Observer 9.750 TE BLOOD AND IRON By HAROLD NICOLSON Bismarck and the German Empire. By Erich Eyck. (Allen and Unwin. 18s.) I we wish to appreciate the diplomacy as war by other means, virtues of the Germans we in national egoism, in the destiny should read a great amount of of the weak to be devoured by the Goethe. If we desire to under- strong"; his contempt for inter- stand their defects we should study national faithfulness and contrac- the ideas and methods of Bis- tual obligations; his inoculation of marck. The British public should his people with a false and strident be grateful to Dr. Erich Eyck for sense of national honour and a providing them with a condensed self-pitying desire to assume the version of his three-volume work role of the injured ' all these upon the great Chancellor. His erroneous ideas (and with him they BISMARCK AND THE GERMAN EM- became idées fixes) transformed the PIRE is authoritative, illuminating, equable Germans within a space of and easy to read. twenty years into neurotic animals Dr. Eyck, like all good his- -restless, suspicious, discontented. torians, has a definite theme in envious, vaunting, and frightened mind. He does not seek to deni- of the violence which, in their grate Bismarck; in fact, he takes hysteria, they had themselves for granted the astounding strength evoked. of his personality, his singular * greatness and his everlasting glory." His methods also, although What he wishes to elucidate are the effective when controlled by his stages by which Bismarck's re- own iron will, became disastrous peated successes transformed the when applied by men of lesser political philosophy of his contem- strength. The vindictiveness with poraries. He shows us how the which he would denounce even his Chancellor's successive diplomatic mildest critics as Reichsfeinde, the triumphs discredited the old Ger- personal animosity which he dis- man virtues of humanitarianism played to such opponents as the and liberalism, and destroyed the Empress Augusta, the Empress traditional belief in the Rechtsstaat, Frederick, Gortchakoff and Arnim, or the rule of law. He explains, poisoned two generations with the more lucidly than it has been ex- venoms of political pugnacity, ruth- plained before, how Bismarck's lessness and intrigue. His actual pupils, successors, and imitators be- trickery degraded the hitherto came mesmerised by his prodigious accepted standards of political and virtuosity; and why they sought, diplomatic honesty. His secretiveness with such disastrous results, to per- created a constant state of suspicious petuate his ideas and methods anxiety and originated the dangerous without possessing either the will method of a war of nerves. His or the skill to control the ventures diversionary tactics (as when he and the hazards to which by oppor- encouraged French ambitions in North Africa, British ambitions in tunism the State became exposed. Egypt, and Russian ambitions in the Bismarck committed many crimes Black Sea) were deliberately calcu- and a few mistakes; but his greatest lated to maintain Europe in a state error was to inculcate a theory of of tension. And his passion for keep- statesmanship which could produce ing five plates in the air at the same so evil a lunatic as Holstein and so time furnished a disastrous temptation sham a virtuoso as Bülow. to his successors, who did not possess his astonishing manipulative skill. He convinced his people that The destructive influence which the only standard of statesmanship Bismarck exercised upon the politi- was that of success; and at the same cal thoughts and habits of Ger- time he taught them methods in which many was due partly to errors of only he could succeed. principle, partly to mistakes of His fundamental fault was an in- method, and partly to faults of capacity to estimate correctly the understanding. His confidence in deep moral forces by which men and nations are moved. He thus his own genius was so overweening wholly misinterpreted the force of that it induced in him a cynical Catholicism, Socialism. nationalism, contempt not merely for the in- economic needs, or ordinary human tellectual weakness of his fellow pride. He was the greatest political mortals but also for their moral genius since Napoleon, but. as his strength. Even Treitschke, who predecessor. he allowed his brains to was certainly not a liberal senti- go to his head. Upon his people he mentalist, could exclaim in horror conferred immense material benefits; Of the moral powers in the world but he left them a spiritual and he has not the slightest notion." political heritage, a turmoil of violent Even as a young man he had ideas, which they were wholly unable freed himself from allegiance to to interpret or control. Dr. Eyck. in his excellent book. has exposed the any doctrine, excepting that of many fallacies of which the Bismarck power politics." His belief in Real- legend is compounded. His analysis politik, in Blood and Iron, in is tragic and austere.