“I knocked daylight through Georgia, and in retreating to the s[outh] like a sensible man I gathered up some plunder and walked into this beautiful City, whilst you & Thomas gave Hood Forest, a taste of what they have to Expect by trying to meddle with our Conquered Territory…”

Source: The Gilder Lehrman Insitute of American History.

On December 21, 1864, Major General William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army ended his March to the Sea upon reaching Savannah, Georgia. The campaign began on November 15 of that year, when Sherman and his troops left Atlanta, Georgia. Along the way, Sherman and his troops destroyed military targets, industry, infrastructure and civilian property. This letter was written one month after the end of Sherman’s successful campaign to General James H. Wilson who had been put in charge of Sherman’s cavalry.

Dear Wilson,

I got yours of January 5, and am glad to reciprocate your Kind expressions. I remember well our talks at the Camp fire at Gaylesville and think we have Cause of personal Congratulation that we have worked out the Calculation of that time. I knocked daylight through Georgia, and in retreating to the s[outh] like a sensible man I gathered up some plunder and walked into this beautiful City, whilst you & Thomas gave Hood Forest, a taste of what they have to Expect by trying to meddle with our Conquered Territory. Kirkpatrick did very well and by Circling round pretty freely he Completely bamboozled Wheeler and so befuddled Hardee that he had no idea what was going on. – It is time for me to be off again for Columbia, but it has been raining hard and the Country is all under water, but I will soon be off. Kirkpatrick will have to keep close to our Infantry as Wheeler has a superior force but Kirkpatrick did whip him fairly at Waynesboro and thinks he can do it [ag]ain. I want Thomas to make the trip to Selma but can only give him general instructions.

General Sherman. Portrait by Mathew Brady (1864). Source: Creative Commons.

I know that there is plenty of Forage in Alabama after you get 60 miles south of the Tennessee River all along down the Tombigbee and Black [Rivers] to arrive in large fields of Corn last fall, also below Talladega on the Coosa. The proper Route is from Decatur & Eastport to Columbia, then Tuscaloosa, Selma, and up the Coosa or Tallapoosa to Rome.

[text loss]

[written in another hand]

My route north is well inland

signed
W. T. Sherman
Maj Gen

Source: The Gilder Lehrman Institute Of American History

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“…I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print, & how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her at least, I do not know.—There are a few Typical errors—& a “said he” or a “said she” would sometimes make the Dialogue more immediately clear—but ‘I do not write for such dull Elves’…”

Jane Austen, from a drawing by sister Cassandra. Source: Creative Commons

Jane Austen is one of the most well-known authors in English literature. She is best known for her works Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma. The day after Pride and Prejudice was published, Austen wrote a letter to her sister, Cassandra, in which she refers to the book as “my own darling Child from London”

Chawton Friday Jany 29.

I hope you received my little parcel by J. Bond on Wednesday eveng, my dear Cassandra, & that you will be ready to hear from me again on Sunday, for I feel that I must write to you to day. Your parcel is safely arrived & everything shall be delivered as it ought. Thank you for your note. As you had not heard from me at that time it was very good in you to write, but I shall not be so much your debtor soon.—I want to tell you that I have got my own darling Child from London;—on Wednesday I received one Copy, sent down by Falknor, with three lines from Henry to say that he had given another to Charles, & sent a 3d by the Coach to Godmersham; just the two Sets which I was least eager for the disposal of. I wrote to him immediately to beg for my two other Sets, unless he would take the trouble of forwarding them at once to Steventon & Portsmouth—not having an idea of his leaving Town before to day;—by your account however he was gone before my Letter was written. The only evil is the delay, nothing more can be done till his return. Tell James & Mary so, with my Love.—For your sake I am as well pleased that it shd be so, as it might be unpleasant to you to be in the Neighbourhood at the first burst of the business.—The Advertisement is in our paper to day for the first time;—18s—He shall ask £1- 1- for my two next, & £1- 8 for my stupidest of all.—I shall write to Frank, that he may not think himself neglected. Miss Benn dined with us on the very day of the Books coming, & in the eveng we set fairly at it & read half the 1st vol. to her—prefacing that having intelligence from Henry that such a work wd soon appear we had desired him to send it whenever it came out—& I beleive it passed with her unsuspected.—She was amused, poor soul! that she cd not help you know, with two such people to lead the way; but she really does seem to admire Elizabeth. I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print, & how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her at least, I do not know.—There are a few Typical errors—& a “said he” or a “said she” would sometimes make the Dialogue more immediately clear—but “I do not write for such dull Elves”

Title page from the first edition of the first volume of Pride and Prejudice. Source: Creative Commons

“As have not a great deal of Ingenuity themselves.”—The 2d vol. is shorter than I cd wish—but the difference is not so much in reality as in look, there being a larger proportion of Narrative in that part. I have lopt & cropt so successfully however that I imagine it must be rather shorter than S. & S. altogether.—Now I will try to write of something else;—it shall be a complete change of subject—Ordination. I am glad to find your enquiries have ended so well.—If you cd discover whether Northamptonshire is a Country of Hedgerows, I shd be glad again.—We admire your Charades excessively, but as yet have guessed only the 1st. The others seem very difficult. There is so much beauty in the Versification however, that the finding them out is but a secondary pleasure.—I grant you that this is a cold day, & am sorry to think how cold you will be through the process of your visit at Manydown. I hope you will wear your China Crape. Poor wretch! I can see you shivering away, with your miserable feeling feet.—What a vile Character Mr Digweed turns out, quite beyond anything & everything;—instead of going to Steventon they are to have a Dinnerparty next tuesday!—I am sorry to say that I could not eat a Mincepie at Mr Papillon’s; I was rather head-achey that day, & cd not venture on anything sweet except Jelly; but that was excellent.—There were no stewed pears, but Miss Benn had some almonds & raisins.—By the bye, she desired to be kindly remembered to you when I wrote last, & I forgot it.—Betsy sends her Duty to you & hopes you are well, & her Love to Miss Caroline & hopes she has got rid of her Cough. It was such a pleasure to her to think her Oranges were so well timed, that I dare say she was rather glad to hear of the Cough.

[Second leaf of letter missing; postscript upside down at top of p.1]

Since I wrote this Letter we have been visited by Mrs Digweed, her Sister & Miss Benn. I gave Mrs D. her little parcel, which she opened here & seemed much pleased with—& she desired me to make her best Thanks &c. to Miss Lloyd for it.—Martha may guess how full of wonder & gratitude she was.

[Miss Austen
Steventon]

Source: Letters of Note

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“It is doubtful if the edition could be disposed of to people of average intellect at anything short of the point of the bayonet…”

First edition cover of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Source: Wikipedia.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was the fourth novel written by Mark Twain, and was first published in the United Kingdom in December of 1884. Considered widely to be one of the Great American Novels, it is one of the first major pieces of American literature to use a local vernacular throughout. Upon its release, however, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was not well-received by many reviewers. Below are some of the scathing reviews.

Boston Evening Traveler[unsigned]
1885: March 5

It is little wonder that Mr. Samuel Clemens, otherwise Mark Twain, resorted to real or mock lawsuits, as may be, to restrain some real or imaginary selling of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” as a means of advertising that extraordinarily senseless publication. Before the work is disposed of, Mr. Mark Twain will probably have to resort to law to compel some to sell it by any sort of bribery or corruption. It is doubtful if the edition could be disposed of to people of average intellect at anything short of the point of the bayonet. This publication rejoices in two frontispieces, of which the one is supposed to be a faithful portrait of Huckleberry Finn, and the other an engraving of the classic features of Mr. Mark Twain as seen in the bust made by Karl Gerhardt. The taste of this gratuitous presentation is as bad as is the book itself, which is an extreme statement. Mr. Clemens has contributed some humorous literature that is excellent and will hold its place, but his Huckleberry Finn appears to be singularly flat, stale and unprofitable. The book is sold by subscription.

Mark Twain. Source: Wikipedia.

Boston Daily Advertiser[unsigned]

1885: March 12

Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” had a certain relishable flavor when mixed up with the miscellaneous assortment of magazine literature; but in a book form, and covering more than 350 pages, they are wearisome and labored. It would be about as easy to read through a jest book, as to keep up one’s interest in the monotonous humor and the dialectic variations of “Huck Finn’s” narrative. Here and there are patches of Mark Twain’s best work, which could be read over and over again, and yet bring each time an outburst of laugher; but one cannot have the book long in his hands without being tempted to regret that the author should so often have laid himself open to the charge of coarseness and bad taste. The illustrations are admirable in their way. As to the general character of the book, it may be sufficient to remind the reader of the author’s notice, that “all persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”

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“Intense grief was on every countenance when I replied that the President could survive but a short time. The colored people especially-and there were at this time more of them, perhaps, than of whites – were overwhelmed with grief.”

Portrait of Gideon Welles, United States Secretary of the Navy from 1861 to 1869.

Gideon Welles served under President Lincoln as Secretary of the Navy. On the night of April 14, he was awakened with the news that Lincoln had been shot. Together with Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, he rushed to Ford’s Theater. They found the area packed with a large crowd and learned that Lincoln had been taken to a house across the street. Clamoring up the stairs, Welles asked a doctor he recognized about Lincoln’s condition. The physician replied that the President might live another three hours. We pick up his story as he enters the room where Lincoln lay:

“The President had been carried across the street from the theater to the house of a Mr. Peterson. We entered by ascending a flight of steps above the basement and passing through a long hall to the rear, where the President lay extended on a bed, breathing heavily. Several surgeons were present, at least six, I should think more. Among them I was glad to observe Doctor Hall, who, however, soon left. I inquired of Doctor Hall, as I entered, the true condition of the President. He replied the President was dead to all intents, although he might live three hours or perhaps longer.

President Lincoln on his death bed. Source: Harper’s Weekly (May 6, 1865).

The giant sufferer lay extended diagonally across the bed, which was not long enough for him. He had been stripped of his clothes. His large arms, which were occasionally exposed, were of a size which one would scarce have expected from his spare appearance. His slow, full respiration lifted the clothes with each breath that he took. His features were calm and striking. I had never seen them appear to better advantage than for the first hour, perhaps, that I was there. After that his right eye began to swell and that part of his face became discolored.

Senator Sumner was there, I think, when I entered. If not he came in soon after, as did Speaker Colfax, Mr. Secretary McCulloch, and the other members of the cabinet, with the exception of Mr. Seward. A double guard was stationed at the door and on the sidewalk to repress the crowd, which was of course highly excited and anxious. The room was small and overcrowded. The surgeons and members of the cabinet were as many as should have been in the room, but there were many more, and the hall and other rooms in the front or main house were full. One of these rooms was occupied by Mrs. Lincoln and her attendants, with Miss Harris. Mrs. Dixon and Mrs. Kinney came to her about twelve o’clock. About once an hour Mrs. Lincoln would repair to the bedside of her dying husband and with lamentation and tears remain until overcome by emotion.

The Apotheosis of Abraham Lincoln, greeted by George Washington in Heaven. Washington is holding a laurel wreath. January 1865. Source: George Eastman House.

A door which opened upon a porch or gallery, and also the windows, were kept open for fresh air. The night was dark, cloudy, and damp, and about six it began to rain. I remained in the room until then without sitting or leaving it, when, there being a vacant chair which some one left at the foot of the bed, I occupied it for nearly two hours, listening to the heavy groans and witnessing the wasting life of the good and great man who was expiring before me.

About 6 A.M. I experienced a feeling of faintness, and for the first time after entering the room a little past eleven I left it and the house and took a short walk in the open air. It was a dark and gloomy morning, and rain set in before I returned to the house some fifteen minutes later. Large groups of people were gathered every few rods, all anxious and solicitous. Some one or more from each group stepped forward as I passed to inquire into the condition of the President and to ask if there was no hope. Intense grief was on every countenance when I replied that the President could survive but a short time. The colored people especially-and there were at this time more of them, perhaps, than of whites – were overwhelmed with grief.

A little before seven I went into the room where the dying President was rapidly drawing near the closing moments. His wife soon after made her last visit to him. The death struggle had begun. Robert, his son, stood with several others at the head of the bed. He, bore himself well but on two occasions gave way to overpowering grief and sobbed aloud, turning his head and leaning on the shoulder of Senator Sumner. The respiration of the President became suspended at intervals and at last entirely ceased at twenty-two minutes past seven…”

Visit Eyewitness History to read more about the death of President Abraham Lincoln on April 15, 1865.

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“In certain respects we shall seek in vain for any resemblance between Wilhelm II and his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather…” 

Engraving of Otto von Bismarck. 1873. Source: Photo by Alonzo Chappel.

In these excerpts taken from the book, “The Kaiser Vs. Bismarck: Suppressed Letters by the Kaiser and New Chapters From the Autobiography of the Iron Chancellor,” Otto von Bismarck, an adept statesman who helped to unify the German States into a German empire, makes judgements on Kaiser Wilhelm II’s personality compared to other men in his ruling family.

Bismarck began his historically significant service for the Prussian leadership beginning with Kaiser Wilhelm I from 1862 to 1888 when Wilhelm I passed away (Kaiser Wilhelm I had succeeded Kaiser Frederick William IV). Bismarck then worked with less harmony for Wilhelm I’s successors Frederick III and then Wilhelm II until forced out by the latter in 1890:

Kaiser Wilhelm II
As regards his natural endowment with the characteristics of his forbears, the Kaiser has inherited a certain diversity of talents. He has the love of splendor, the leaning toward court ceremonial, enhanced, on solemn occasions, by costume, of our first kings, combined with a lively susceptibility to adroit approbation. The autocratic temper of the age of Friedrich I has been essentially modified by the lapse of time; but if it had lain within the legal possibilities of the present period, I believe I should not have been spared the fate of Count Eberhard Danckelmann as the conclusion of my political career. Considering the brief duration of life on which I can count in my old age, I should not have tried to evade a dramatic conclusion of my political career, and I would have endured even this irony of fate with cheerful submissiveness to the will of God. Even in the most serious situations in life I have never lost my sense of humor.

Wilhelm II in 1902.

The Kaiser displayed inherited sympathies sim-ilar to those of Friedrich Wilhelm I, first of all in the superficiality of his predilection for a “tall fellow.” If the Kaiser’s aides-de-camp were passed under the measure you would find that they were almost all officers of unusual stature, six feet or more in height. It once happened that a tall, unknown officer announced himself at the court residence in the Marble Palace, demanding access to His Majesty, and on being questioned declared that he was appointed aide-de-camp a statement which at first, after further inquiry, was accepted in good faith by His Majesty. The new aide towered above his comrades, but it was not without difficulty that he convinced them of his title to the post at the time of his first appearance in the palace.

The inclination of Friedrich Wilhelm I and Friedrich II toward the autocratic control of governmental affairs,  and their faith in the justification of hoc volo, sic jubeo are still im- pressed upon the inheritance of the race. But these sovereigns governed as autocrats, as was the tendency of their age, without considering whether the way in which they governed gained applause for them or otherwise. It is scarcely [I] remember that in 1859, at the time of my departure for Petersburg, I received the ungracious answer to my criticism of the incapacity of the Ministers of the Regent, as a body, “Perhaps you take me for a blockhead!” To which I replied that even a Prussian Landrath at the present day would administer its district neither willingly nor well without a useful district secretary, but that the monarchy had long ago grown beyond the possibility of Cabinet government. Even Frederick the Great had avoided selecting incapable Ministers for his tools…

…to discover whether the contemporaries of Friedrich Wilhelm I gave him their approbation, as did posterity, because in his violent intervention he was free from any regard for the opinion of others, as his father had been. Today the judgment of history has decided that the supreme law of his being was solus publica, not approbation. Frederick the Great did not propagate his race; but his position in our early history must have worked upon each of his successors as a challenge to resemble him. He had two peculiar gifts, each of which enhanced the other: he had the qualifications of a commander-in-chief and a homely bourgeois understanding of the interests of his subjects. Without the first he would not have been in a position to make lasting use of the second, and without the second his military success would not have won him the recognition of pos- terity in such a degree as has been the case although one may say of the European nations in general that that king is the most truly national and the most beloved who has won the bloodiest laurels for his country; sometimes even when he has lost them again through his own neglect. Charles XII obstinately led his Sweden toward the ruin of her powerful position, yet one finds his portrait in the houses of the Swedish peasants, as a symbol of Sweden’s glory, more frequently than that of Gustavus Adolphus. A lover of peace, a benefactor to his people, and a civilizing agent does not as a rule influence the Christian nations of Europe so deeply and so inspiringly as one who is ready to make victorious use of the blood and treasure of his subjects on the battle- field. Louis XIV and Napoleon, whose wars ruined the nation and in the end had little result, have remained the pride of the French, and the more homely services of other monarchs and governments remain thrust into the background. If I picture to myself the history of the European peoples, I find no instance in which honorable and self-sacrificing care for the peaceful prosperity of the nations has had a stronger power of attraction for the sympathies of the people than martial glory, victorious battles, and the conquest of even rebellious territories.

In contrast to his father, Friedrich II, under the influence of the changing period, and his intercourse with foreign scholars, felt a need of approba- tion which early betrayed itself in little things. In his correspondence with Count Seckendorff he sought to impress this ancient sinner by his sexual excesses and the maladies following thereupon, and his aggressive onslaught upon Silesia directly after his accession to the throne he himself de- scribed as the result of his longing for fame. He dispatched poems from the battlefield with the appended remark, “Pas trop mal pour la veille d’une grande bataille” (“Not so bad for the eve of a great battle”). But this longing for applause, this love of approbation, is in a sovereign a power- ful and sometimes a profitable motive; when it is lacking the monarch is more than usually prone to lapse into epicurean inactivity. Un petit roi d’Yvetot, se levant tard, se coucnant tot, dormant fort bien sans gloire, does not conduce to the success of his country.

Would the world have lived to behold the “great” Frederick, or the heroic pledge of Wilhelm I if neither of these monarchs had felt the need of approbation? Ambition in itself is a mortgage which must be deducted from the capacity for work of the man who is incumbered by it, in order to arrive at the net profit which remains as the available sum of his talents. In the case of Frederick the Great genius and spirit were so lofty that they could not be depreciated by any excess of self-esteem, and his extravagant self-confidence, as in the case of Colin 1 and Kunersdorf, 2 the violence used toward the su- preme court of judicature in Arnold’s 3 trial, and the ill usage of Trenck, may all be swallowed without prejudicing the general opinion of this monarch. In Wilhelm I the consciousness that he was a Prussian officer and a Prussian king was extremely active, but the noble qualities of his heart, the trustworthiness and uprightness of his character, were great enough to bear the burden, the more so as his love of approbation was free from excessive self-esteem; on the contrary, his eminent modesty was as great as his sense of duty and his valor. The element which atoned for all the severities of character and behavior of our earlier kings lay in their hearty and honorable good will toward their subjects and servants, and in their loyalty to both.

Frederick the Great’s custom of interfering in the departments of his Ministers and his magistracy and in the circumstances of his subjects’ lives some- times hovered before His Majesty as an example. The inclination to make marginal notes in Frederick the Great’s style, of a critical or peremptory nature, was during my administration so active that it resulted in official inconvenience, because the drastic contents and expression of these notes made it necessary to keep the annotated documents in the strictest secrecy. Representations which I made to His Majesty met with a far from gracious reception; meanwhile the result was that the marginal notes were no longer written on the edge of indispensable documents, but pasted to them. The less complicated Constitution and the smaller area of Prussia enabled Frederick the Great to obtain an easier survey of the general situation of the state, at home and abroad, so that for a monarch who had his experience of business, his inclination for solid work, and his clear insight, the practice of writing brief marginal instructions for the benefit of the Cabinet offered fewer difficulties than under modern conditions. The patience with which he informed himself before arriving at final decisions in legal or practical affairs, and listened to the opinion of competent and expert men of business, gave his marginal notes their business-like authority.

There are two directions in which Kaiser Wilhelm II shares in the inheritance of Friedrich Wilhelm II. One is the powerful sexual development, the other a certain susceptibility to mystical influences. As to the manner in which the Kaiser assures himself of the will of God, to whose service he devotes his activities, we can scarcely cite a classical witness. The intimations in the imaginative essay, “King and Minister: A Midnight Coversation,” concerning a “Book of Vows, “and the miniatures of his three great predecessors, are by no means clear.

I find no similarity of appearance between Friedrich Wilhelm III and Wilhelm II. The former was shy and reserved, and had no inclination for exhibiting himself, nor did he strive after popularity. I remember at a review in Stargard, at the beginning of his thirtieth year, in connection with the ovations by which his ease in the midst of his Pomeranian subjects was disturbed, that at the moment when “Heil Dir im Siegerkranz” mingled with cries of “Hurrah,” was being sung into his face at short range, he flew into a rage whose loud and energetic expression at once silenced the singers. Wilhelm I was not without his share of this paternal inheritance of self-conscious diffidence, and was painfully affected when the homage paid him overstepped the limits of good taste. Flattery a brule pour point irritated him greatly; his reception of any expression of sympathetic loyalty was chilled for the time being by the impression of exaggeration or aggressiveness.

Oil painting of Frederick William IV of Prussia. (1795-1861).

In common with Friedrich Wilhelm IV, the present Kaiser has the gift of eloquence and the need of employing it more frequently than is desirable. His words flow readily; but in the choice of them his great-uncle was more discreet and perhaps more laborious and scientific. In the case of the great-nephew the presence of a short- hand writer is not always desirable; but it was very seldom that a grammatical criticism could be brought against Friedrich Wilhelm’s speeches. These latter were the eloquent and sometimes po- etical expression of ideas which at that time would have been capable of stimulating men to action, had the words been followed by deeds to cor- respond. I very well remember the enthusiasm aroused by the Coronation Speech and the King’s utterances upon other public occasions. If they had been followed by energetic resolutions of the same emphatic character, they might at that time have produced a powerful effect, all the more as people’s feelings were not yet blunted in respect of political emotions. In the years 1841 and 1842 more was to be achieved with fewer means than in 1849. We can form an impartial judgment of those matters now that the then desirable object has been attained, and the need of 1840 is no longer present in the national mind; on the con- trary, Le mieux est Vennemi du bien is one of the soundest of proverbs, against which the Germans are theoretically more inclined to trespass than other nations. Wilhelm II resembled Friedrich Wilhelm IV in this, that the foundation of their policy was rooted in the conception that the King, and he alone, is more closely acquainted with the will of God than other men, governs in accordance with the same, and therefore confidently demands obedience, without discussing his aim with his subjects or announcing it to them. Friedrich Wilhelm IV had no doubt of his specially privileged position in respect of the Deity; his honest belief corresponds with the picture of the high priest of the Jews, who alone stepped behind the curtain.

In certain respects we shall seek in vain for any resemblance between Wilhelm II and his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather; peculiarities which were the principal features of the characters of Friedrich Wilhelm III, Wilhelm I, and Friedrich III were not to the fore in the young sovereign. A certain timid distrust of their own capacity for work had, through the four generations, made way for a certain degree of assured self-confidence, such as we have not seen upon the throne since the time of Frederick the Great; but only, I think, in the person of the reigning sovereign. His brother, Prince Henry of Prussia, seems to possess the same distrust of his own powers and the same secret diffidence as are found, on closer acquaintance, at the bottom of the characters of Kaisers Friedrich and Wilhelm I, despite all their consciousness of their Olympian rank. In the latter his profound and pious trust in God was needed as surety, in the face of his unassuming and humble conception, before man and God, of his own personality, for the steadfastness of those resolutions which he made manifest in the time of conflict. Both rulers atoned by their goodness of heart and their honest love of the truth for their occasional deviations from the current estimation of the practical influence of kingly birth and anointing.

If I seek to paint a portrait of the present Kaiser after the conclusion of my relations with his service, I find in him the characteristics of his predecessors incarnated in a manner which would for me possess a strong attractive power, and result in my attachment to his person, if they were animated by the principle of reciprocity between monarch and subject, between master and servant. The Germanic feudal law gives the vassal few pre-tensions save to the property of the subject, except that the fealty between him and his feudal lord is reciprocal, and the infraction of this fealty by either party is reckoned to be felony. Wilhelm I, his son, and his predecessors possessed the corresponding sentiment in a high degree; and this is the essential basis of the attachment of the Prussian people to their monarchs, which may be explained psychologically, for the tendency to bestow a one-sided affection has no existence as an enduring motive in the human soul. In the presence of Kaiser Wilhelm II, I could not get away from the impression of a one-sided affection; the feeling which is the firmest foundation of the constitution of the Prussian army, the feeling that the soldier will never leave the officer in the lurch, but also that the officer will never leave the soldier in the lurch, a sentiment to which Wilhelm I conformed in respect of his servants almost to exaggeration, cannot so far be recognized as entering, in any adequate degree, into the mentality of the young sovereign; his pretension to absolute sacrifice, confidence, and unshakable fealty has increased; and the inclination to guarantee a return of confidence and security on his own part has so far failed to make its appearance. The ease with which he dismisses trusted servants, even those whom he has hitherto treated as personal friends, without explanation of his motive, does not promote, but weakens, the spirit of confidence as it has prevailed for generations in the service of the kings of Prussia.

Kaiser Wilhelm I. 1884.

With the transition from the Hohenzollern spirit to the Coburg-English conception an imponderable factor was lost which will be difficult to restore. Wilhelm I protected and rewarded his servants, even when they were unfortunate or unskillful, possibly more than was profitable, and in consequence of this he had servants who were more attached to him than was profitable to themselves. In particular his warm-hearted good will toward others was unchangeable, if his gratitude for services performed came into play. He was always far from regarding his own will as the sole rule of conduct, nor could he contemplate the wounding of other people’s feelings with indifference. His manner toward subordinates was always that of a royal and benevolent master, and alleviated the ill humor arising in the course of official business. Ill-natured gossip and calumny, when they came to his ears, could obtain no hold upon his noble and upright nature, and place hunters whose only source of profit lay in the shamelessness of their flattery had no prospect of success with Wilhelm I. To backstairs influences and accusations against his servants he was insensible, even if they proceeded from people holding high positions about his person, and if he did take the matter imparted to him into consideration, this was done in open conversation with the person behind whose back it was meant to take effect. If his opinion differed from mine he expressed himself openly as differing from me, discussing the matter with me, and if I did not succeed in winning him over to my views I gave in when it was possible; if it was not possible I postponed the affair or let it drop for good. My independence as a po- litical leader has been honestly overestimated by my friends, and for their own purposes by my adversaries, because I surrendered all hope of fulfilling desires to which the King had as a matter of conviction offered lasting resistance, without continuing to advocate them until they resulted in a dispute. What was attainable I took on account, and on my side it only came to a strike in cases where my personal sense of honor was involved, as in the affair of the Reichsglocke, 1 by the Kaiserin, or in the Usedom 2 affair, by Masonic influences; I have never been either a courtier or a Mason.

The Kaiser endeavors, by making concessions to his enemies, to make the support of his friends unnecessary. His grandfather, at the time of his accession to the Regency, endeavored to insure the general content of his subjects, without losing their obedience and thereby endangering the security of the state; but after four years’ experience he recognized the errors of his advisers and of his wife, who assumed that the opponents of the monarchy would by liberal concessions be transformed into its friends and supporters. In 1862 he was inclined to abdicate rather than surrender further to parliamentary Liberalism, and accepted battle, supported by the latent but decisively stronger loyal elements.

The Kaiser, with his Christian, but not always (in the worldly sense) successful tendency to conciliation, began with his worst enemy, Social Democracy. This first mistake, which was embodied in the management of the strike of 1889, led to increased pretensions on the part of the Socialists and fresh ill humor on the part of the monarch, as soon as it became evident that under the new government, just as under the old, the monarch could not, with the best will in the world, change the nature of things and of the human race. The Kaiser was without experience in the sphere of human desires and human covetousness; but that he had lost his early confidence in the judgment and experience of others was a result of intrigues by which he was confirmed in his underestimation of the difficulty of governing, not only by officious advisers, such as Hinzpeter, Berlepsch, Heyden, Douglas and other impudent flatterers, but also by place-hunting generals and aides, and colleagues to whom I was referred for support, such as Boet- ticher, who as Minister had no other function than to support me, and even by individual members of my Council, who immediately and willingly went over in secret to President von Berlepsch if the Kaiser questioned them behind the backs of their superiors. Perhaps he will suffer the same disil- lusion in respect of Social Democracy as his grand- father suffered in 1862 in respect of the progressives. This policy of making advances to, not to say running after, the enemy, has been adopted by the Center, by Windthorst only to have spoken to whom was seized upon by the Kaiser as one of the external causes of his breach with me and whose official honors after my dismissal were increased to apotheosis after his death. A curious Prussian saint! It is to be feared that even these favored props of the monarchy will give way in the mo- ment of need. At all events, the complete satis- faction of the confederates, which the Prussian monarchy and the Protestant Empire might find in the Center and the Society of Jesus, will prove to be just as unattainable as that of the Socialists, and in the event of danger and difficulty we shall see results not unlike those which followed the downfall of the Teutonic Order in Prussia, in con- nection with the mercenary soldiers, whom the Order was unable to pay. The Kaiser’s inclination to employ antimonarchical and even anti-Prussian elements, such as the Poles, in the service of the Crown, gave His Majesty a temporary means of bringing pressure to bear upon parties and factions which in principle were loyal to the antimonarchical tradition. The threat that if he were not unconditionally obeyed he would turn yet farther to the Left; that he might place the Socialists, the Crypto-Republicans of the Free-thinkers’ Party, and the Ultramontane forces at the helm: in a word, the Acheronta movebo, which was the distinctive trait of this running after irreconcilable opponents, intimidated the established supporters of the monarchy. They feared that “things might become even worse,” and the Kaiser is today, as far as they are concerned, in the po- sition of a ship’s captain whose navigation arouses the apprehensions of the crew and who sits smoking a cigar over the powder barrel.

Even in the case of foreign countries, whether friendly or inimical or doubtful, amiability had been carried to a greater length than is compatible with the conception that we should feel secure by virtue of our own attractive force. There was no one, either in the Foreign Office or at court, who was sufficiently familiar with inter- national psychology justly to calculate the effect of these political proceedings on our side; neither the Kaiser nor Caprivi nor Marschall was qualified to do so by his previous experience, and the political sense of honor of the Kaiser’s advisers was satisfied by the Kaiser’s signature, independ- ently of the consequences to the Empire.

The attempt to win the liking of the French (Meissonier 1 ), in the background of which the idea of a visit to Paris may have been slumbering, and the willingness once more to allow the right of thoroughfare through the boundary wall of the Vosges, had had no other result than that the French became bolder and the Statthalter more anxious. The Kaiser’s announcement in the autumn of 1889 that he intended to pay a second visit to Russia in 1890 an announcement which was personally inconvenient to the Russian mon- arch had disagreeable results. Our attitude toward England and Austria seemed to me equally incorrect. Instead of fostering the idea in these countries that even if the worst came to the worst we should not be lost without them, a system of gratuities was employed, which we found to be extremely costly, and which made us appear to be in need of help, whereas both our helpers needed it more than we did. England, if, owing to her lack of troops, she were threatened by France, or by Russia in India and the East, might find protection from either of these threats in the assistance of Germany. But if on our side more importance were attributed to England’s friendship than England attributed to ours, then England’s over- estimation of herself with reference to us would be confirmed, as also the conviction that we should feel ourselves honored if, without any return services, we were allowed to burn our fingers in achieving England’s aims. Even more certain, in our relations with Austria, was the greater lack of need on our part, and it is not possible to see why, at the meeting in Silesia, we should have had to buy our otherwise secure reliance on reciprocal support by the promise of economic concessions or to confirm our need of such support. The saying that fusion of economic interests that is, the favoring of Austrian at the cost of German interests is a necessary result of our political intimacy, has reached me from Vienna in varying forms, for ten long years, and I have turned aside the underlying expectations without a blunt re- fusal, but also without giving way in the slightest degree, meeting them with friendly courtesy, until they were recognized to be hopeless even in Vienna, and were abandoned. But at Rohnstock 1 the Austrian expectations appear to have been so skillfully thrust into the foreground between the two Kaisers that the natural inclination to be agreeable to one’s guest may have been the origin of the promise on our part which Kaiser Franz Joseph had utiliter accepted. In the following deliberations of the Ministers, moreover, the routine-trained business dexterity of the Austrians would in any case have gained an advantage over our novices and free-traders. It may be that my friend and colleague Kalnoky 1 would not have been a match for my successor in a military sense, but in the sphere of economic diplomacy he was his superior, although not fundamentally an expert…

Source: The Internet Archive. Find more information on the book and the full text here.

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[Text] Bismark Compares Kaiser Wilhelm II to His Ancestors appeared first on Witnify.

‘No Other in Word Or Deed Shall Ever Hold the Place in My Affection…’

Byron’s love letter, written in August 1812, is addressed to the married Lady Caroline Lamb. The scandalous affair came to an end in 1813 when Byron broke off his relationship with her, which caused Lamb to become very mentally unstable.

“My dearest Caroline,

If tears, which you saw & know I am not apt to shed, if the agitation in which I parted from you, agitation which you must have perceived through the whole of this most nervous nervous affair, did not commence till the moment of leaving you approached, if all that I have said & done, & am still but too ready to say & do, have not sufficiently proved what my real feelings are & must be ever towards you, my love, I have no other proof to offer.

God knows I wish you happy, & when I quit you, or rather when you from a sense of duty to your husband & mother quit me, you shall acknowledge the truth of what I again promise & vow, that no other in word or deed shall ever hold the place in my affection which is & shall be most sacred to you, till I am nothing.

I never knew till that moment, the madness of — my dearest & most beloved friend — I cannot express myself — this is no time for words — but I shall have a pride, a melancholy pleasure, in suffering what you yourself can hardly conceive — for you do not know me. — I am now about to go out with a heavy heart, because — my appearing this Evening will stop any absurd story which the events of today might give rise to — do you think now that I am cold & stern, & artful — will even others think so, will your mother even — that mother to whom we must indeed sacrifice much, more much more on my part, than she shall ever know or can imagine.

‘Promises not to love you’ ah Caroline it is past promising — but shall attribute all concessions to the proper motive — & never cease to feel all that you have already witnessed — & more than can ever be known but to my own heart — perhaps to yours — May God protect forgive & bless you

— ever & even more than ever.

yr. most attached

BYRON

P.S. — These taunts which have driven you to this — my dearest Caroline — were it not for your mother & the kindness of all your connections, is there anything on earth or heaven would have made me so happy as to have made you mine long ago? & not less now than then, but more than ever at this time — you know I would with pleasure give up all here & all beyond the grave for you — & in refraining from this — must my motives be misunderstood –? I care not who knows this — what use is made of it — it is you & to you only that they owe yourself, I was and am yours, freely & most entirely, to obey, to honour, love –& fly with you when, where, & how you yourself might & may determine.”

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Lord Byron Writes to His Married Lover appeared first on Witnify.