Читать книгу Blood and Iron - John Hubert Greusel - Страница 21

At Goettingen, he joined the Hannovera Corps and his record is twenty-eight duels; his face bore many scars, among them a long cut from left jaw to corner of his mouth.

¶ Otto’s mother, who had strong social aspirations and held to the rigid exclusiveness of the upper classes, wished to send her son to an aristocratic university. So she selected Goettingen. Her ideas were to make her son a man of dignity and solid social qualities.

Alas, he became but an indifferent student, excelling principally in dueling, beer-bouts in college taverns, dog-fighting, flirting, and general deviltries unnumbered, for which he spent considerable time in the college dungeon. Listen to this:

¶ Many years ago, in his roaring student days, long before Otto von Bismarck was famous, he received an invitation to a ball, and went to the shoemaker to be measured for high-topped military boots, affected by the beaux of that day. Calling some days later, he was told that it would be impossible to get them finished in time; and he would therefore have to wear his old boots to the ball.

¶ Bismarck scowled and going back to his rooms, whistled for his two ferocious dogs with which he was wont to trail around town; returning to the cobbler’s the daring rascal said in a loud voice: “Mister bootmaker, at a signal from me the dogs will tear you to pieces! I am here to tell you, in the most friendly way in the world, that it is absolutely necessary to have my boots on time.”

¶ Bismarck then went away, but he hired a man to parade up and down in the vicinity of the shop with the two mastiffs; and now and then this man dropped in, and in a voice of sorrow, said to the cobbler: “My master has a terrible temper and I am sorry for you.” At that, the shoemaker told his wife: “Frau, I am going to work all night, to get Herr Bismarck’s boots finished in time for that ball!”

¶ It is needless to add that young Bismarck had his boots on time.

¶ In discussing Bismarck’s life and personality many writers will tell you that the man is inconsistency itself; advocating now what in a year he will recant; that for this and other reasons it is baffling to try to make a picture many-sided enough to portray adequately his complex life.

¶ On the contrary, Bismarck, once you get the biographic clue, is as open, free and direct as the light of the noonday sun. And the story of the poor cobbler and the boots is all there is to it!

Repeat this story in a hundred and one forms, and the same man is always behind.

¶ Among his cronies, he early gained the name “The Mad Bismarck.” At Goettingen university, Otto fought 28 duels and his face bore his fighting scars.

¶ To scare the girls and to make them shriek and lift their skirts, a sight that the rascal Otto enjoyed, one night at a dance he let loose a small fox in the ball room! And he had ridden like the devil, some 30-odd miles to be at this dance.

¶ As for drinking, no man could put him under the table. Later in life, he invented his own special draught, a combination of champagne and porter; ordinary men dropped under the deadly compound as from a dose of cyanide of potassium, but Otto could drain his quart without taking the tankard from his lips. He soon had all the company under the chairs, like dead soldiers.

¶ Often, at country houses, he fired pistols to awaken guests in the morning.

¶ His groom fell into the canal, the young giant Bismarck leaped in and dragged the drowning man to safety; for this heroic deed, Bismarck won his first medal.

¶ Bismarck’s student life was tempestuous. He was indeed full of the very devil.

His every-day get-up comprised top boots, long hair flowing over the collar of his velveteen jacket; a big brass ring on the first finger of his left hand; two fierce mastiffs trotted sullenly at his side. He trailed around, smoking a long pipe.

¶ The young man’s high animal spirits broke all restraints; he smoked, he drank, he sang, he flirted, and he fought; but as for books, he did as little studying as he could.

He was sent many times to the university “carcer” or prison; an interesting souvenir is still to be seen at Goettingen, the student-prison door, on which Bismarck carved his name in 1832, when he was “doing” ten days for acting as second in a pistol duel.

¶ With a Mecklenburg student, Otto’s great chum, a trip was made through the Hartz mountains, and on returning a wine dinner was offered to other students.

All the fellows drank too much brandy. Bismarck made an inflammatory speech, at table, ending by showing his derision of scholasticism by hurling ink bottles out of the window. For this breach of the rules, he was hauled before the university court. Here, he appeared in outlandish get-up, jack boots, tall hat, long pipe, dressing gown—and coolly asked the proctor what ’twas all about. Bismarck’s huge dogs, with which he was always accompanied, frightened the proctor half to death! Bismarck was promptly fined five thalers for his absurdities; he paid the fine and began studying up more deviltry.

¶ Joining the Hannovera Corps of fighting men, Otto was soon known as “Achilles,” leading the fellows in all sword-play. He fought duel after duel, and finally under the influence of Morley, an American student, decided to switch over from the Hannovera to the Brunswick corps—whereon every Jack in the Hannovera sent Otto a challenge.

¶ On a trip to Jena, the fellows decided on a riot, and were deep in their cups when the Goettingen proctor arrived to bring the runaway Bismarck back, and put him in the “carcer” till he cooled off. The Jena fellows carried on at a great rate to think that the beloved “Achilles” had to leave so unceremoniously, but at the last moment hitched up six horses and paraded Bismarck around town, as a demonstrative fare thee well!

¶ The scene of many of his drinking bouts was “Crown” tavern, an ancient Goettingen resort, where the fellows sat on wooden benches in front of a long bar and drank till they felt like fighting cocks. By the way, it is a bit strange that Otto had such amazing capacity; for he was as thin as a knitting needle.

Among the men Bismarck met at this bar was Albrecht von Roon, who many years later was to become the great Prussian military drill-master.

¶ Bismarck finally left Goettingen in August, ’33; his last duel was with an Englishman who had made fun of the German peasant, describing that worthy as “a dunce in a night cap, whose night-dress is made of 39 rags.” The 39 rags was an allusion to the 39 petty German states. Bismarck was already becoming imbued with the “national German faith,” as it was called, and could not let the insult go by.

¶ As a rule, Bismarck was lucky in his sword play. The biggest slash he received was made by Biedenweg, whose sword broke and cut Otto from jaw to lip, on the left cheek—a scar that Bismarck carried to his grave.

¶ Giesseler, the proctor, gave Bismarck a very doubtful letter of recommendation; the duelist and beer-drinker had asked for a transfer to Berlin university. Otto wanted to hear law lectures by Savigny.

¶ He began his Berlin course in a mocking way. There was an unserved jail sentence hanging over Bismarck’s head at Goettingen; and with sham seriousness, as though he were going to turn over a new leaf, Otto humbly set up that, to be strictly honest with the professors, to jail Otto must go and to jail they sent him! But no sooner was he out than he forgot all his good resolutions, and began his mad existence again.

¶ Finally, in May, 1835, he passed his examination in law, or “advocate assistant,” but not without hiring a professional “crammer” to drill him hours and hours—to make up for wasted weeks in beer cellars and with the pretty girls.