stabbed to death by an anti-royalist fanatic at Geneva. She was sixty years old. (See Henri de Weindel, The Real Francis-Joseph, 1909; Francis Gribble, Life of the Emperor Francis Joseph, 1914; Gordon Brook-Shepherd, Royal Sunset, 1987; A. de Burgh, Elizabeth, Empress of Austria, 1899; Andrew Sinclair, Death by Fame, 1998.)
Notes
[1]. Henri Stefan Oppert Blowitz (1825-1903) was Paris correspondent of The Times from 1875 to 1902. A Bohemian Jew, born of a good family in what is now Czechoslovakia, he worked as a teacher in France before becoming a journalist almost by accident, and showed that he possessed to a remark-able degree that combination of talents that makes a first-class reporter: immense energy and curiosity, a nose for news, and that mysterious gift of inspiring confidence which makes people talk. He had contacts at the highest level all over Europe, a prodigious memory, a brass neck, and great ingenuity (some said lack of scruple) which together raised him to a unique position in his profession.
Flashman has drawn him faithfully, and plainly had some affection and considerable respect for the tiny, rotund, charming, bombastic, and rather comic eccentric, whose love of good living, susceptibility to female beauty, delight in extravagant dress, and generous good nature endeared him to many; naturally, he inspired considerable jealousy in his rivals, and was not without detractors to question both his methods and ability. That Blowitz the brilliant and hard-headed reporter and interviewer was at the same time an incurable romantic with a taste for melodrama and love of the sensational, is obvious from his Memoirs, a highly entertaining work made up of material published in his lifetime and episodes dictated in his last year; he kept no diaries, and is said to have taken a note only rarely.
How far the Memoirs are to be trusted is a nice point. Flashman was familiar with them, but is no guide to their reliability; part of his story is identical in outline with one chapter of the Memoirs, but since Blowitz is the source in both cases, this means nothing. The enthusiastic Bohemian was never one to spoil a good tale for want of dramatic colouring, and Frank Giles, a later Times Paris correspondent, whose biography of Blowitz is admirably fair and meticulously researched, describes the Memoirs as a remarkable collection of fact and fiction, and echoes the feeling of a former Times proprietor that, at times, 'the facts have collapsed under the sheer weight of a powerful imagination'. Much of what Blowitz wrote can never be checked, and there is no knowing how great a part his vivid imagination played in what he told Flashman, who seems to have believed him, for what that is worth. I do not hesitate to cite Blowitz in these footnotes, for whatever his failings he was at his best the most superior kind of journalist -, a real reporter.
Blowitz’s obsession with destiny, etc., his tales of adventures with Marseilles communards, mysterious European royalty, and his kidnapping by gypsies, are to be found in the Memoirs; the story that he and his lover threw the lady’s husband overboard in Marseilles harbour is told by Prince von Bulow, later German Chancellor, who is not regarded as an invariably reliable source. (See Blowitz’s My Memoirs (1903); Frank Giles, A Prince of Journalists (1962); Prince von Bulow, Memoirs, 1849-1897 (1932), which contains a fine picture of Blowitz in his working clothes.)
[2]. When and where Flashman served in the French Foreign Legion has not yet emerged from his Papers. Several references (like the present one) suggest North Africa, but it is not impossible that he was with the Legion in Mexico c. 1867, when he was aide-de-camp to the ill-fated Emperor Maximilian. 'Au jus!' was the cry of the coffee orderlies at reveille, and 'the sausage music' is presumably a reference to the Legion’s march, Tiens, voila du boudin. (See also Note 13.)
The authority for Grant’s meeting with Macmahon, and their total failure to communicate, is Grant himself. At least they bowed, and shook hands; Grant’s aversion to hand-shaking was notorious, as was his taciturnity. (See From the Tan Yard to the White House, by William M. Thayer (1886).)
[3]. In 1878 Sir Stafford Northcote’s Budget, described as 'unambitious', increased the duty on dogs and tobacco and raised income tax by 2d; Mrs Brassey published 'The Voyage of the Sunbeam', an account of her round-the-world cruise by yacht; the phonograph ('an instrument which prints sound for subsequent reproduction by electricity') was a popular novelty; and Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore had its first night on May 25 at the Opera Comique. The great hit of the show was 'He is an Englishman', which became 'almost a second national anthem'.
[4]. As usual with his summaries of international affairs, Flashman’s account of events in the Balkans, the Russo-Turkish war, and the Treaty of San Stefano, is sketchy and racy, but accurate in its broad essentials. The treaty, reflecting Russia’s Panslavic ambition to bring the Balkans under Russian control, was hard on the defeated Turks, and was opposed by Austria and Britain. A conference of the European Powers had been in prospect for some time, but was jeopardised by Russia’s objection to a British demand that the San Stefano settlement should be submitted to discussion by the Powers. Largely through the 'honest broker' efforts of Bismarck, the German Chancellor, an understanding was reached between Britain and Russia, and the Congress of Berlin was held in June and July of 1878 to revise the treaty and achieve a balance in South-eastern Europe.
[5]. Blowitz’s opinion of Shuvalov is echoed in von Bulow: 'Count Shuvalov was a clever, skilful, amiable and distinguished man, but like so many Russians, he worshipped more than was fitting at the shrine of Aphrodite Pandemos.' (Bulow, My Memoirs.) (See also Note 7.)
[6]. The cartoons of the two English grooms and the crafty fishmonger, and the article headed 'Hankey Pankey', are to be found in Punch of May 11, 1878; the voluptuous figure entitled 'Harlequin Spring Fashions—really a very little addition to the too-scanty and bespangled costumes Mr Punch has noticed so often lately', appeared in the previous week.
[7]. According to von Bulow: 'On one of his evening walks in the Friederichstrasse … which the Berlin police supervised so discreetly, to prevent any unpleasant incident, he (Shuvalov) had made the acquaintance of a too- facile lady, from whose arms it was difficult to entice him.' (See My Memoirs.)
[8]. Flashman’s version of the Congress of Berlin tallies fairly well with Blowitz’s, which does not differ in its essentials from other accounts. From whom Blowitz obtained the advance copy of the treaty is unknown. Waddington, the French Foreign Minister, has been suggested; he was English by blood, though born in Paris, and like Flashman was educated at Rugby, but there is no evidence that he was the source of the leak. What is certain is that Blowitz had an excellent source at the heart of the Congress, and scooped his rivals in day-to-day reporting as well as in obtaining the treaty, much to their annoyance, especially the Germans. He did interview Bismarck (whose under-the-table complaint is authentic), and seems to have bluffed him into withholding the Treaty from the German press by himself demanding an exclusive copy. He left the Congress early, pretending to sulk, dictated from memory a substantial portion to his secretary, had the text telegraphed from Brussels by his secretary, and the following day had the satsifaction of an exclusive story in The Times. It was one of the greatest scoops in newspaper history, although Flashman is wrong in saying that all the clauses appeared; in fact, seven did not.
There is one important difference between Flashman’s version of the Congress, and that given by Blowitz in his Memoirs. Blowitz says that his information source and go-between was 'a young foreigner' who had approached Blowitz for help, and whom he infiltrated into the entourage of an unidentified statesman at the Congress; once installed, he passed information to Blowitz by means of the hat exchange. This seems a highly unlikely story, and it is reasonable to assume that Blowitz, in writing his Memoirs, invented it to protect the identities of Flashman, Caprice, and Shuvalov. It is worth noting that von Bulow’s story of Shuvalov’s infatuation with a courtesan (quoted in Note 7) is consistent with Flashman’s version.
[9]. Sir Garnet (later Viscount) Wolseley confirmed his reputation as Britain’s first soldier by his suppression in 1882 of the Egyptian army’s revolt against the Khedive. The rebellion was led by Arabi Pasha, an ardent nationalist and anti-European, and after the massacre of more than a hundred foreigners at Alexandria, the port’s
