by Frank Harris
"I would never have believed it," said Von H-, "but I could not have spoken to save my life; the discipline, the pigtail nature- zopfwesen-of us Germans since Frederick the Great has got into our blood! But you did splendidly."
"I did very badly," I said.
If I force memory and recount this unimportant little Incident, it is just to emphasize the fact that no one I have ever seen in this world had a greater magic of personality than Bismarck-an authentic great man.
No one in Europe at the time realized the disastrous consequences of Bismarck's fall. Every one knew that as far back as '79 he had formed an Austro-German alliance, directed practically against Russia. He was the inspirer too of the French occupation of Tunis in 1881. His object was to create ill feeling between France and Italy, and he succeeded.
In 1882 he won the adhesion of Italy to the alliance and so strengthened Germany against France, as well as against Russia. But even this Triple Alliance did not satisfy him. He knew how to play on imperial rulers. In 1884 he concluded with Russia a secret treaty behind the backs of both his Allies-a treaty by which it was arranged that if Germany or Russia were attacked, the other would come to her ally's assistance.
It was the failure of the Emperor William, and of his Chancellor, the Count von Caprivi, to renew this secret treaty in 1890 that first weakened Germany's position in Europe.
In 1891 the Russian Government invited a French squadron to Kronstadt — which should surely have warned even the Emperor William of his blunder.
And in 1893 the Russians sent Admiral Avellane to return the visit to Toulon.
Thus the Russian-French alliance was set on foot, if not at once concluded.
Bismarck's diplomacy was more cunning even than that imagined by Machiavelli. French colonial enterprise everywhere, and especially in Africa, was favored by German diplomacy, with the intention of separating France and England. And in this Bismarck's diplomacy continued to be effective after he himself had fallen from power; for the greater part, indeed, of the last decade of the nineteenth century! Fashoda in 1896 almost brought about war between the two countries.
Immediately after the fall of Bismarck, his policy that had made Germany the first of European powers was abandoned. The extraordinary commercial prosperity that had resulted from it continued and blinded the German people to the dangers of the new diplomacy that was, in truth, little more than the erratic impulses of William II. I can never think of William II without recalling the great phrase of Vauvenargues: Les pros-perites des mauvais rois sont fatales aux peuples.
As soon as I heard of Bismarck's dismissal by the Emperor, I felt sure that William II was a small fish.
"We Germans," said Bismarck later, "fear God and nothing else." He would have been much greater if he had feared God enough to play the game of life quite fairly. He did his best to embroil England with France. His want of moral scruple was his besetting sin.
But, if one can find fault with the inflexible selfish purpose of Bismarck, the policy that succeeded his was devoid of any virtue. William II not only brought France and Russia into a close alliance, but, with inconceivable stupidity, he estranged Italy and exasperated England without winning a single friend, unless, indeed, Turkey could be called a friend.
My private judgment of him, derived chiefly from the Prince of Wales and a casual meeting with the War-lord, as he loved to be called, I will give in due time: but for the moment I can only say that his famous speech, addressed to the Brandenburg Diet in this year, 1892, filled me with unutterable contempt. He talked about God as the "Supreme Lord" and "his unmistakable conviction that He, our former Ally at Rossbach and Dennewitz, will not leave me in the lurch. He has taken such infinite pains with our ancient Brandenburg and our House that we cannot suppose He has done this for no purpose. No; on the contrary, men of Brandenburg, we have a great future before us, and I am leading you towards days of glory."
There was one man in Germany, Maximilian Harden, who foresaw the ruin of Germany as soon as William II abandoned Bismarck and his successful international policy; perhaps I ought to say a word about him here.
Harden came to Berlin during the Bismarckian era, an ardent admirer of Bismarck and the great Chancellor's strictly national theories, a boy of nineteen who had just finished college.
His name then was Max Witkovski-a Jewish boy. A Jew had a hard time of it in Germany in those days. Public recognition seemed impossible. His journalistic career proved to him that a German name would be more advantageous. The English periodicals of the late eighties and early nineties, with their frankness and love of truth, became his ideal of journalism. In vain he tried to persuade publishers to follow the English lead, treating royalty and the aristocracy of birth as boldly as the British.
None could see what good it would do to quarrel openly with those in power.
Harden became the pioneer of the new journalism. He started a weekly paper, Die Zukunft (The Future). A storm of antagonism arose in all quarters.
Harden became the most discussed man in Germany. His paper was read everywhere. He attracted the youth of Germany. The modernists flocked to him; his paper became the mouthpiece of young, rebellious Germany. Never before had such free language been used in a German periodical.
He made enemies galore. Mercilessly he tore down superstitions and showed the inherent weakness of an absolute monarchy. Even his foes read his paper.
His circulation became extraordinary for a one-man magazine.
There was rarely a week in which some influential noble or some powerful organization did not start libel suits against the Zukunft. Harden hardly ever retracted a statement. He never published an article without proof of its veracity in hand. "Very well," was his eternal answer, "I shall prove and substantiate in court the truth of what I have written." Many of his opponents believed he would not dare to go to court. But he dared. A few sensational libel cases, which he won, left him free to do as he pleased.
He became the most feared publicist in Germany. This is what Harden wrote about William II in 1896:
Germany cannot, in view of the results of the six years since Bismarck's dismissal, refrain from asking their Emperor whether it was indeed necessary to remove, with ruthless hand, the man who raised the Hohenzollern House to a pinnacle, placed the military power of Prussia on a sure basis, founded the German Empire and prepared a future for German influence…
It would be criminal to ignore the dark clouds slowly and threateningly gathering on the German horizon. It would be criminal also to keep silence, seeing that the storm which piled up the clouds blew from the highest point of observation where the greatest serenity of mind ought to prevail.
He dared to publish his famous open letter addressed to William Hohenzollern. The Eulenburg scandal came as a result. A few suicides among the nobility followed the exposure about the Round Table of the "Most High."
Everybody predicted Harden's imprisonment, his trial for lese majeste.
Nothing happened. He was stronger even than His Imperial Majesty's Court, and everybody knew that he would show little reverence, and still less consideration, for the Kaiser's sacred person. The scandal of the Kaiser's friendship with the notorious Krupp some years later was Harden's complete justification.
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CHAPTER VI
The Evening News
In the years from 1883 to 1887 I was working sixteen or seventeen hours a day on the Evening News, Bit by bit I found out the secret of journalistic success in London, and I may as well tell the story here. First of all, I discovered that the public did not care a row of pins for scholarly or even original leading articles. Arthur Walter praised this part of the Evening News very cordially, but I soon found that it had no effect whatever on the circulation. The first thing that gave me the clue to success was the divorce case of Lady Colin Campbell. I had met Lady Colin in Paris and admired, as every one else admired, her tall, superb figure and remarkable brunette beauty. I went to the court chiefly out of curiosity and heard her statement an
d cross-examination. I then begged the Evening News correspondent to give me a verbatim report, for I soon realized that no other paper would treat the case as it deserved. It was full of the most scabrous details. In successive editions that evening, I gave up the whole of the right-hand center page to it, and promised my readers, in the beginning, to give the fullest account possible of the trial. The question was how far I should report the lady's revelations.
I saw Arthur Walter in the evening, and I surprised him by telling him the details of the case; he agreed with me as to what should be published. In The Times account next morning, I found that they had drawn the line almost exactly where I had drawn it, though I had told the story at much greater length and made it much more interesting by adding detailed sketches of the chief personages. I pursued the same plan every day of the trial, making a most enthralling human story, as human as I dared in view of English convention.
The circulation of the paper almost doubled in the week, and the whole account attracted so much attention that Edmund Yates asked me to dinner, and while at dinner invited me to tell him how I had come to such extraordinary success. Everyone, he declared, was reading the Evening News for the report of the cause scandaleuse. One man, sitting almost opposite me at the table, sniffed again and again at my laughing outspokenness; it was, I learned afterwards, George Lewis-the famous solicitor.
The next day I received the proof of how envy and malevolence revenge themselves on success. George Lewis indicted the Evening News for obscene libel, and almost immediately the case came up before Mr. Justice Denman.
George Lewis read out some of the reports which I had printed and asked that I should be punished. Not wishing to put the paper to any expense, I defended the case in person, and my answer to the accusation was simply to show that I had followed with almost absolute exactness the example set by The Times, eliminating every scabrous detail just as The Times had eliminated them. "The standard of what is becoming," I said, "varies in every country and every age. I could do no better with a halfpenny paper than keep the limits established by The Times. This I have done," and I passed up my account with the account in The Times side by side, showing that we often stopped at the same word.
"What have you to say to that?" Mr. Justice Denman asked. My accuser, George Lewis, rose quickly. "I submit," said he, "that it's no answer whatever to the case. I contend that the Evening News is guilty of obscene libel, and I ask for a verdict on the strength of these reports."
"But," said Justice Denman, "if you are actuated by a respect for public morality, Mr. Lewis, why don't you select The Times rather than the less important Evening News?"
"Again, I submit," said Lewis, "that my accusation is unanswered."
Denman smiled and replied, "I give a verdict for the defendant, and wish to express my opinion that the case should never have been brought."
But I had learned my lesson. The fact that the Evening News published the longest and most detailed reports had doubled the circulation and brought the paper into the limelight. Now couldn't I go on to make the news pages more interesting? I at once set to work to get a couple of Paris papers, a couple of German papers, and used to glance through them every evening after my work of the day was supposed to have been finished.
As soon as I found either in Berlin, Rome, Madrid or Paris an interesting case, I rewrote it for the Evening News and soon saw that this was the road to success. The circulation of the paper rose rapidly, and people of some importance in journalism began to invite me out and show me favor; especially was this the case with Labouchere and Yates, whom I regarded as the two heads of the profession.
I made them both laugh heartily one evening after dinner by telling them of my progress downwards to success. I had edited the Evening News at first, I said, at the top of my thought as a scholar and a man of the world of twentyeight; nobody wanted my opinions, but as I went downwards and began to edit it as I felt at twenty, then at eighteen, then at sixteen, I was more successful; but when I got to my tastes at fourteen years of age, I found instantaneous response. "Kissing and fighting," I said, "were the only things I cared for at thirteen or fourteen, and those are the themes the English public desires and enjoys today."
It is to the present hour the true reading of successful popular journalism.
Why has the News of the World a circulation of over three millions? Simply because in it you can find most of the suggestive or sensational stories of the week. They have not found out the proper way of increasing their stock and so they are often short of good stories, but the good stories are there to be had always, as I very soon found out when my feet struck the right path.
It was, of course, extremely hard work for me to go through a dozen foreign papers every evening for perhaps a couple of stories, and besides at the best they were foreign stories-not as interesting to the English public as English stories would be. But how, how was I to get English stories?
One day, I was in the sub-editor's room and found that the reporters at all the police courts sent in flimsies with short accounts of what took place in the police courts during the day up to twelve o'clock. One of the stories told of a murder in Clerkenwell. There was no attempt at description: the common reporter had cut the incident down to some eight or ten lines, but beneath it I felt that there was a great human story. I at once jumped into a hansom, ran down to Clerkenwell, got hold of the reporter and made him take me to the scene of the tragedy. The story was appalling and intensely interesting.
A man and wife had lived together till middle age: had brought up a family of three children; comparative success had come through a little tobacco shop they kept, and with success came temptation. The father of forty-five had fallen in love with a girl of fifteen or sixteen who had come to the shop to buy tobacco. He made up to the girl and won her without the knowledge of his wife, who was wholly taken up with the household duties; but the eldest daughter, a girl of fourteen, had quick eyes and noticed that her father was going after the girl. When she saw him kissing her, she went to the mother to tell, feminine jealousy and curiosity blazing. At once the mother revenged herself on the girl. She beat her and called her names in the street until at length the father took his mistress' part and knocked his wife down. Strange to say, her head struck a cartwheel and she died the same night.
The whole story was told in court, but when I retold it in the Evening News with the chief details-a description of the jealous daughter and her account of how she had found her father out, and the father's confession — the story had an enormous vogue, and the circulation of the Evening News responded to it immediately.
I had found the way to success. Every day the London police courts are filled with love stories and sensational tragedies of all kinds. How to get them was the only question. I took six police courts as a nucleus and put an able man in charge of them with these instructions: "Whenever you get any story that promises, go immediately to the police court in question, see the reporter, get all the facts. If there is real interest in the incident, work it up, interview the principals, make a real story of it, and send it in to the paper." I advised my lieutenant to give a guinea to any police reporter who put him on to a good case. In a month I found the problem was solved. I could fill the six or seven columns of the Evening News with sensational stories of London life with the greatest ease.
After some three years' work the circulation of the paper had increased tenfold and it had begun to pay. As I had worked morning, noon and night on it without respite, I got the directors to give me a three months' holiday and went straight to Italy. In Rome I read a good deal of Italian and studied the old Roman remains, and became a friend of Prince Doria. There took place what I called the strangest occurrence in my life, which I may now tell at length.
The undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns has always had a certain fascination for me, as I imagine it has for almost everyone. Long before the discovery of the X-rays had shown that one could see through houses and bod
ies, I was persuaded that there were more things in heaven and earth than were dreamed of in any philosophy.
The strange attraction of human beings, one to another; the fact that chemical elements only unite according to certain ascertained weights, that gases would mingle, but not become one until an electric spark was passed through them; the myriad analogies in nature suggesting likeness in the eternal disparity; unity in the infinite differences, tormented my curiosity from the time I was twenty. But every time I sought for further knowledge I was met by a blank wall.
I studied spiritualism for six or eight months and was so eloquent about it that the medium admitted me into the secret and showed me all the tricks of his foul trade. I was amused later to find that Browning had had an equally strange experience with "Sludge," the medium whom his wife had begun to believe in.
Later still I was surprised to find that Alfred Russel Wallace, a great scientist and the forerunner of Darwin, a transparently honest man, believed absolutely in all sorts of communications with what he called "the spirit world." But my unbelief persisted and persists to this day. Where is the great light?
Still, I had one experience that enormously strengthened Wallace's influence over me in this respect. Desiring complete change and recreation, I took out some Irish horses and hunted regularly on the campagna. It seemed delightful to me to hunt foxes where Paul and Peter had walked, where Caesar and Pompey had marched at the head of their legions, to take high wooden fences on a countryside peopled with the ghosts of forgotten worthies. I used to spend some hours every afternoon studying the antiquities and all the morning galloping across the campagna.
It was the double life that seduced me and gave me absolute health of both mind and body. Naturally, in the hunting field I got to know nearly all the Romans of position, and I knew most of the scholars and poets through my afternoons.
As sometimes happens, there was a blank day in our hunting. The sun was hot and strong and the dogs could take up no scent at all. The whole hunt moved from place to place, drawing every spinney blank. Once I rested beside a sprig of acacia.
