Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, March 1885Various
History
Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, March 1885
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals
Another time Bismarck had to bear a snub from a young nobleman of the
House of Hatzfelt. This gentleman, being left in charge of a Legation
during the absence of the Minister, sent home a despatch embodying
views favorable to the policy which the Chancellor had, until then,
been pursuing towards the country where the attaché was residing.
But it so chanced that the Chief of the Legation had been summoned
to Berlin on purpose to receive instructions for a change of policy;
so that when the attaché's despatch arrived, it gave no pleasure in
Wilhelmstrasse, and the Chancellor spoke testily of its writer as a
”_Schafsköpf_.” Hearing this, the attaché resigned. He was a young man
of high spirit, who had many friends at Court, and it was pointed out
to the Chancellor by an august peacemaker, that the young fellow had
not been very well-treated. Somewhat grudgingly—for he does not like
to make amends—the Chancellor was induced to send his Secretary to the
ex-attaché offering to reinstate him. But the recipient of this dubious
favor drew himself up stiffly and said: “Germany has not fallen to so
low a point that she needs to be served by _Schafsköpf_; and for the
rest, you may tell the Chancellor that I have not been trained to turn
somersaults.”[36]
It has been mentioned that Bismarck has had to contend with many a
boudoir cabal. The Empress Augusta's long antipathy to him is no
secret, and the Chancellor has never had to congratulate himself much
on the friendliness of the Crown Prince's and Princess's circle. The
ill-will of royal ladies enlists that of many other persons influential
in society; but it stands to Bismarck's honor that he has never used
newspapers to combat these drawing-room foes. The revelations made to
the public some years since by an ex-member of the “Reptile's Bureau”
were no doubt in the main true, and they showed that the Chancellor had
raised the art of “nobbling” the Press to a high pitch of perfection.
Not only had he, all over Germany, newspapers supported in part out of
the Secret Service Fund and inspired wholly by the Press Bureau, but
he has been accused of employing hirelings on the staffs of newspapers
reputed as independent, and through these he was in a position to
procure the insertion of articles in foreign journals, these effusions
being afterwards reprinted in German papers as genuine expressions of
foreign opinion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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