The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-12-09
COUNT BIsMARoK,s MANNERS.
From the London Spectator.

IL is said on very questlona bic authority
that M. Theirs has privately spoken of Count
Bismarck as a powerful statesman, but for
the rest "a barbarian" officially, he speaks
most courteously of the Counts demeanor-
and a more trustworthy authority, Mr. Rus
sell, the Times correspondent at Versailles,
has reported, in relation to M. Theirs visit,
that Count Bismarck is 'most winning when
he likes it, but not slow to anger, it is Haid.
All the latest evidence seems to show that the
great Prussian statesman, while singdarly
accessible to the external world, for his Own
purposes even counting observation aud
familiar communication with the missellane-
ous crowd which Graves Intercourse with
public men, not unfrequently pats
unpleasant communications with an even
ostentatious acerbity intended to exaggerate
their responsiveness. His contemptuously
epigrammatic description of the Paris Govern
ment of Defense as 1.-The gentlemen of tbs
pavement'-his reported request to Nj.
Theirs to tell him l0bjch French Republic he
might happen to be represent ting that of
ParSs, that of Tours, or that of Lyons-are
cases in point. A still more authentic illus
tration of his manner is the bitter scorn with
which in his last circular he declares that ION
the French side the only consequence of the
armistice would have been the Abandonment
by them of the inexplicable course they pursue
of wasting their artillery munitions by firing
the guns Of their forts, as if Count Bismarck
had never heard of such thing as powerful
sortie which might break through the lines
of the besiegers, and did not think it worth
while to admit SO trivial consideration as
that another months consumption of provi-
sions might leave the new army of Paris too
hungry and ill-fed for any great effort of the
kind Yet in another part of the circular he
treats the revictualling of Paris as demand
upon the Germans "to sacrifice the fruits
of all the efforts we had made during two
months, and the advantages we
had achieved" How so? If the French
were asked to make no sacrifice when invit ed
to conclude the armistice without revictual-
ling, how could the Germans be making so
tremendous sacrifice in allowing the revic-
tualling? II the Germans in giving up a
months progress towards the starvation of
Paris would be giving up 50 much, how could
the French in refusing to accede to a months
progress towards starvation, without any
attempt to help themselves, be giving up
nothing? If the Germans believe that it
would bring them a month nearer to success,
clearly the French have right to believe it
would bring them mon'h nearor to failure.
The status gao is not con ceded to the French,
if at the end of the armiStice they are in O far
Jrse position than at the beginning of it;
and this must be SO, if Count Bismarck
thinks that to leave Paris with as
much food a month hence as she has now,
Germany. But we are not at all concerned
now with the question at issue, except as
proving that Count Bismarck uses supertluous
scorn in his diplomacy-scorn which he
knows to be scorn, and which he means to
have the effect of scorn. It is plain enough,
from M. Thiers' account of the discussion,
that the idea of victualing was accepted by
Count Bismarck at first as a not inadmissible
condition of armistice; but that it was re-
al hu hn M
the absurd price of the surrender of "a fort,
and perhaps more than one" and that there
upon, when the government of Paris closed
the negotiation, Count Bismarck thought it
good policy to he surprised and disgusted
with France, to accuse the French Govern
ment of insincerity in the negotiation from
the first, and of having only accepted
the conditions in order not to offend the
neutral powers whose help they want to gain.
M. Thiers expressly states that 1.-The q1es-
tion of revictuaing did not at first give rise
to any fundamental objection on the part of
the Chancellor Why, then, when it is
pressed, affect this scornful astonishment
aud deal out these superhuous charges of in
sincerity? Clearly this must be due either to
habit or policy of scorn. There was no
reason why Count Bismarck should not have
admitted the intrinsic difficulty of concluding
an armistice preserving the status QuO, and
have freely acknowledged that while the
refusal to admit revictualling would entail a
terrible disadvantage on France, the assent
to this condition would have caused far too
great a sacrifice to Germany. Such a con-
fession would have e2abled him to break
off the negotiations without fresh
acrimony. But Count Bismarck-though
singularly polite, when he wishes to be SO
in personal interviews, as nj. Thiers can at
test-appears to regard diplomatic circulars
as, in some sense, opportunities of attack,
even though his armies are already in the
field, and cannot keep his hands off France
when he has an opportunity for moral blows.
M. Thiers' circular in relation to his recent
mission is far less aggressive on Germany
than is Count Bismarck's on France. NJ.
Thiers states the facts courteousy enough,
and leaves them. The German Chancellor
half states the facts, and dashes them, as il
were, contemptuously at the head of the Pro
Yisional Government.
What is the secret of this superhuously az.
gressive manner in so strong a man--for a
manner il has al ways been ever since Count
Bismarcks entrance on public life,
though it has grown vastly in the last
few months? His dispatches to
Austria and to the German Bund in 1856
were curt and dictstorial enough, though no.
thing to the circulars of 1870. Is it the re.
suit of deliberate policy? Is it the overflow
of an intense interior arrogance? Or is il
the outbreak of irrepressible irritation against
the French for not knowing when they are
beaten, and giving Count Bismarck so much
more trouble than he had calculated upon?
We suspect it is due in part to all these
motives. That Count Bismarck thinks il
GOOD policV to be oyerbearino the whOla hi /