der of German unity. Whilst Bismarck won his spurs in the
embassies of Germany and Russia, Buelow received his main training as
Ambassador in Latin countries. He served for five years in Paris. In
Bucharest he imbibed the Byzantine influences of the East. He spent
six years in the Eternal City, which for three thousand years has been
the centre of statecraft, and which even to-day remains the best
training-school of diplomacy. His marriage with an Italian Princess is
another indication of the natural affinities of his temperament, and
an additional proof that he constitutionally preferred the subtle
methods of Rome to the more brutal methods of Brandenburg. Bismarck
was always using threats which he had no intention of carrying out.
Buelow is equally fond of using promises which he is as little disposed
to fulfil. Bismarck was always showing the mailed fist. Buelow prefers
to show the velvet glove. Bismarck wielded the sword of the berserker.
Buelow prefers the rapier of the fencer. Bismarck was stern, irascible,
uncontrolled, titanic, and his whole career was one long and hard
struggle against bitter enemies. Buelow was ever amiable, courteous,
smiling, suave, patient, elusive. He managed equally to conciliate the
Kaiser and Bismarck, Herr Harden and the _Koelnische Volkszeitung_, the
Catholics and the Jews, the industrials and the agrarians. When the
hour of disfavour came, Bismarck retired with his mastiffs among the
pine-woods of Lauenburg, nursing his rancour and revenge. Buelow
retired with quiet and graceful dignity among the statues and the
flowers of the Villa Malta.

V.

In no other aspect of his versatile career did Prince von Buelow show
more resourcefulness than in his skilful handling of the Press. He was
the first German statesman who knew how to discipline and to exploit
public opinion in the interests of Imperial policy. It is true that
already Bismarck had made frequent use of the Press as an instrument
of government, as is abundantly shown by his close association with
Lothar Bucher, with his famulus Moritz Busch, and with Maximilian
Harden. But Bismarck, whilst using the journalists, profoundly
despised them, with the result that "Bismarck's Reptile Press" became
a byword in Europe. Under Buelow's regime the humble pressman rose to
influence and affluence and basked in Ministerial favour. With the
assistance of Mr. Hammann, Prince von Buelow made the Berlin Press
Bureau a sinister power in Europe