T

HE memoirs of Prince Hohenlohe-Schillingsfurst, the third Chancellor of the new

German empire, which have attracted the serious attention of politicians, statesmen and historians in every European country, are now accessible to English readers unacquainted with German in a translation. Those who study them with intelligence will acquire not merely a very true idea of the personality of a distinguished man who played an important part in shaping what is now the settled policy of his country, but an accurate perception of the German aims and aspirations with which he was in enthusiastic sympathy.

Prince Hohenlohe was a courteous personage, well acquainted with the history and literature of Germany and France, a true friend, a considerate and indulgent head of a department, and a shrewd, calculating politician. His letters lack the picturesque language, the searching phrases, the vivid descriptions of men and things which lend entrancing charm to the letters of Bismarck, but they are remarkable for an idiosyncratic grace of style, and they contain many suggestive sayings and judgments on which serious readers will not fail to ponder.

In the spring of 1864 Prince Hohenlohe received a communication from his aunt, Princess Feodora of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, in which she stated that Queen Victoria wished to obtain an unbiased account of social and po

litical conditions in Germany, and requested Prince Hohenlohe, in whom she had great confidence, to furnish her with the information required. Lord Fitzmaurice has revealed to us in his life of Lord Granville-a work which all who aspire to influence British politics should study unceasingly-that Queen Victoria was actively engaged in thwarting the foreign policy of Lord Palmerston, especially as regards Germany. Her chief agent in the Cabinet was Lord Granville. The Princess Feodora was the go-between through whose hands the communications of Hohenlohe were to reach her majesty. He wrote two letters to the Queen, one on May 4, 1864, and the other on April 15, 1865. They are very remarkable productions. The writer states the German case in the Schleswig-Holstein controversy with sobriety and skill. He explains in an admirably condensed and lucid form the state of the German mind on religious and political subjects, and he makes his own confession of faith on the eve of the great movement for the reconstruction of Germany, in which he was destined to play a distinguished part.

The two political events of the nineteenth century which seem destined to have the most abiding influence on the fortunes of Europe are the establishment of the Italian kingdom and the formation of the new German empire. Both may be traced to the influence of Napoleon's power. From 1809

to 1814 Italy was practically united under Napoleon, for Murat can hardly be described as an independent sovereign. Neapolitans, Piedmontese and Tuscans stood shoulder to shoulder in his armies, and, long after he had passed away at St. Helena, Italians who had fought in his wars would show their wounds and tell of their deeds of valor when cpposed to the soldiers of Wellington in Spain, their feats of endurance during the retreat from Moscow, and the steady courage with which they faced the horrors of Beresina.

The idea of a common country was implanted in the popular mind, and it developed quickly under the dull tyranny of the governments set up in the peninsula by the Congress of Vienna. Unfortunately, from the year 1821 until Cavour came into power the national cause of Italy was upheld mainly by secret revolutionary societies. Maghella, the evil genius of Murat, recognized the Carbonari after his escape from Paris in 1813, where he had been placed under strict police observation by Napoleon. The seed he planted prospered, and the pernicious influence of secret societies is felt in southern Italy to this day. The destruction of their power in northern and central Italy was part of the great work of Cavour.

The national movement in Germany received little or no help from secret societies. After the formation of the Confederation of the Rhine, and still more after the Peace of Tilsit, the hand of Napoleon lay so heavily on the country that the necessity of uniting in order to shake off intolerable oppression was felt by men of various sorts and conditions. This was apparent in 1809.

At that moment Count Philip Stadion was the chief Minister in Austria. He was a man of great accomplishments and knowledge, a statesman whose vision was wide and clear, and who did not direct his attention merely to the small shifts of diplomacy, but took a comprehensive view of the whole condition of Austria. He thor

oughly realized the necessity for military, administrative and social reforms, and he saw that the time had come when Austria should put herself at the head of the popular movement in Germany, if she was to keep her historic position in central Europe.

Unfortunately the sovereign whom Stadion served, though not without considerable shrewdness, was smallminded and mean. The Emperor Francis never intelligently supported his Minister, with the result that the movement of which that statesman was the soul ended in the fatal peace of Schonbrunn, consequent on the defeat of the Austrian arms at Wagram. None of Napoleon's battles had such far-reaching consequences as Wagram. It was immediately followed by the armistice of Znaim; then came the peace of Schonbrunn, and a radical change in Austrian policy took place, involving the substitution of Metternich for Stadion-an adroit, shrewd, unscrupulous and superficial diplomatist for a large-hearted, wide-minded statesman.

Stadion's project for the reconstruction of Germany with the aid of German patriotism, intelligence and culture vanished as quickly and completely as a flake of snow on a river. The eyes of patriotic Germans turned to Prussia, and after the destruction of Napoleon's army in Russia and the convention made by General York at Tauroggen, King Frederick William III. was forced to place himself at the head of the national cause of Germany. In January 1813 he fled from Berlin, where he was in semi-captivity, to Breslau. There he made an appeal to his people to vindicate their liberties, and a proclamation appeared in the official gazette of February 13, which a leading historian of the nineteenth century has called the greatest event in German history since the day that Luther nailed his famous theses on the door in Wittenberg. It called into existence the first really national army seen in Europe, and introduced universal military service. The union

of all the physical and moral force of the nation in the army had long been the dream of Scharnhorst. It was realized in February, 1813, and is the secret of all the subsequent triumphs of Prussia.

After the fall of Napoleon the German question became one of those problems in which the hard realities of life seem in contradiction to the aspirations of a nation. Between 1815 and 1848 the desire for German unity was general, but few men were clear as to the means by which it could be brought about. Powerful and representative men during the Congress of Vienna wished the old empire to be restored under the arch house of Austria. This was impossible with Metternich at the head of Austrian affairs.

There were others, not at that time very numerous, but keen observers of the realities of things, who maintained that the solution of the problem was the hegemony of Prussia and the total exclusion of Austria from Germany. Others, again, like Rotteck, admired greatly the Spanish Constitution of 1812, which reduced the authority of the crown to a shadow; some, like Karl Follen, desired a Jacobin republic, constructed on lines of which St. Just would have approved; and a good number wished for the foundation of a German federal republic organized on the Swiss model.

There was universal dissatisfaction with the arrangements made by the Congress of Vienna, except among persons whose consideration or position in the world largely, if not entirely, depended on their position at the various courts. This conflict of opinions and interests produced a fermentation in the German mind which lasted through the period of Prince Hohenlohe's youth and early manhood.

Sainte-Beuve insists that to understand a remarkable man it is necessary to study in him the influence of heredity. This is particularly true as regards Prince Hohenlohe. The Hohenlohe family is one of the most ancient

in Europe, its records being earlier than those of the Hapsburgs or the Hohenzollerns. The Hohenlohes had wide possessions in Swabia, and were independent princes of the Holy Roman Empire. They were mediatized in 1803. Prince Chlodwig Hohenlohe, the third Chancellor of the German empire, was born in March, 1819. His father was a Catholic, an amiable and refined man, sometimes witty, and even cheerful, but with a marked strain of melancholy-a characteristic which I more than once observed in his son. Prince Chlodwig's mother was of the Lutheran house of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. The sons were brought up Roman Catholics; one of them took holy orders and became a cardinal. The daughters were Protestants.

This difference in religious observance had no effect whatever on the perfect unity of the family. The brothers and sisters remained always deeply attached to each other, and early training to respect religious convictions he did not share influenced Hohenlohe throughout his life. He never could conceal his impatience at unjust and unfair criticism of the Reformation. He was, however, never attracted by the Protestant view, and always remained a Catholic; but his memoirs confirm what those who knew him well could not fail to observe, that anti-clericalism was one of the strongest instincts of his nature, and that he regarded the influence of the Jesuits, and of the Ultramontane movement generally, with profound aversion, and even dismay. One of the clearest expressions of this opinion is in a letter written from Munich in May, 1846, when he was twenty-seven years of age, to his sister, Princess Amalie:

"Nothing in political life is better or worse than the transition from doubt to firm conviction. It is a bad thing because it wastes the inward life; a good thing, because it puts an end to a state of doubt. I have now reached this point. Previously I held

to the so-called Ultramontane party, because I regarded it as safe; but this idea, which had previously made me doubtful of my actions, has now disappeared. . . . The abyss to which I was being carried by the policy of the Jesuits has suddenly been revealed to me. Their intolerance, their hatred of Protestantism, which is one of their leading features, their idea that the Reformation, with all its consequences, was a mistake, that the great philosophical, literary and other splendid monuments of our history were only aberrations of the human intellect, is an absurdity. It is treachery, utterly opposed to my inmost nature, and is a sign of internal corruption and decay, which makes it absolutely impossible for me to give the smallest help to that party, so long as I place any value on the whole of my past life and my dearest convictions. I pray God for strength to deliver me from the temptations of this devilish society, which works only for the subjugation of human freedom, especially any intellectual freedom; I pray that I may never be led astray from the path of truth by promises or threats for this purpose. There must be an open breach with the whole clique, which it will be my business to bring to pass as soon as possible."

This letter, written sixty years ago, reveals the principle which governed Prince Hohenlohe's action in religious matters to the day of his death. He remained equally true through life to the political aspirations of his youth. His burning desire was for reforms in Germany which would make that country great and powerful. He was haunted by recollections of the days of the Hansa, and hoped to see his country in possession of fleets and colonies, with a dominating influence all over the world, but especially in the East.

These views are expressed in a remarkable memorandum, "On the Political Condition of Germany, Its Danger and Means of Defense," which

Hohenlohe composed during November and December, 1847:

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"No one will deny that it is hard on a thinking, energetic man to be unable to say abroad, 'I am a German,' unable to pride himself on the joy of seeing the German flag flying from his vessel, to have no German consul in cases of emergency, but to have to explain: 'I am a Hessian, a Darmstadter, a Buckeburger, Fatherland was once a great and powerful country; now it is shattered into thirty-eight splinters.' When we study the map and observe how the Baltic, the North Sea and the Mediterranean break upon our shores and that no German ship compels the pride of the English and French to give the usual salute to the German flag, ought not the hue of shame alone survive from the black, red and yellow ensign and mount into our cheeks? And must not all the whining talk about German unity and the German nation remain wofully ludicrous until the words cease to be an empty sound, a phantasmagoria of our complacent optimism, until we have the reality of a great and united Germany? The industry so long fostered by the Zollverein no longer suffices for our commerce in its present extended conditions, our rich trade seeks extraneous markets and connections over sea."

And on January 16, 1849, being at Mount Carmel, he writes in his journal:

"I am more and more convinced of the need for a speedy central organization of Germany. England and Russia are extending themselves here as much as possible. The East knows nothing of Germany. We must have a German Catholic consul in Jerusalem. Influence in the East would give (1) more power to Germany, (2) increase of German commerce and perhaps of colonization. In order to establish this influence we must make use of the religious element of the Catholic clergy. More attention must be paid to this."

"Time and I against any two others" was a saying of Cardinal Mas

arin. It would have been an appropriate motto for Prince Hohenlohe.

On January 19, 1848, he advocated the seizure by Germany of Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete and Asia Minor. More than forty years afterward, on October 26, 1894, Count Caprivi, the second Chancellor of the new empire, who held that Germany should keep steadily in view the necessity of consolidating herself in Europe, and avoid a policy sure to bring her into ultimate collision with England, was dismissed, and was replaced by Hohenlohe. He proceeded, as far as circumstances would allow, to carry out the policy he advocated in the morning of his life. It was under him that Kiao Chow was annexed, a fleet commenced on a great scale with a view of wresting from England the sovereignty of the seas, and a concession for the Baghdad Railway secured, with the object of extending the influence of Germany to the Persian Gulf. Englishmen would do well to think of these things when they are told that German hopes of grasping the trident and winning the position now held by England are the idle dream of enthusiasts and does not represent the deep feeling of the German nation.

On December 31, 1866, Hohenlohe was appointed by King Louis II. of Bavaria president of the Council of Ministers, and also entrusted with the conduct of foreign affairs. Public opinion was very much divided. The wounds which Bavaria received in the war between Austria and Prussia when she took the side of the former power were still open. The great majority of the peasants under clerical influences were exceedingly hostile to Prussia. The nobility, and, generally speaking, what may be called the party of the court, as distinct from that of the king, shared the same feeling.

On the other hand, in Rhenish Bavaria and in Franconia among the industrial classes and the protestants many desired a close union with Prussia, and throughout the kingdom the Liberals and the middle classes had

the same wish because they considered it would afford them protection against Ultramontane domination. Prince Hohenlohe explained the views of his government in the Chamber of Deputies on January 19, 1867. He said the goal of his policy was the union of all the German people in one confederation, "protected from without by a powerful central government, and within by a parliamentary constitution, with concomitant preservation of the integrity of the Bavarian state and crown." He went on to declare that he would not try to form a SouthWest German Confederation under the protection of a non-German power, or under the leadership of Austria. He stated that Prussia was the power to which Bavaria should be allied, and, in view of making this alliance valuable, the Bavarian army must be reorganized, and he concluded by once more insisting that his policy was to prepare the way for a constitutional league with all the other states of Germany while preserving the sovereign rights of Bavaria.

A few days after this speech Hohenlohe received a letter from Freiherr von Roggenbach. That eminent statesman, one of the very best political heads of the nineteenth century, wrote, "Whoever is not blind to the dangers which this Babel of tongues is preparing for the continuance and future of our people, and for the development of the German state, must welcome your utterance with the most sincere and heartfelt joy;" and some little time afterward he received a letter from the Grand Duke of Baden, one of the most clear-sighted of German patriots as well as the most justly respected of sovereigns, which will interest those who desire a closer union of the British empire.

The Grand Duke insisted that "the class of legislation for which it is indispensable to obtain complete uniformity throughout Germany is to be found chiefly in the domain of material interests," and he goes on to point out that agreement in tariff mat