disinclination to share the glory of his coming years of rule understandable from a psychological point of view, and, any sensitiveness apart, he was clearly within his rights. The idea of being free of all responsibility, in view of my opinion of the Kaiser and his aims, was to me extremely seductive; but my sense of honor showed me this aversion from conflict and work in the service of the Fatherland as incompatible with a courageous sense of duty. I feared at that time that the crises which, as I believed, were before us would be upon us quickly. I did not foresee that their advent would be postponed by the abandonment of all anti-Socialist legislation through concessions to the different classes hostile to the Empire. I was and am of the opinion that the later they occur the more dangerous they will be. I regarded the Kaiser as longing for conflict, as he was, or remained while under alien influence, and I held it my duty to remain beside him, as a moderating influence, or eventually opposing him.
In the second week of February, when my impression was confirmed that the Kaiser wished to develop at least the socialist affair, in the belief that he could conduct it in a propitiatory manner, without me, and more indulgently than I thought advisable, I resolved to have the matter plainly understood, and said, in a colloquy, on the 8th of February, "I fear that I am in Your Majesty's way." The Kaiser was silent, signifying his assent. I thereupon amiably unfolded the possibility that in case I were first of all to resign my Prussian offices, retaining only that for which I had been recommended by my opponents more than ten years previously, that of the "old fellow at the Foreign Office," I might still continue to make the capital of my experience and confidence which I had won for myself in Germany and abroad useful to the Kaiser and the Empire. His Majesty nodded in agreement with this part of my statement, and finally asked, in a vivacious tone, "But I suppose you will still move the military requisitions in the Reichstag?" I replied, without knowing their extent, that I would willingly support them....I offered without more ado to postpone my resignation from the Prussian administration, if His Majesty so desired, until the day of the elections (February 20), so that it would neither seem a result of the elections nor yet affect them; for I considered that they were already imperiled by the the Kaiser's manifestoes....
In the ministerial session of the 9th of February I intimated my intention of resigning from the Prussian administration. My colleagues were silent, the expressions on their faces were various....I said to my son, "At the idea of being rid of me they all said, `Ouf!' relieved and gratified!"....
Although I was fully convinced that the Kaiser wished to be rid of me, yet my attachment to the throne and my doubts as to the future made it seem cowardly to desist before I had exhausted all means that might guard the monarchy from danger or defend it. [The elections for the Reichstag turned out badly from Bismarck's point of view.] On account of the composition of the Reichstag, and in order to advocate the [Anti-] Socialist policy hitherto followed, as well as the military requisitions, I now held that it was all the more necessary for me to remain until after the first parliamentary conflicts, so that I might help to insure our future against the Socialist peril. [Bismarck is led to believe that the Kaiser, in light of the Reichstag elections, has given up his policy of indulgence toward the Social Democrats and that he fully backs his chancellor's intention to meet the socialist challenge head-on. Gradually, Bismarck learns otherwise.]
While I was thus working for the realization of the imperial program the Kaiser himself, I am forced to believe, had given it up, without giving me any hint of it. I shall not attempt to decide whether he had been particularly in earnest over it. I was informed later that the Grand Duke of Baden, advised by [Baron Adolf] Marschall [von Bieberstein of the Foreign Office], had in those days warned the Kaiser against a policy which might lead to bloodshed; if it came to a conflict "the old Chancellor would be in the foreground again." ...according to my observations the Kaiser's resolution to allow the plan of campaign [against the Socialists] to drop dated from the period between the 8th and the 14th of March. I suppose it was repugnant to him to extricate himself openly in my presence, and instead of this, to my regret, the method was chosen of allowing me to remain in office until the June term [of the Reichstag]. The usual methods of business intercourse, with which I had until then been favored, underwent a decisive alteration during these days, so that I am obliged to conclude that the Kaiser not only regarded my services as unnecessary, but also as unwelcome; and that His Majesty, instead of telling me this in a friendly manner, with his former candor, urged my retirement by ungracious methods. Hitherto I personally had felt no ill humor. I was honestly ready to help the Kaiser to shape affairs as he desired. This mental condition of mine was first disturbed by the steps taken on the 15th, 16th, and 17th, which exempted me from any personal responsibility for my resignation from service and necessitated my breaking up a household which had existed for a lifetime at a day's notice; [10] yet to this day I have not with absolute certainty learned the actual reason of the rupture.
...On the morning of the 15th [of March], at nine o'clock, I was awakened with the news that His Majesty had just had it announced that I should make a report in...my son's official residence. There we received the Kaiser....I began my report: "I am able to inform Your Majesty that [Ludwig] Windthorst [11] has come out of his burrow and has sought me out." The Kaiser thereupon cried out, "Well, of course you had him thrown out." I replied...that I had naturally received Windthorst, since I had always been accustomed, as minister, to receive any member of parliament whose manners did not make him impossible, and since I was in duty bound to do so when any such member presented himself. The Kaiser declared that I should first have inquired of him. I differed from him, indicating my liberty to receive visits in my own house, particularly such as it was my official duty to receive, or such as I had a reason for receiving. The Kaiser insisted on his pretensions, adding that he knew that Windthorst's visit had been arranged through the banker, von Bleichröder; "Jews and Jesuits" always held together. I replied that I was greatly honored that His Majesty should be so exactly informed concerning the private occurrences in my house;...the choice of an intermediary was Windthorst's, not mine, and did not concern me. In connection with the constellation in the new Reichstag, it was a matter of great importance that I should know the plan of campaign of the leader of the strongest faction, and I was pleased to hear that he unexpectedly wished me to receive him. I had discovered, in the course of this conversation, that Windthorst intended to make impossible demands...To ascertain his intentions had for me been a professional necessity....
The Kaiser asked me nothing as to Windthorst's plans, but began: "I receive scarcely any reports now from my ministers; I have been told that you have forbidden them to give me reports except with your consent or in your presence, and that you are relying on an old yellow order that was completely forgotten."
I explained that this was not the case at all. This order of September 1852, which had been in force as long as our Constitution had existed, was indispensable to every prime minister; it required only that he should be informed in the case of important proposals, which were new in principle, before the Kaiser's decision was obtained, for otherwise he could not shoulder the collective responsibility; if there was to be a prime minister, the substance of this order must be authoritative. The Kaiser asserted that the order in question limited his royal prerogative, and demanded its revocation. I called attention to the fact that His Majesty's three predecessors had governed the country under this order; since 1862 there had been no question raised in respect of it, for it had always been observed as a matter of course.... [12]
I then turned the conversation upon the dispatches which had come to hand concerning the visit to Russia, which His Majesty had announced for the summer. I again sought to dissuade him [from going], and in support of my arguments mentioned certain secret reports from St. Petersburg, which...contained unfavorable expressions which the Tsar was said to have employed concerning His Majesty and the last visit which His Majesty had paid him. The Kaiser demanded that I should read him a report of the kind which I was holding in my hand. I explained that I could not bring myself to do that, because the verbal contents would wound his feelings. The Kaiser took the paper from my hand, read it, and appeared to be justly wounded by the wording of the Tsar's supposed remarks. [13] ...I had hoped that the Kaiser would have listened to my decided refusal to inform him of the tenor of [the] report, as his father and grandfather would undoubtedly have done, and I had on this account confined myself to paraphrasing these passages, with the intimation that it followed therefrom that the Kaiser's visit was not welcome to the Tsar; that he would rather that it should not take place. The wording of the document whose perusal the Kaiser insisted upon, literally with his own hands, was undoubtedly extremely displeasing to him, and was intended to be so.
He rose, and offered me his hand--in which he was holding his helmet--more coldly than usual. I accompanied him to the outer steps before the door of the house. He was just about to step into the carriage before the eyes of the servants when he sprang up the steps again and shook my hand vigorously.
While already the Kaiser's whole attitude toward me could only produce the impression that he wanted to disgust me with the service and increase my ill humor to the point of seeking to resign, yet I believe that his fully justified irritation concerning the affronts [contained in the reports]...had for the moment encouraged the Kaiser in his tactics against me. Even if the change in the Kaiser's methods, and in his consideration for me, had not been intended, as I had incidentally supposed, to determine how long my nerves would hold out, it was nevertheless quite in the monarchical tradition that the bearer should be the first to suffer for the insult which might be contained in a message for the King. History ancient and modern contains examples of messengers who were sacrificed to the royal anger on account of the contents of messages of which they were not the authors....
At the close of the discussion I asked His Majesty whether he insisted upon expressly ordering me to withdraw the order of 1852, on which the position of the prime minister depended. The answer was a curt "Yes." I did not as yet decide upon an immediate withdrawal, but proposed to take the command, as one says, "Sunday fashion," and to wait until I should receive warning to withdraw [the cabinet order], when I would ask for a written order and bring it forward for discussion by the cabinet. I was even then convinced that I should not have to assume the initiative, and therewith the responsibility, for my retirement.
On the following morning, the 17th of March, [Chief of the Military Cabinet Wilhelm von] Hahnke returned, in order regretfully to inform me that His Majesty insisted on the revocation of the order, and was expecting, from the report which he, Hahnke, had given him of his conversation with me on the previous day, that I should forthwith hand in my resignation. I was to go to the palace in the afternoon, in order to take it myself. I replied that I was not well enough to do so and would write....
On the afternoon of the 18th of March I sent in my resignation. My draft of this resignation ran as follows: [14]
[Bismarck gives a reprise of all the conflicts, domestic and foreign, recounted above and then closes with:]
"It is very painful to me, in my attachment to the service of the Royal House and to Your Majesty, and after long years of familiarity with conditions which I had regarded as permanent, to sever myself from the accustomed relations with Your Majesty and the general policy of the Empire and of Prussia; but after conscientious consideration of Your Majesty's intentions, which I should have to be prepared to carry out were I to remain in the service, I cannot do otherwise than most humbly beseech Your Majesty graciously to please release me, with the statutory pension, from the offices of Imperial Chancellor, Prime Minister [of Prussia], and Prussian Minister of Foreign Affairs.
"After my impressions of the last few weeks and the disclosures which I gathered yesterday from the communications of Your Majesty's Civil and Military cabinets, I may in all respects assume that I am meeting Your Majesty's wishes by this my request for leave to resign, and also that I may safely assume that Your Majesty will graciously grant my request.
'I would have submitted the request for my discharge from my offices to Your Majesty a long time ago, if I had not had the impression that it was Your Majesty's wish to make use of the experience and the capacities of a faithful servant of your predecessors. Now that I am sure that Your Majesty does not require these, I am able to retire from public life without the fear that my decision will be condemned as untimely by public opinion.
von Bismarck'"
Bismarck's Fall from Power, 1890 | H-German | H-Net
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