Alexander von Battenberg: Sein Kampf mit den Zaren und Bismarckby E. C. Corti

Alexander von Battenberg: Sein Kampf mit den Zaren und Bismarck by E. C. CortiReview by: R. W. Seton-WatsonThe Slavonic Review, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Jun., 1922), pp. 246-254Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4201605 .

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REVIEWS. Alexander von Battenberg: sein Kampf mit deni Zaren und Bismarck.

By E. C. Corti. Vienna (L. W. Seidel), I920. PP. 352. Illustra- tions and facsimiles.

So far as I am aware, this book, though published over a year ago, has passed entirely unnoticed in the British Press, and yet no political biography of recent times throws such a flood of light upon the diplomatic history of Europe in the decade following the Treaty of Berlin and upon the personal relations of the sovereigns and statesmen of that period. Its author, who writes in German and from Vienna, is a grand-nephew of Count Luigi Corti, who, as Italian Foreign Minister, represented his country at the Berlin Congress of I878, and afterwards for a number of years as Ambassador in Constantinople. He himself is a pupil of Professor Pribram (to whom we owe the well-known work on the Triple Alliance and its subsidiary treaties): and his work is based upon the family papers of the late Prince Alexander, placed at his disposal by the latter's widow Countess Hartenau, and also upon many unpublished documents from the Viennese archives. The book is a very careful piece of work, though the style is not inspired and though the value of footnote references is often seriously impaired by the omission of dates. It most certainly ought to be translated into English.

The selection of Prince Alexander for the new-baked throne of Bulgaria represented a compromise between various dynastic interests. His father was a Hessian Prince and an Austrian General; his mother was a Pole, Countess Hauke; his aunt was Russian Empress (wife of Alexander II.); while his brothers Louis and Henry were already in close relations with the British royal family, which were soon to be strengthened by marriage. He himself was only 22, and, being as yet uncommitted to any special political view, seemed acceptable on all sides. But though subject to waves of pessimism, he was a man of energetic character and considerable political flair; and the reader of this book cannot fail to be struck by the rapidity with which (to judge by the documents quoted) he grasped the salient features of the Balkan situation at a time when the rival arbiters of Europe were working on utterly false lines. The Berlin settlement of I878 he roundly described as " a monstrous monument of European diplomatic ignorance"; and it is instructive to find that similar views, though in a less truculent form, were held by Prince Charles of Roumania, who wrote to Alexander in July, I879, affirming his belief in a future



REVIEWS. 247

"Great Bulgaria," and adding, " The diplomats with all their tricks and arts cannot hold up the course of events " (p. 48).

There are several sidelights on Bismarck's well-known contempt for Disraeli's policy, and it is therefore all the more interesting to learn from a letter of the German Crown Princess (Empress Frederick) to Prince Alexander in I885, that Disraeli in conversation with her during the Congress, admitted that the East Roumelian settlement could not last more than seven years (p. 46). But the more we are inclined to credit Disraeli with prophetic insight rather than a mere lucky guess, the more severe must be our verdict on his tactics at Berlin. Alexander, at any rate, went to his new post without illusions, and in a conversation of three and a half hours with Count Andrassy in Vienna, declared that he would respect the Treaty of Berlin " until the moment when this should no longer prove possible." The separation, he argued, could not be permanently enforced, and was merely due to " Disraeli's inadequate knowledge of the qualities and aims of the Bulgarian people" (p. 64).

The arrogant attitude adopted by the Russian civil and military administrators of Bulgaria after the liberation was from the very outset a matter of notoriety throughout Europe: but these pages illustrate still more clearly the extreme friction which arose between them and the young Prince. He describes Prince Dondukov-Korsakov as " a Nihilist in general's uniform," and we soon find him wiring to his father, " all the Russians, except Davydov, have behaved abominably (gemein) towards me " (p. 8i). In conversation with Count Kalnoky (then still Austro-Hungarian Ambassador in St. Petersburg) he went even further: his words, as reported to Vienna, ran thus: " I can't trust a single one of the Russian officers and officials who are sent to me., and this is quite natural, for every Russian who comes here has to choose whether he will serve the Panslav War Minister Milyutin and the Slav committee, or me. Naturally he opts against me." Indeed, one Russian officer was frank enough to tell him to his face: " Your dis- favour is for me the best recommendation in Russia." When the Prince again visited St. Petersburg after the assassination of Alexander II. (March, i88i), he told the new Tsar that the Bulgarian administration was " corrupt from the highest official to the last gendarme." During a later visit, in I882, he denounced the Russian agents in Bulgaria as "perfid und niedertrachtig" in their attitude towards him (p. I2I): and in I883 he talks of his new subjects' " glowing hate against Russia," and of their " forgetting too soon what Russia did for them." In the autumn of that year he writes to the German Crown Prince Frederick, " Russia hates me because it fears me, but I am pleased at this hate, which I return from the depths of my soul, even though conditions force me to control my feelings for a few years longer" (p. I46). As these and other extracts show, tact can hardly have been his strongest point, and though we must allow for acute provocation from Russia, especially from his cousin Alexander III. and his intriguing



248 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

minister Giers, there can be little doubt that the Prince's personal attitude contributed materially to the misunderstanding. Moreover, if the Russians were overbearing, a prime motive of their action was a belief, not altogether unpardonable in the circumstances, in the political unripeness of the Bulgarians; and this belief the Prince fully shared, revealing his arbitrary tendencies by a reference to the various Bulgarian parties as " equally democratic and unreliable." This outlook found practical expression in his dismissal of seven Cabinets and three Chambers within two years.

His position was, of course, one of extreme difficulty, for Bulgaria in the eighties was a mere catspaw between the Great Powers, each of which was primarily concerned with undermining the position and prestige of its rival. Kalnoky, now Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, aimed simultaneously at checking Russia's influence in the Near East and at maintaining the Russian Court's traditional relations with Vienna and Berlin-a combination which involved much tortuous manoeuvring. To Bismarck, Bulgaria was above all an embarrassment and the efforts of Prince and people towards the elimination of foreign control left him entirely cold. His famous phrase about the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier represented the genuine feelings both of the Chancellor and of the old Emperor, who were wedded to the dynastic friendship of Prussia and Russia, and at the same time obsessed by the dangers which its dissolution might easily bring down upon Germany. This was, of course, a commonplace of diplomatic knowledge until William II.'s world policy undermined the old relation- ship: but it may be doubted whether any published records illustrate it so clearly as the full accounts which we now obtain of Prince Alexander's interviews with William I. and Bismarck in April, I884- after the Hessian wedding of Prince Louis, and at a moment when the League of the three Emperors had again become a reality. On this occasion the Emperor advised Alexander to make his submission to the Tsar, and argued in some detail that ever since the days of Peter the Great Russia had sought free access to the Mediterranean and would therefore sweep aside any obstacle which might place itself across her path. The Prince replied that when Europe sent him to Bulgaria, "it had been with the instructions to maintain the Berlin settlement," and for the rest " Bulgaria for the Bulgarians," and the existing friction with Russia was the result. He defended himself from the Emperor's reproach of falling into debt to international Jewry by arguing that his sole alternative was to become " a Russian pensioner "-to which came the prompt reply that that would have been preferable. When finally Alexander declared that, failing any backing from German policy, he should be driven to abdicate, William I. simply answered: " Very well, go: that won't disturb me " (mich wird es nicht sWren). The same day Bismarck spoke with even greater bluntness, and defined his policy in the phrase, " Germany has no interest in Bulgaria, our interest is peace with Russia" (pp. I65-7).



REVIEWS. 249

For the remainder of his reign Alexander found himself equally unsupported by St. Petersburg, Berlin and Vienna: what alone made this supportable was the increasing encouragement of Britain, who, after having done more than any other Power to wreck the San Stefano settlement and to restore Eastern Roumelia to the Turks, adopted a diametrically opposite policy from the moment that the Bulgars and their Prince showed themselves refractory to Russian influence. Unfortunately there is nothing to show that British policy saw in Bulgaria anything more than an anti-Russian pawn: the most that can be said is that its calculations rested on a sound estimate of the new nation's powers of recuperation and resistance, and an early perception of the extent to which nationality was to dominate Balkan politics in the future.

The purely selfish outlook of Russia and Britain alike towards the Balkans is strikingly revealed by their sudden exchange of rdles in I884. Giers had pursued the perfidious policy of secretly fanning the Union movement in Bulgaria, while all the time denouncing the Prince to Berlin and Vienna for his alleged support of this very movement: but this ended in the Russian Minister and his master the Tsar finding themselves committed-very largely out of personal animus against Prince Alexander-to a public pronouncement against that Union, the foundations for which had been cemented with Russian blood.

This volteface of the Tsar was followed by one no less sudden on the part of Britain, who set herself openly to favour Bulgarian expansion. Queen Victoria in particular showed keen personal interest in the fate of Prince Alexander, was indignant at Gladstone's Russophilism and urged upon Salisbury the need of strengthening the Balkan States as a buffer against Russia. The intensity of feeling at the British Court may be judged from a letter addressed by Queen Victoria to Prince Alexander after the kidnapping of the latter by the Russophile party in i886. In it she assures her " poor dear Sandro " (du lieber armer Sandro) of " my indignation and fury against your barbarous Asiatic tyrannous cousin " (meine Emparung und Wut gegen deinen barbarischen asiatischartigen tyrannischen Vetter)-namely, Tsar Alexander III.- and adds that " my Government will do all it can to win the Powers against Russia and for you " (p. 266, reproduced in facsimile). When the Prince returned in triumph to Sofia, only to reveal his lost nerve and play into the Tsar's hand by a telegram offering abdication, the Queen at once sent an urgent wire (4th September, i886) : " I am speechless, and beseech you to undo this step. After such triumphs this was unworthy of the great position you had won. You are blamed for telegraphing to the Tsar, instead of applying here for advice " (p. 274). Alexander adhered to his resolve to abdicate, but sent to the Queen a reasoned explanation of his motives, which elicited the following illuminating reply: " I could weep tears of blood, to be unable to do more for you, but England is so bound and tied by her Parliament and the various parties, that the Government are blocked in everything: but we do




what we can and try to come to an arrangement with Austria " (p. 286). What steps the Queen might have taken if left to herself, must remain a matter of conjecture: but that they would have been drastic, may be inferred from the fact that she could write thus disparagingly in October of Ministers who only in August had gone the length of instructing their Ambassador in St. Petersburg to characterise the kidnapping of the Prince as pointless and dangerous, and to announce that a Russian occupation of Bulgaria might be followed by the despatch of the British fleet to the Black Sea !

Prince Alexander was not merely quick to detect the unsound basis upon which the Berlin settlement rested, but his general views of Balkan policy were far-sighted in the extreme. In his mind the idea of a Balkan League had already taken shape, and during a visit to King Charles in the summer of i886 he uttered the prophetic phrase that the mistaken policy of Greece and Serbia towards the Bulgarian Union had set back the natural development of the Peninsula by whole decades (p. 259). In I883 he expressed to his Austrian confidant, Baron Biegeleben, the opinion that the Eastern question would be in a fair way towards solution on the day when Serbia, Greece and Bul- garia agreed regarding the future political geography of the Balkans (p. I34). Of unusual interest in this connection is the correspondence which passed in I884 between the Prince and King Milan of Serbia, who pleaded for close mutual support, since " the peoples of this Peninsula have the habit of changing sovereigns as they change shirts " (p. I74). Unhappily the close understanding which they desired to see established between their respective countries was frustrated by narrow party interests, and above all by the intrigues of the Russian party agent Koyander, who incited the Bulgarian Premier Karavelov against Serbia. Milan's unbalanced and passionate nature emerges from this correspondence. He habitually spoke of the Russians as "ces canailles," and when Alexander intimated to him the rejection of their joint project by the Bulgarian Cabinet, he sent him a diatribe of fifteen pages in length, culminating in the passage: " Don't count on your Bulgars, don't believe them to be good and naiv. They are Slavs, and that says everything. My Serbs are not worth any more " (p. I77). In a later letter he warned Alexander against abdication. " Remain! " he wrote. " I, too, was Russia's slave and Turkey's vassal, and am no longer either" (January, I885). But within a short year the fickle Milan had thrown all professions of friendship and co-operation to the winds, and, rejecting Alexander's suggestion for joint action against the Turks (30 September), plunged into a war of aggression against Bulgaria. This, the most shameful episode in modern Serbian history, both as regards its motives and its outcome, reveals Austria-Hungary as playing the same game of intrigue as was to prove her eventual ruin. As in I9I4 she encouraged Bulgaria against Serbia, so in I885 she directly incited Serbia against Bulgaria. On I4 November we find Count Kalnoky writing to his Minister in



REVIEWS. 25I

Belgrade, Count Khevenhiiller: "The King's decision to invade could not surprise us. We wish Serbia the best of success; indeed, we have for some weeks past been busy preparing the Powers for the event " (p. 2I9). A week later, when the Serbs were already in retreat, he admits very frankly to the same agent, " we are hard hit by this military collapse of Serbia, whose cause we espoused" (p. 224).

There was, however, one essential difference between the two crises: unlike his feeble successor in office, Bismarck did all he could to discourage Austria-Hungary. He warned Vienna against King Milan-" this unreliable, haphazard and sensual man "-and refused to see what advantages could accrue to the Dual Monarchy from backing Serbia, whose further rise to power was bound to coincide with a growth of irredentism (p. 245). With even more than his usual foresight, he insisted that Vienna must never risk a breach with Russia, " relying solely upon Germany, and without guarantees for the attitude of the two Western Powers." For " in that case we might, according to the situation in England and France, open up the way for a Russo- Anglo-French Coalition, in face of which the situation of the two allied Imperial Courts might be a difficult one, and Italy's reliability might prove doubtful " (p. 246). He himself never veered from his original attitude of extreme reserve towards all Balkan complica- tions: " To us it is a matter of complete indifference who rules in Bulgaria and what becomes of her . . . Russia's friendship is worth more to us than Bulgaria's" (p. 293). K6alnoky, on the other hand, already held the superficial view proclaimed by Bethmann-Hollweg on the eve of the Great War: for in i888, in a confidential circular to his representatives abroad, he treats as inevitable a conflict between Russia and the two Central Empires, " to decide whether Slav Russia is to dominate the Continent" (p. 3I6).

Running through the whole volume and intricately interwoven with the high European policy of the eighties, is the love-story of Prince Alexander and Princess Victoria of Prussia, granddaughter of Queen Victoria and sister of William II.-here laid before the reader in all its pathetic detail. For over four years their marriage is canvassed to and fro between the Courts of Berlin, St. Petersburg and London, and an insurmountable obstacle is always found in the violent and even brutal personal dislike shown by Tsar Alexander III. towards his namesake of Bulgaria, and in the consequent refusal of William I. and Bismarck to jeopardise their good relations with Russia by sanctioning a marriage which the Tsar would undoubtedly have interpreted as an attempt to oust Russian for German influence in the Near East. In April, I884, Bismarck warned the Prince that the Imperial consent would be immediately followed by his own resignation of the Chancellorship; and the unhappy Alexander was torn between his ardent devotion to the Princess and his fear of the devastating political consequences which their union might conjure up. Bismarck, with blunt and studied insolence. advised him to marry outside



252 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW. Royalty, or, if he was bent upon this, to look rather to Princess Beatrice of England (so soon to be his sister-in-law) or Princess Helena of Mecklenburg. But, best of all, he added, would be the daughter of some Orthodox millionaire, for " in the East ruling means palm-oil " (Regieren heisst Schmieren). In March, I885, under Bismarck's influence, the Emperor William, who had never favoured the match, insisted upon an explicit renunication by Alexander, arguing in a pompously hostile letter that " the maintenance of my political and family relations to H.M. the Emperor of Russia is one of the noblest which my monarchical calling imposes on me, according to God's will" (p. I82). But in the meantime the Prince had found powerful allies for the cause of the marriage in the Crown Princess and her mother Queen Victoria. Their enthusiasm for Prince Alexander knew no bounds: and after the annexation of Eastern Roumelia the Queen bombarded Lord Salisbury with wires and letters in his interest (p. 2I3), refused Kalnoky's request that she should exercise a moderating influence at Sofia during the war with Serbia, and after the coup d'etat of i886 held a family consultation with Prince Henry of Battenberg and wrote letters in his brother's interest up till two in the morning (p. 266). Alexander himself was sufficiently discouraged to desist, but as Count Wedell reminded him during a conversation (when sent as intermediary to discuss Bulgarian problems, August, I885) " the Queen of England wishes this marriage at all costs" (p. I87). The zeal and enthusiasm with which the Crown Princess, thus encouraged by her mother, worked for the marriage, is illustrated by a letter of 28 pages which she wrote to Alexander after the Union. In it she tells him that "Vicky" wanted to dress up as a man and join Alexander in the campaign against Serbia, " but then Berlin might regard this as the fruit of my (English) education! " She won her husband's passive approval for the match and reckoned that the death of the old Emperor, which could not long be delayed, would remove the last obstacle. But Bismarck proved too strong for her; their personal conflict only accentuated his disapproval of the match, in which he now saw an English intrigue, calculated to drive a wedge between Germany and Russia: and he found a valuable ally in Prince William, who endorsed his grandfather's views on the subject and threatened to make his sister's position intolerable if she dared to marry against his wish. Bismarck's attitude throughout was both logical and comprehensible, but there is a peculiarly unsympathetic tone in the letter addressed by the future William II. to Alexander, declaring that " I shall regard everyone who helps on such a union as an enemy to all time, not only of my house but also of my country, and will treat him accordingly: and I hope Your Highness will not bring me into the position of having to class you in this category." Even more offensive was the attitude of Prince Henry of Prussia, whose clumsy words of intervention were carefully recorded by Alexander after a painful interview in May, I887. The Empress Frederick did her



REVIEWS. 253

best to effect the betrothal during her husband's brief reign, but her two sons' active opposition was even more fatal than all previous obstacles, and even Queen Victoria reluctantly warned her not to move without William's consent. With the latter's accession all hope was at an end, and Prince Alexander, who had already withdrawn into the strictest privacy, married in I889 an actress of the Darmstadt Court Theatre, and was allowed to assume the title of Count of Hartenau. His death in I893, at the age of 37, ended prematurely and in a strange cul-de-sac a life which had seemed destined to leave its mark upon the fate of Europe.

I have dwelt in great detail upon Count Corti's book, and yet not more fully than its importance merits: and there remains a wealth of first-hand material for the historical student to digest. In view of the decisive influence exercised by Alexander III. upon the fate of Alexander of Battenberg, I cannot in conclusion resist quoting from a brilliant character-sketch of the former-much the most vivid and convincing that I have yet seen-contained in a report sent by General von Schweinitz to Prince Bismarck in January, i886, and communicated by him to Count Kailnoky.

" He led a model family life, but looked on his position more from the private standpoint than from that of the state. Russian interests were to him predominantly personal interests, although he was a Russian patriot. He was a strong, firm character, open, honest and serious; lies and hypocrisy were repulsive to him, but he felt himself God's anointed and laid literal claim to boundless exercise of his will. He had the highest conception of the Tsardom and was jealous of maintaining his autocratic position. Good-humoured, peaceable and very fond of quiet, he would have been extremely happy to play at home with wife and children, in a narrow boyar circle, to eat simply but amply, to fish and shoot, and rule as patriarch over a peasant people, mild, economical, harsh to evildoers. His understanding was limited, he found it difficult to see through both men and things. Broad interests of state he could not grasp, his scanty education hampered him, and experience brought home to him a sense of these deficiencies. He often felt very keenly that others were superior to him in understanding and knowledge, and as he felt his position threatened by this, he was not only distrustful of those more intellectually gifted than himself, but also inwardly jealous and even hostile to them. Thus official intercourse with him was difficult, he let no one near him gladly, avoided so far as possible personal conversations, often cut them short by autocratic decisions, and liked best to work alone with documents and reports, without consulting the Ministers. He expected everything from God and the exalted nature of Tsardom-even to some extent to be made capable of conducting affairs-an expectation which partook of something mystical. Naturally he was often deceived, and no less naturally he was strongly influenced by those whom he trusted. As soon as he was aware of foreign influences and scented any personal




interest behind them, he lost confidence and drove the man roughly from him. Strong national feeling, mediocre culture, simplicity of thought, were his main qualities. European culture made him shy, because he did not quite understand it, yet felt its superiority. Hence he was surrounded partly by clever ruse persons who assumed an air of simplicity, partly by extremely mediocre persons-simple country noblemen. The personal behaviour in the Emperor's house was such as would not have been tolerated in an European upper class house. Blunt and brutal as his habits was the Tsar's body: and it was known that his fist could compete with any athlete's.

" The more complicated the Government's political situation was, the more easily did Alexander III. succumb to the deception and influence of passionate and wily persons. He was soon surrounded by a web of lies and deliberate intrigue, in a small circle of persons who followed distinct and dangerous aims. Where his personal distrust was not awakened, he was of childlike credulity and trust. This circle (among them women) knew how to fill him with ideas which turned universally known facts quite topsy-turvy: and it was hard to destroy such ideas, because by renouncing them he felt hurt in his dignity, and his strong self-consciousness resisted confessing bad mistakes either to himself or to others. He was far rather inclined, in the face of commonsense reasons, to rely on the divine inspiration of Tsardom. Thus it came about that he remained in very great uncertainty as to conditions inside and outside Russia, and that his actions were decided partly by lack of judgment and partly by super- stition. He was convinced that the Nihilists were godless, the Russian people rich and contented; that in Russia there was full religious tolerance and every minor could adopt the faith he thought best. In home administration he always wished to be just, but was harsh and brutal against what seemed to him resistance or wrong. Towards high dignitaries he was very reserved. He was in continual fear of assassination, and hence very suspicious and nervously irritated by any unusual occurrence. An unusual noise might lead him to use his bodily strength against the first person he met.

" On the whole he was honorable, virtuous, slow (schwerfallig), without passion, of limited intelligence, intended for a quiet and easy- going life. For a statesman he lacked the necessary love of work, ambition and good judgment, no less than the love of ruling and acute perception. One who knew how to keep his knowledge in the back- ground, to take religion and autocracy as his foundation, to be simple, to suggest thoughts to him indirectly in the course of discussion, and not to betray superiority or arouse jealousy, such a man could win influence and be acceptable to the Tsar. A straightforward person only too soon fell out with this character, in itself so straight and open." As Count Corti aptly points out, this last trait explains the conflict between the Tsar and Prince Alexander.

R. W. SETON-WATSON.



Documents

Alexander von Battenberg: Sein Kampf mit den Zaren und Bismarckby E. C. Corti