Peace Fury & the Dynamite King

In 1892, ALFRED NOBEL, the inventor of dynamite, nicknamed “The Dynamite King” and BERTHA VON SUTTNER (née KINSKY, Countess of von Wchinitz und Tettau) cruise Lake Geneva in his aluminum motorboat. It their last visit. Never again will they be able to express in person their affection for each other or regret for what might have been.

But Bertha has planted a seed of an idea that will not bear fruit until after Nobel’s death.

*****

In 1873, Bertha, at 30, is over-the-hill. Daughter of an Austrian Field Marshal, her mother has gambled away the family fortune. Despite a beautiful operatic singing voice, debilitating stage fright precludes a performing career. Her fiancé, an equally talented singer, dies at sea.

Reduced to being governess for a rich family, her only benefit is the rare encounter with the family’s son, ARTHUR GUNDCAR VON SUTTNER, seven years her junior. Their mutual attraction, however, does not go unnoticed by his mother, who sends Bertha packing –

– to become the secretary to Alfred Nobel, one of the wealthiest men in Europe, the inventor of dynamite and colloquially named The Dynamite King.

Now 43, chronically morose, Nobel’s own life’s journey has not been without travail. His father, a brilliant but irascible inventor, twice bankrupted, adored his Nobel’s younger brother, Emil, who died in an explosion at Nobel’s Stockholm laboratory.

Nobel’s attraction when he meets Bertha is immediate. They dine out and stroll the streets of Paris. He does everything in his immense power and wealth to make Bertha feel welcome –

– except commit. Many years previously, Nobel’s sweetheart hid perished, and he has renounced all future attachments.

When a letter to Bertha arrives from Arthur, saying that he can no longer live without her, Bertha returns to Vienna to find Arthur disowned by his family.

Nobel is devastated by Bertha’s departure but remains in close contact by letter and the rare visit over decades.

Their lives take vastly different trajectories.

Bertha and Arthur elope, embarking upon a marriage marked by poverty and hardship but also sacrifice. They flee to the Caucasus, through the battle-torn Russo-Turkish border.

Alfred suffers scandal and betrayal by his brilliant business partner, Paul Barbe.

Working in a military hospital, Bertha sees first hand the damage inflicted by the militarism that she once held so dear. Inflamed, inspired, Bertha writes a novel, Lay Down Your Arms, a dramatic call to the nations to end all armed conflict.

Nobel starts a long and unfulfilling relationship with a working class store clerk, Sophie Hess, the spitting image of Bertha but nowhere close in terms of intellect or emotion.

Bertha’s novel is published, and instead of selling a few copies, thousands are sold, stirring the entire continent.

When Nobel invents a smokeless powder, ballistite, the French government refuses to buy it. It persecutes and almost jails him for selling it to the Italians. Nobel flees to San Remo.

Bertha has become a luminary in the burgeoning international antiwar movement.

Nobel dies alone, mumbling in Swedish to attendants who do not speak the language.

*****

Separated by life, Bertha and Nobel were reunited after Nobel’s death by the prize Bertha inspired and which she won by universal acclaim of her own relentlessly antiwar efforts. Besides being the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, she was the first woman to ever win an unshared Prize.