BISMARCK'S PEN.* ALTHOUGH we reviewed this book in March, 1912,

it is in teresting to return to it again in view of the latest examples of German diplomacy and conduct. The Life of the man who bore in his own country the nickname of "Bismarck's Pen" is a curious study. A. very devout man of gentle habits and a cultivated mind, he seems to have had no notion that in acting as Bismarck's secretary—such was, in effect, the work he did as a Foreign Office official—he was often helping in a policy sinister and unscrupulous. The hundreds of letters by Abeken which form the greater part of this book are very interesting to read, but the impression one has of the writer is that he was rather a poor creature, in spite of his goodness. Bismarck, so far as we can gather, never employed him as he employed Busch, to fabricate letters and compose bogus articles for the Press in order to mislead public opinion and advance the Bismarckian schemes.

Nor does Abeken seem to have been intimate with Busch ; there is only one mention of the latter in the book—a record of an innocent stroll which Abeken took with Bismarck's Press agent. Nevertheless, we End Abeken lending himself to Bismarckism with disarming innocence. He continually invokes the blessing of God on some Prussian policy, and he does so with obvious sincerity. On the whole, we are inclined to think that he suffered chiefly from a morbid respect for authority. He could believe no wrong of any Prussian

leader; it was enough for him to be told that such-and-such a thing was the aim of his country, and that it was a just and glorious aim, for him to believe that it was so with all his heart. He could believe one thing one day and another thing

another day with equal facility. He was a courtier with the fatal simplicity of heart which is perhaps possible only to a

very good man who has not very much character. We read much in his letters about the tender pressure of Royal bands when his gracious masters, the King of Prussia and the Crown Prince, acknowledged his faithful services. A Royal joke seemed to him better than other men's jokes. On one occasion Abeken wrote to his wife :— " I have just come from the King, not from tea, but from seeing him about a report. The Minister sent me, I hardly know why, about something which might have been done to- morrow, and desired me to bear his excuses for not going himself, because he was indisposed, and a late audience costs him his night's rest. He could not have remembered that it was already nine o'clock, and that I must call the King from tea. He graciously came, but was evidently surprised at the lateness of the hour. Such amiability as his can hardly be found in any other sovereign."

These words were written at the headquarters of the Prussian army at Versailles during the Franco-German War. Notice the exaggeration in applauding the King's willingness to receive a report from his Minister at any moment during war. Matthew Arnold's fun about W. H. Russell mounting his horse with the Crown Prince of . Prussia holding the stirrup, Bismarck at the animal's head, and, the old King

hoisting Russell into the saddle would have had to pass on to even bolder images to satirize the :reverential satisfaction of

Abeken in the attentions of the great, Abeken began his career as chaplain in the Prussian Legation at Rome, where he enjoyed the friendship—a friend- ship truly worth having—of the Bunsens. His intention was to become a Professor of Theology, and it was not till he discovered that theology of his sort brought him into a less close contact with life than he had hoped that he drifted away from it and became a Foreign Office official. His interest in public affairs was first excited acutely by the Republican movement of 1848 and the Schleswig-Holstein question. No sooner had he entered upon his official duties than,

• Bismarck's Pen: the Life of Heinrich Abeken. Edited from his Letters and Journals by his Wife. Authorized Translation by Mrs. Charles Edwai d Barrett-Leunard and M. W. Hoper. With Portraits, London George Allen and Unwin. [Ms. net.]

though not a Prussian by birth, he became intensely Prussian in feeling. One has observed this tendency before in German men of affairs. Just as the German outside his own land tends to become quickly assimilated to the foreigners among whom he lives, so the Hanoverian, the Saxon, even the Bavarian, becomes Prussianized in Prussia. Of the arbitrary policy of Prussia in Schleswig-Holstein Abeken thoroughly approved. He believed that Prussia and Austria offered nothing but " protection " to the duchies. One cannot read the letters on this subject, or the subsequent letters on the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco.German War, without

wondering whether the ethos of the German nation has not changed a good deal since those days. Abeken's thoughts are full of real goodness, and he evidently felt that he was sur- rounded by people also of real goodness. Indeed, we know that to a large extent this was so. Nothing could have been finer than the standard of public conduct observed as a matter of course by the Bunsens. Again, those who have read the diaries of the Crown Prince of Prussia—afterwards the Emperor Frederick—know that he suffered genuine anguish at the misery caused by the Franco-German War, and brought about, as he and his family supposed, by the wicked rashness of the French. Of course German policy to-day is tied to the

cart-tail of Prussian militarism, and we have no idea of blaming the German people as a whole for what we see going on. There are, no doubt, a vast number of just and generous people in Germany who are able to apply their principles to their national policy. At the same time, we suspect that the triumph of Bismarckism and the teaching of blood- and-iron professors have to an appreciable degree hardened and materialized the German soul What else are we to think when economies of truth in foreign policy are generally accepted as necessary to German progress, when treaties are torn up without audible protest, and a gallant little neutral State is punished by heavy fines for the crime of demanding that respect for her neutrality which Germany herself had promised ? What, for instance, would .Abeken himself say to-day, if indeed he did not, as usual, discover that the voice of authority was the voice of truth ? Or are we quite wrong in supposing such a change in German feeling, and is it simply that Germans have an almost unlimited capacity for allowing themselves to be deceived by their rulers as Abeken was hoodwinked by Bismarck? We must admit that there

is something to be said for the, belief that even the rulers deceive themselves when we reflect that last week the German Chancellor, Herr von Bethmann Hollweg, declared that a "deeply felt moral power" was driving the whole German people forward. Similarly when Brussels was occupied, and the staining of German honour had received its spectacular celebration, the German Emperor declared that he was "grateful to our God who was with us." At all events, it is worth while to note how Abeken wrote and felt about German conduct during several wars. In the Austro- Prussian War he wrote "A delightful testimony all the foreigners with us give to the discipline and humanity of our troops. All signs of war are confined to the small places in which we actually fought. There is complete peace everywhere else. The country people were at work yesterday, mowing, and reaping as we passed the fields. Only our own officers complain that the conduct of our people is not good enough."

In the Franco-German War he wrote : "The French are just what their rulers force them to be, and by flattering their vanity and love of power they are induced to attack their neighbours. This must be made impossible." The last sentence exactly expresses British sentiments about the miserable unrest which Kaiserism has long forced upon Europe. We -want to gain nothing from the present war except an absolute guarantee that "this must be made impossible." In yet another place Abeken wrote with contemptuous irony of the French motive for war in 1870: "A fine excuse for beginning war, because a nation felt itself the stronger of the two, and not because it felt its cause to be a just one !H What, we ask again, is the truth ? Has Germany changed, and have the excellent principles of such men as Abeken ceased to be at all

common, or is the German capacity for self-deception unique? However Germans may read the lessons of history, they are clear enough to others. The one act in foreign policy which brought a harvest of goodwill to Germany was her generous treatment of Austria after the war of 1866.

The most striking event in Abeken's career, we think, was the fact that be wrote the EMS telegram in its original form —the telegram which Bismarck doctored so as to give it a different bias and thus provoke the French. Bismarck pre- pared for the French, in fact, what the late Emile 011ivier called a gust-opens, and they walked into it. Abeken says nothing about the purpose of Bismarck in making the French believe that their Ambassador, Benedetti, had been curtly sent about his business by the King of Prussia. He does not, indeed, seem to have written a word on the subject. At least, if he did it is not published in this book.

During the Franco-German War Bismarck was in ill-health, and Abeken frequently represented him when he was too tired to wait on the King. The relations between the King and the irritable Bismarck were sometimes not very cordial, and Abeken had a genius for receiving the ill-humour which

ought to have expended itself on Bismarck. Thus Abeken writes

"I had to go to the King three times to-day, and the third time I went in fear and trembling, for I had been sent off on the second occasion, in the greatest disgrace, at least, the King had retired to his bedroom in great excitement and displeasure. I had scarcely returned and made my report to the Minister [Bismarck] when a telegram, written by the King himself, arrived which the Minister was to despatch in cypher, but which he did not wish to do, so he again sent me to the King to persuade him not to send it. It was not a pleasant duty. It was easier than I anticipated. The King was touching in his kindness and goodness, so I was able to tell the Minister of my success. It removed a load from my heart. I never saw the King so angry and excited, and yet so open to every argument and remonstrance. It was, perhaps, well that indisposition prevented the Minister from going to the King himself, for the King could give way to his vexation more easily towards me, while 1 could act as inter- mediary, and soften some things, and be silent about others. I do not, after all, regret this day."

There is Abeken's character. He overflowed with kindness, and was a most accomplished doormat.