A History of Zionism (18 page)

But even among Zionists the reaction was at best lukewarm. No one had ever heard of Herzl in Jewish-national circles. Did he suddenly wish to arrogate to himself the leadership of a movement? Why had he not mentioned in his pamphlet the existence of Jewish colonies in Palestine, the activities of the Lovers of Zion in various countries, the fact that his analysis of antisemitism as well as many of his constructive proposals were by no means novel? The obvious explanation, that Herzl simply was not aware of these things, did not occur to anyone. There was severe criticism to come particularly from the cultural Zionists such as Ahad Ha’am: was there anything specifically Jewish about a Jewish state as Herzl envisaged it? Herzl was not a Hebrew language enthusiast: ‘Who among us would be capable of buying a railway ticket in Hebrew?’ he asked. The pamphlet was of course anathema to the east European Zionists for whom the cultural renaissance was a central issue in their doctrine.

Given the lack of response on the one hand, the ridicule and hostility on the other, it would not have been surprising had Herzl dropped the whole idea then and there, as he had indeed intimated in his pamphlet, for his original intention had been only to restart the discussion. But had he done this, the judgment of many of his Viennese contemporaries would have been justified, namely that Herzl was a mere litterateur, a feuilletonist playing with ideas and concepts, considering and then dropping them once he got bored, the familiar syndrome of the Viennese
fin-de-siècle
intelligentsia. But these contemporaries misjudged Herzl just as twenty years later they were to misjudge the Russian revolutionaries whom they had known in the coffee houses and whom no one expected to start and lead a revolution. For Herzl was serious. Once the idea had taken hold of him he was like a man possessed. The transformation of a dandy and man of letters into a leader and man of action was nothing short of miraculous but it was very real. He sacrificed everything to his idea and to the movement – his marriage (which admittedly had been on the rocks for a number of years), his money, and his health. From now on every free minute was to be devoted to Zionism. This transformation was a complex process, coinciding with a personal crisis in his life, and it is no doubt correct, as has been argued, that the narcissistic streak in his character played a great part in it.
*
Herzl relished the role of the Messiah-King which he was to assume during the years to come. But only a man truly possessed would have taken on the leadership of a cause which seemed doomed to fail. He had no illusions in this respect; a year later, when the Zionist movement was advancing, he wrote in his diary: ‘I have only an army of
schnorrers.
I stand in command of a mass of youth, beggars and jackasses.’

Herzl lived for eight years after the publication of
Der Judenstaat.
These were hectic years of diplomatic and organisational activity. The foremost task was of course to create a mass basis, to build up a strong movement. His idea of winning the ‘money Jews’ first and carrying out a ‘revolution from above’ had to be given up. But he also knew that he would not succeed in getting a strong following among his own people unless he had some successes to show in the diplomatic field. No one was likely to listen to his message unless there was real hope of obtaining a charter from the sultan. And so he hurried from one European capital to another, trying to establish connections with the mighty of this world, seeking audiences with the sultan and the German emperor, with the Pope and King Victor Emmanuel, with Joseph Chamberlain and Lord Cromer, with Plehve and Witte – the key figures in tsarist Russia. In between, almost single-handed, he organised the first Zionist world congresses, established the central Zionist newspaper (
Die Welt
), and ran the day-today affairs of the growing movement. He also wrote for his newspaper,
Die Neue Freie Presse
– for this, and not the leadership of the Zionist movement, was his pass-key in the chancelleries of Europe. He had to attend personally to even the smallest details. When he first went to Constantinople he had not only to think up convincing arguments to sell Zionism to the sultan, but had also to buy strawberries, peaches, and bundles of asparagus for the sultan’s flunkeys, their wives and ganymedes at the Hotel Sacher.

Herzl was an imposing figure and his bearing became almost regal as he assumed the leadership of the movement. One of the delegates at the first Zionist congress, Ben Ami, gave the following account:

This is no longer the elegant Dr Herzl of Vienna; it is a royal descendant of David arisen from the grave who appears before us in the grandeur and beauty with which legend has surrounded him. Everyone is gripped as if a historical miracle had occurred … it was as if the Messiah, son of David, stood before us. A powerful desire seized me to shout through this tempestuous sea of joy:
Jechi Hamelech
, Long live the King.

Zangwill, the Anglo-Jewish writer, was a more sophisticated man, less given to sudden enthusiasm, but he too was deeply impressed: ‘A majestic oriental figure, not so tall as it appears when he draws himself up and stands dominating the assembly with eyes that brood and glow – you would say one of the Assyrian kings whose sculptured heads adorn our museums.’ Herzl was in some respects the ideal diplomat. He could exude great charm, his manners were impeccable, he had great self-possession; the years in Paris had made him a man of the world. But the kings and their ministers, unlike the delegates to a Zionist congress, were not swayed by moral pathos and romantic visions. Their first question was always: whom does he represent? And of what possible benefit can he be to us?

What could Herzl say in reply? In the early phases of his activity he represented no one but himself, and later on a dedicated but uninfluential minority among the Jewish communities. It was most doubtful moreover, whether this small group of visionaries could be of assistance to anyone, even to weak and impoverished Turkey, which held the key to all of his schemes. In the circumstances it was miraculous that he even gained access to dukes and ambassadors, and later to kings and ministers. His two chief aides in the diplomatic field, both non-Jews, were, to put it mildly, highly unconventional people. William Hechler, chaplain at the British Embassy in Vienna, believed that according to the prophets Palestine was to be restored to the Jews, and he was firmly resolved to do his share towards the fulfilment of this biblical prophecy. He had been tutor to the son of the Grand Duke of Baden, and knew the German emperor, and could thus provide useful introductions in Berlin.

Philip Michael Nevlinsky, an impoverished nobleman, had been a minor Austrian official in Turkey until he incurred debts which compelled him to leave the diplomatic service. He then established a newspaper,
Correspondance de l’Est
, devoted to Turkish and Near Eastern affairs. He knew a great many people in the Turkish capital, and once on Herzl’s payroll could provide useful contacts. Herzl was already in two minds about his two closest diplomatic advisers: Hechler (‘an impecunious clergyman with a taste for travel’) he thought a naïve enthusiast with a streak of collector’s mania – an incredible figure when looked at with the quizzical eyes of a Viennese Jewish journalist – ‘but I have to imagine that people altogether different from us see him quite differently’. Perhaps he was after all a suitable instrument for Herzl’s purposes? Nevlinsky was an even greater riddle: far better educated than most noblemen, he was both payable and proud, wily and sincere. He was, as Herzl wrote in June 1896, the most interesting figure he had met since taking up the Jewish cause. Herzl had merely wanted to use him as an instrument, but had come to love and respect him. One year later he was less certain; both Hechler and Nevlinsky were to attend the first Zionist congress: ‘It will be one of my tasks to keep them from seeing too much of each other.’

When Nevlinsky died in April 1899 it transpired that his newspaper had been a swindle: ‘A dozen subscribers, and blackmail did the rest’. A Turkish diplomat told Herzl that the late-lamented secret agent had cheated Herzl, had never brought his ideas to the knowledge of the sultan and his advisers, but on the contrary had volunteered to spy on him for the Turks. Nevlinsky took most of his secrets with him to the grave. He was, as Herzl wrote, ‘never presentable’, and those who made use of him always took care to conceal the fact. He had cost Herzl a great deal of money, but then he could have done the Zionists a great deal of harm. Herzl concluded that it was impossible to establish whether ‘he had done anything for us with the sultan or even if he was in a position to do so’. And yet Nevlinsky had shown courage and concern: ‘He seems in my eyes, after his death, to loom head and shoulders above the whole scum -to sink to whose company was the tragic blunder of his life.’
*

A small circle of young Zionists rallied to Herzl’s side after the publication of the
Judenstaat
, mainly members of the Vienna Jewish students organisations. There were also encouraging letters from Galicia and Bulgaria. Two early converts were David Wolffsohn and Max Nordau. The former, born in Lithuania, became a timber merchant in Cologne and was one of the leaders of the German Lovers of Zion. An eminently practical man, he was rooted to a far greater degree than Herzl in Jewish tradition and was the first to explain to Herzl that without the active help of the Jewish masses in eastern Europe his whole scheme would remain no more than an abstract construction. Max Nordau, like Herzl born in Budapest, was Herzl’s senior by eleven years. When Herzl came to know him in Paris he was already one of Europe’s best known literary essayists. In fact his
Conventional Lies
and
Degeneration
were the best-sellers of the 1880s and 1890s. He was to play a leading role in the Zionist movement up to the outbreak of the first world war, even though he lacked that ultimate measure of devotion and self-sacrifice which Herzl brought to the movement.

These then were Herzl’s earliest supporters and sympathisers. There was no Zionist organisation, not even the nucleus of one when he set out on his first self-imposed diplomatic mission. The Grand Duke of Baden, one of the more sympathetic of the German princes, with whom he had a long conversation, was impressed by Herzl’s personality and promised to intervene with the German emperor on his behalf. But the key to success or failure was in Constantinople, and Herzl decided to go there before trying his luck in the European capitals. He saw the grand vizir, the secretary-general of the Foreign Ministry, and a great many other officials, but he did not succeed in meeting the sultan, who in running the government often ignored even his closest advisers. It was Herzl’s intention on this as on his subsequent visits to explain to the Turkish officials that the Jews could help them to reassert their independence
vis-à-vis
foreign powers by providing major loans. On more than one occasion he referred to the story of Androcles and the lion. The thorn to be removed by the Jews was of course the Turkish debt. In return he asked that the Jews should be given Palestine as a vassal state.

But the sultan and most of his advisers had no intention of giving away any part of the Ottoman empire. They were willing to consider Jewish immigration into Asia Minor, but the newcomers would have to adopt Turkish citizenship and their colonies would have to be scattered, not concentrated in one area. The Turks also had doubts about Herzl’s real influence. On whose behalf was he speaking, and did he really have the necessary money at his disposal? Herzl was of course bluffing. He had as yet no organisational support behind him, and the leading Jewish communities and the great banking families wanted nothing to do with his schemes. He simply hoped that he would be able to raise both political and financial support on the strength of a promise from the sultan. The Turks probably realised this but did not want to turn him down altogether; perhaps his presence in Constantinople would act as a spur to other, more substantial, financial offers from other quarters.

Herzl returned from Constantinople with the
Medjidje
order and some vague promises. He had made no tangible progress at all, but at least he had been received and listened to. The news about his mission spread through the Jewish world and sparked off many exaggerated hopes. At Sofia railway station masses of Jews were waiting for him, their spokesman kissed his hand, he was hailed in speeches as the Leader, the Heart of Israel. Herzl was dumbfounded, embarrassed, and profoundly moved. So far he had appealed to the rich and powerful, who had rejected him; his confrontation with the French Rothschilds still lay ahead, but the outcome was to be as negative as other such meetings in the past. The idea of appealing directly to the Jewish masses must have occurred to him just before he went to London, almost immediately after his trip to Turkey. He had been to England the previous year, to try out his Jewish state concept with the Maccabeans, a group of Anglo-Jewish professional men who had given him a sympathetic hearing. Zangwill had expressed support, and in Cardiff a colonel commanding a Welsh regiment had told him: ‘I am Daniel Deronda’. Born a Christian of baptised Jewish parents, he had found his way back to the Jewish people. His daughters, Rahel and Carmela, were learning Hebrew and he, Colonel Goldsmid, wanted to devote his life to the Jewish people.

The second London visit was not a success. Some supporters excused themselves; Colonel Goldsmid had to inspect one of his battalions; Sir Samuel Montagu the banker (on whom Herzl had counted to raise at least £200,000 for a pilot loan to impress the Turks) said that Edmond de Rothschild had to be won over. Herzl’s English publisher told him that he had sold altogether 160 copies of
The Jewish State.
The Maccabean dinner was a flop, and Herzl was to refer to them henceforth as the Pick-wickians. He had genuinely believed that this dining and debating club could be transformed into a militant action committee. But many thousands of poor Jews came to a mass meeting at the Working Man’s Club in the East End, where in a fearful heat Herzl spoke extemporaneously for one hour. He later wrote in his notebook: