I recollect that the close of my father’s toast “threw a chill” on us. Lombardy and Silesia!—truly none of us felt any pressing need for them. And the underlying wish for “war,” i.e., fresh lamentation, more death pangs, that surely did not accord with the tender joyfulness which this hour, made sacred by a new bond of love, had awakened in our hearts. I even permitted myself to reply:—
“No, dear father; today is the New Year for the Italians and Prussians also, so we will not wish any destruction for them. May all men in the year ’66 and in the years that are to follow grow more united and more happy!”
My father shrugged his shoulders. “You enthusiast!” said he pityingly.
“Not at all,” said Frederick in my defence. “The wish expressed by Martha has no taint of enthusiasm, for its fulfilment is assured to us by science. Better and more united and more happy are men constantly becoming, from the beginning of all things to the present day, but so imperceptibly, so slowly that a little span of time, like a year, may not show any visible progress.”
“If you believe so firmly in everlasting progress,” remarked my father, “why are you so often complaining about reaction—about relapse into barbarism?”
“Because”—Frederick took out a pencil and drew a spiral on a sheet of paper—“because the march of civilisation is something like this. Does not this line, in spite of its occasional twist backwards, always move steadily onwards? The year which is commencing may, it is true, represent a twist, especially if, as seems likely, another war is going to be waged. Anything of that sort pushes culture a long way back in every aspect, material as well as moral.”
“You are not talking much like a soldier, my dear Tilling.”
“I am talking, my dear father-in-law, of a general proposition. My view about this may be true or false; whether it is soldierly or not is another question. At any rate truth can only be in any matter one way. If a thing is red, should one man call it blue on principle, because he wears a blue uniform; and black, if he wears a black cowl?”
“A what?” My father was in the habit, if any discussion did not go quite as he liked, to affect a little difficulty of hearing. To reply to such a “what” by repeating the whole sentence was what few people had the patience to do, and the best way was to give up the argument.
Afterwards, the same night, when we had got home, I put my husband under examination.
“What was that you said to my father? That there was every appearance that there would be another fight this year? I will not have you go into another war; I will not have it.”
“What is the use, dear Martha, of this passionate ‘I will not’? You would certainly be the first to withdraw it in face of the facts. By how much more visibly war stands at the gate, by so much the more impossible would it be for me to apply for my discharge. Immediately after Schleswig-Holstein it might have been feasible.”
“Ah, that unlucky Schmidt & Sons!”
“But now when new clouds are gathering—”
“Then you really believe that—”
“I believe that these clouds will disperse again. The two great powers will not tear each other to pieces for those northern countries. But now that it seems threatening again, retirement would have a cowardly look. You must see that too?”
I was obliged to be guided by this reasoning. But I clung to the hopeful phrase: “These clouds will disperse again.”
I now followed with anxiety the development of political events, and the opinions and prophecies about them that were current in the newspapers and public speeches. “Be prepared!” “Be prepared!” was the cry now. “Prussia is silently preparing.” “Austria is silently preparing.” “The Prussians assert that we are preparing, and it is not true, it is they who are preparing.” “You lie.” “No, it is not true that we are preparing.” “If they prepare, we must prepare also. If we leave off our preparations, who knows if they will?” And so the note of preparation sounded in my ear in all possible variations.
“But then what is all this clang of arms for, if one is not to take them in hand?” I asked, to which my father answered in the old phrase:—
“Si vis pacem, para bellum; we, that is, are only preparing out of precaution.”
“And the other side?”
“With a view of attacking us.”
“But they also are saying that their action is only a precaution against our attack.”
“That is malice.”
“And they say that we are malicious.”
“Oh, they say that only as a pretext, to be better able to make their preparations.”
So again an endless circle, a serpent with his tail in his mouth, whose upper and lower end is a double dishonesty. It is only by producing an impression on an enemy, who desires war, that the method of fighting him by preparations can be effective on the side of peace, but two equal powers, both desirous of peace, cannot possibly act on that system, unless each is firmly persuaded that the other is deceiving him with hollow phrases. And this persuasion becomes the more firm, the more one knows that one is oneself hiding the same views as one charges on one’s adversary under similar phrases. It is not only the augurs, the diplomatists also know well enough about each other, what each has in his mind behind the public ceremonies and modes of speech. The preparation for war lasted on both sides during the early months of the year. On March 12 my father burst into my room radiant with joy.
“Hurrah!” he shouted. “Good news.”
“Disarmament?” I asked delighted.
“What for? On the contrary, this is the good news: Yesterday, a great Council of War was held. It is really splendid what an armed power we are masters of! The arrogant Prussians had best take care. We are prepared
