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Bismarck’s Speech to the Prussian House of Deputies on the "Polish Question" (January 28, 1886)

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In respect to the [present subject of discussion], when I was ambassador to St. Petersburg [1859-1862], I was prepared to take a personal role, not only in foreign policy, but in Prussia's policy with regard to Germany. While there I could observe from close quarters Russian relations to the Poles, this because of the great personal trust bestowed upon me by the late Tsar Alexander II [1855-1881]. I gained the conviction that within the Russian cabinet there were two principles at work: the first, which I would call anti-German, wished to acquire the good will of the Poles and the French; it was represented in the main by the prime-minister Prince Gortchakov and by Marquis Wielopolski in Warsaw. The second, held mainly by the tsar and other of his servants, had its basis in maintaining friendly relations with Prussia at all costs. Thus, we can say: a pro-Prussian, anti-Polish policy warred with a Francophile Polish policy for precedence in the Russian cabinet. [ . . . ]

Because of this my [later] position as foreign minister toward the Russian cabinet was somewhat prefigured. [Another result] was that we could expect from the other European cabinets – I won't say support, but toleration for our [Prussian] German policy. And for this I had special interest in cultivating relations with Petersburg. It was hard for me because I knew that despite striving for one and the same goal as the majority of my countrymen in this house of the people's representatives, I could not count on the support or cooperation of a single one of them. The contrary was the case. We were in an extraordinary position. They [deputies to the Prussian lower house] tried to extort from me the confidential secrets of the convention [with Russia] which would have delivered the means for the rest of the European cabinets to persecute us, to make known to them our weaknesses and errors. This would have enabled – I cannot put it otherwise – Paris and London to indict us because of the pro-Russian policy we were pursuing. [These attempts] were not without success.

By accident, in 1870, I received evidence through a number of French documents that fell into our hands that members of the opposition [liberal deputies in the Prussian lower house] had made contact with the French embassy here. (“Hear, hear!” from the right.) I shall continue to keep the secret because I do not regard publication of it as useful. Twenty-three years have passed, and many political conceptions have been altered. Everyone has learned something about politics since then. Political education is different today.

In any case, we were in a very serious, wholly isolated position when the debates about the Poles took place in these halls. At the beginning of the Polish insurrection [1863], I found in Paris a rather favorable judgment [toward the Poles]. They were more anti-Russian than anti-Prussian. However, the debates in the Prussian lower house acted as a sort of call to arms to foreigners. The tenor [of the debates] was something like the English motto: hit him, he has no friend. This led to our being denounced in Paris; then the Emperor Napoleon changed his views and he began to exert an unfriendly pressure on us. Because of the proceedings in this Prussian-German hall, we might well have fallen to the tightening pressure exerted by a united England, France, and Austria into either a shameful retreat or into acceptance of a war (which Russia was inclined to in 1863) as an ally of Russia. [That this did not happen] we owe ultimately to the pro-German tendencies of old Lord Russell in England. England rejected attaching itself to France's objectives. We found ourselves isolated and in danger. Prussia was not then as strong as now; we did not have the Germanic Confederation behind us.* I stood on this exact same spot and was met in these halls by a flood of scorn and hatred from an almost unanimous assembly. I thought then: Well, now, the English and French ambassadors are less hateful and hostile toward me than my own countrymen in the Prussian parliament. (“Hear, hear!” on the right; unrest on the left.)



* Rather than return to the chaotic pre-Napoleonic situation in German-speaking Europe, the Congress of Vienna created the Deutscher Bund (1815-1866), a confederation of 38 states under the presidency of Austria.

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