Imaginary dialogue between Alfred Nobel and Bertha von Suttner
by Charactorium · Bertha von Suttner (1843 — 1914) · Society · Literature · Politics · 6 min read
It is an autumn evening in 1895, in the study of Alfred Nobel, among the neatly arranged vials and the acrid smell of chemicals that the old chemist never managed to banish from his walls. Under the lamp, a stack of papers awaits signing — a will about which he still says nothing. Bertha von Suttner has come to see him, as in the distant days of Paris, and speaks with the frankness of a friendship that has weathered twenty years of letters. It is not the dynamite merchant who questions her tonight, but a tormented man who wants to know whether his friend's ideal is madness or the future.
—Dear friend, do you remember that spring of 1876, when you came to Paris in response to my advertisement? You stayed only a week.
How could I forget? I was then an impoverished countess, polyglot and desperate, and you were looking for a trusted secretary. I remember your office, your silences, that melancholy that made you so different from the men of fortune I knew. Then a letter arrived from Austria — Arthur begged me to return — and I left on a whim, leaving you alone with your machines. I have often thought I treated you badly by fleeing like that. But you wrote to me, and you never stopped. From that aborted week was born the only friendship that never asked me to renounce my convictions. You were my first stern reader, dear Alfred.
From that aborted week was born the only friendship that never asked me to renounce my convictions.
—Our letters since have weighed more than many treaties. Do you truly believe, dear Baroness, that correspondence can influence a man like me?
I do, otherwise I would not have used so much ink to torment you. You manufacture explosives, and I write to you that science should serve life, not death — what audacity, you will say, from one who owes you so much. But I know you: beneath the irony, you are gnawed by the use the military makes of your inventions. I never wanted to burden you, only to turn your genius toward another cause. A letter does not change a man in a day; it plants a seed, and one never knows which winter will make it germinate. You are my longest patience.
A letter does not change a man in a day; it plants a seed.
—Let us talk about your novel. When Die Waffen nieder! appeared in 1889, I was told your editor found you almost scandalous. Is it true?
Scandalous, yes — and above all improper, because a woman was not supposed to describe the mud of battlefields, open bellies, widows. My editor hesitated so much that he demanded I commit to buying fifteen hundred copies myself, as if betting against his own author. I signed without trembling. The book was translated into a dozen languages, and today it circulates from one end of Europe to the other. I was told that Count Tolstoy himself compared it to that great American novel that shook slavery, and that he saw in it something that could change the course of history. I did not write a masterpiece, dear friend: I wrote a cry.
I did not write a masterpiece, dear friend: I wrote a cry.
—You tell war through the voice of a woman who endures it. Why this bias, when all books celebrate generals?
Because war, as it really is, no one had told it. Statesmen speak of it in their dispatches, generals in their victory reports — but the wounded in the mire, the fatherless children, who gives them a voice? I made Martha, my heroine, speak because a woman sees what glory hides: the return of the dead, empty houses. I lived from afar the defeat of Sadowa in 1866, I heard the accounts of 1870; I invented nothing, I only refused to look away. A uniform makes war beautiful; a hospital bed makes it real. That is the truth I wanted to put before the eyes of ministers.
A uniform makes war beautiful; a hospital bed makes it real.
—You were born Countess Kinsky. Does not that rank, which you claim to despise, help you force open the doors of courts and chancelleries?
You know me too well for me to deny it. Yes, my birth is a passport, and I use it without scruple. A commoner bearing petitions would be turned away in the antechamber; Countess von Suttner, however, is received, listened to, sometimes even feared. I enter diplomatic congresses, I address emperors and ministers, I hand them our requests in person. My own circle takes offense — an aristocrat pleading for disarmament, what a reversal! But I prefer to scandalize my peers rather than let this voice be lost. The title that chance gave me, I place at the service of what my conscience commands. It is the only honest way to bear a coat of arms.
I prefer to scandalize my peers rather than let this voice be lost.
—You demand arbitration, disarmament. I who make gunpowder — admit that I find you naive. How do you respond to that?
I respond as I have already written to you twenty times: disarmament is not a utopia, it is a calculation. The nations that have submitted their disputes to international arbitration have proven that a serious conflict can be resolved without shedding a drop of blood. What a few states have accomplished, all can do — provided they have the will. War is not a law of nature; it is an institution that men have built and that men can dismantle. You call me naive; I call you a prisoner of your century. International law will eventually settle the quarrels of peoples as law already settles those of neighbors. We only need courts where there are still only cannons.
War is not a law of nature; it is an institution that men have built and that men can dismantle.
—You are already called the “queen of peace.” Does this glory intoxicate you, dear friend, or do you find it useless to the cause?
It both amuses and embarrasses me. “Queen of peace” — what a title for a woman whose only crown is her inkwell! Fame is only valuable if it serves: when my name opens a congress hall or gets one more article read, I gladly accept it. But I distrust honors that lull one to sleep. What I want is not admiration, but action. A brilliant distinction, you see, could do more: if a great prize were one day to reward those who work for the fraternity of nations, it would give our movement a dignity that governments could no longer ignore. The glory of a person fades; that of an idea is transmitted.
What I want is not admiration, but action.
—Since you speak of prizes… Imagine a wealthy man wanted to devote his death to rewarding peace. What would you advise him?
I can tell from your look that this man is not so imaginary. I would tell him this: let his reward go not to isolated dreamers, but to those who build — the architects of arbitration, the founders of congresses, the drafters of treaties. The peace movement is not the dream of a few idealists; it is the reasonable response of a humanity that understands that new weapons lead only to the ruin of civilization. Such a prize would be a beacon: it would tell the world that serving concord is worth as much as winning a battle. And if this man seeks to repair what his inventions have armed, he will find no finer redemption. Do it, Alfred. Do not leave it to others to guess your heart.
Such a prize would be a beacon: serving concord is worth as much as winning a battle.
—You sometimes worry me. Do you feel, as I do, that this prosperous, heavily armed Europe is rushing toward some catastrophe?
I feel it every morning when I unfold the newspapers. They celebrate progress, machines, railways — and at the same time the general staffs count their cannons and regiments as others count riches. This Belle Époque, whose carefree spirit is praised, sleeps on a powder keg; you, better than anyone, know what powder I mean. Nationalisms are flaring up, alliances are being tied like ropes around the continent's neck. If nothing stops this race, a war will come, more terrible than any I have described, for new weapons will kill not by thousands but by millions. I am no prophetess, dear friend; I only know how to read what is written on the front page.
This Belle Époque, whose carefree spirit is praised, sleeps on a powder keg.
—And if, despite all your letters and all your books, this war still breaks out? Will your struggle have been in vain?
No, never. All my life, I have been convinced that war is not a fatality, but something men have created and men can abolish. This conviction has guided me in every article, every speech, every letter to the powerful. If the catastrophe occurs despite us, it will only prove that we did not shout loudly enough, not early enough — but it will not prove we were wrong. Ideas do not die with those who carry them; they wait, patiently, until a generation weary of bleeding comes to pick them up. One day, people will laugh at having believed war necessary, as they now laugh at having believed torture just. I may not see that day. But I work for it, and you, in your own way, do too.
Ideas do not die with those who carry them; they wait until a generation weary of bleeding comes to pick them up.
This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Bertha von Suttner's profile. It dramatises what the figure might have said based on what we know about them, but does not constitute attested historical testimony. For primary sources and factual documentation, refer to the full profile.