92 PREUSSEN
who hoped that Bismarck might intervene against Russia and reestablish a
Polish state under Prussian protection. They should have known better. The
Chancellor had already made his personal feelings about the Poles perfectly
clear. 'Personally, I sympathize with their position,' he wrote in 1862; 'but if we
want to exist, we cannot do other than extirpate them. A wolf is not to blame
that God made him as he is; which does not mean that we shouldn't shoot him
to death whenever possible.' In reality, as the British ambassador in Berlin
correctly reported to London, Bismarck was convinced that Prussia would be
'seriously compromised' by the establishment of an independent Poland, and
was likely to take the field against the Poles if the Russians failed to suppress the
Rising unaided. Somewhat later, in 1867, he elaborated his views at length.
Faced in the Landtag by a Polish deputy, who had quoted Macaulay on the
crime of the Partitions, and was demanding recognition of 'Polish rights',
Bismarck launched into an inimitable tirade in defence of the Prussian govern-
ment's conduct both in the past and at present:
The Polish Republic owed its destruction much less to foreigners than to the inconceiv-
able worthlessness of those persons who represented the Polish nation when it was bro-
ken up... The participation of the Germans in the mutilation of Poland was a necessary
compliance with the law of self-preservation... Gentlemen, if you contest the right of
conquest, you cannot have read the history of your own country. It is thus that states are
formed... The Poles themselves committed the crime of conquest a hundredfold...
After the Battle of Tannenberg, Polish ravages in West Prussia left only three thousand
of nineteen thousand German villages unscathed... Polonisation was pursued by fire
and sword, Germanisation by culture... (Nowadays) Germanisa-tion is making satis-
factory progress ... by which we do not mean the dissemination of the German language,
but that of German morality and culture, the upright administration of justice, the ele-
vation of the peasant, and the prosperity of the towns. The peasant from being a
despised, ill-used vassal of some noble tyrant is become a free man, the owner of the soil
he cultivates. Nobody plunders him now but the usurious Jew. German farmers,
machines, and manufactories have promoted agriculture and husbandry. Railways and
good roads have increased the general well-being... Schools organised after the German
pattern impart elementary instruction to Polish children. Gymnazia teach the higher sci-
ences, not by the hollow, mechanical methods of the Jesuit fathers, but in the solid
German way which enables people to think for themselves. Army service completes
whatever is left unachieved by the schools. In the Army, the young Polish peasant learns
to speak and to read German. Through what he is taught in his company or squadron,
and through intercourse with the German inhabitants of the garrison towns, he acquires
ideas which enrich and emancipate his poor and fettered intelligence... Instead of grum-
bling perpetually, the Poles should look about them and gratefully acknowledge all that
has been done for their country and its population under the Prussian regime ... In the
province of Posen, there are schools... gymnazia... seminaries, an asylum for the deaf
and dumb, a madhouse, and a school for gardeners ... I can proudly say that the portion
of the whilom Polish Republic now under Prussian rule enjoys a degree of well-being,
loyal security, and popular attachment as never existed, nor was ever even dreamed of
within the limits of the Polish realm since the commencement of Polish history... The
Polish-speaking subjects of Prussia have not been tempted to take part in demonstrations