“Oh God! Oh God!” I groaned, “must this scourge come on us once more? Who—who can be so devoid of conscience as from ambition, from greed of territory—”
“Calm yourself, we are not so ambitious, nor are we greedy of territory. What we desire (that is to say not I exactly, for to me it would be quite the right thing to get our own Silesia back again), but what the Government desire is to keep peace: that they have asserted often enough, and the enormous strength of our active army, as it comes out in the communication yesterday made to the Council of War by the emperor, will inspire all other powers with due respect. Prussia, to begin with, will certainly sing small, and leave off trying to speak in a commanding tone. Thank God, we shall have our say in Schleswig-Holstein too, and I am sure we shall never endure that the other great power should by too great an extension of its dominion conquer for itself a preponderance in Germany. That is a matter which touches our honour, our ‘prestige’ as the French call it, perhaps our existence, but you cannot understand it. The whole affair is a contest for hegemony, the miserable Schleswig is the last thing in it, but this splendid Council of War has shown plainly which takes the first place and which is to dictate conditions to the other, the successors of the little Electors of Brandenburg or those of the long line of Romano-German Emperors! I consider peace as certain. But if the others are going on still to behave themselves in an impudent and arrogant way, and so to make war inevitable, then our victory is assured, and with it conquests which are absolutely incalculable. It were to be wished that it would break out—”
“Oh yes! and you do wish it too, father, and the whole Council of War seems to be with you! Then, I should like it better if you said it out plainly! Only do not let us have this falsehood—this assurance to the people and the friends of peace that all this purchasing of weapons and demands for war-credits are only for the purpose of your beloved peace. If you are already showing your teeth and closing your fists, do not whisper soft words all the while. If you are trembling with impatience to draw the sword, do not make believe that it is only from precaution that you are laying your hand on the hilt.”
So I went on talking for a while with trembling voice and rising passion, while my father was too much taken aback to answer a word, and at last I ended by bursting into tears.
Now followed a time of fluctuating hopes and fears. Today it was “Peace is secure,” tomorrow “War inevitable.” Most persons were of the latter view. Not so much because the situation pointed to a bloody arbitrament, but on this account, that if once the word “war” has been pronounced there may be a good deal of debating one way and the other, but experience shows that the end always is war. The little invisible egg which contains the casus belli is brooded over so long that at last the monster creeps out of it.
Daily did I note in the red volumes the phases of the varying strife, and thus I knew at that time, and still know today, how the eventful “war of ’66” was prepared and how it broke out. Without these entries I might easily find myself in the same ignorance about this precise piece of history as most men are who live where history is being played out. The great majority of the people usually know nothing about why or how a war exists. They only see it coming for a certain time, and then it is there. And when it is there people make no more inquiries about the petty interests and differences of opinion which brought it about, but are then only busied with the mighty events to which its progress gives birth. And when it is over at last, what one remembers chiefly are the terrors and losses we have personally experienced, the conquests and triumphs that have marked its course, but on the political grounds for its origin no one wastes a thought. In the many works of history which appear after every campaign under the title of “The war of the year so-and-so historically and strategically described,” or something to that effect, all the old motives for the strife and all the tactical movements of the campaign in question are recounted, and anyone who takes an interest in such things can pick out the explanation from the literature in which it is wrapped up, but in the remembrance of the people such histories certainly do not live. Even of the feelings of hatred and enthusiasm, of embitterment and hope of victory, with which the whole population greets the commencement of the war—feelings expressed in the common saying: “This is a very popular war”—even of these feelings all is wiped out after a year or two.
On March 24 Prussia issued a circular note in which she complained of the threatening preparations of Austria. Then why do we not disarm, if we do not wish to threaten? Why, how can we? For on March 28 you see it is enacted on the side of Prussia that the fortresses in Silesia and two corps d’armée are to be put on a war footing.
March 31. Thank God! Austria declares that all the rumours in circulation about her secret preparations are false. It has never even entered into her head to attack Prussia. And on this she founds the demand that Prussia shall suspend her measures of
