a national policy for Prussia. Either in union with Austria, or acting singly for herself, such a policy would have placed Prussia in the right position for helping Germany to that power which belongs to her in Europe.' Bismarck's evening solace, in his years of independent membership, after days engross ed with politics in the Chamber or the clubs, was-beer and tobacco. His Boswellian biographer, in the Book of Count Bismarck, who chronicles small beer not less punctually (as becomes a good German) than greater matters, tells us that towards evening Bismarck was wont to resort to Schwartz's beerhouse, at the corner of the Friedrich's and Leipziger Strassen, in Berlin-a house which was then the chief rendezvous of the Conservative party. At that establishment the 'little dog and all' was Conservative, and never failed to bark at any democratic intruder. One evening, however, either 'Spitz' was off duty, or Bismarck had strayed into a less Conservative beer-house. He had no sooner taken his seat than somebody at a neighbouring table permitted himself to say something very disparaging about some member of the Royal family. Bismarck thereupon reared himself up to his full height and thundered at the offender'Out of the room with you! If you are not out before I have drunk this glass out, I will break it on your pate.'--An angry tumult arose upon this apostrophe, such as was wont to arise upon Bismarck's daily Derbheiten in the Second Chamber. He went on, however, quietly drinking his beer, and when he had finished it, was as good as his word in shying the beer-glass at the offender's head. Deep silence ensued, and Bismarck called to the waiter, as if nothing had happened, 'Kellner, what's to pay for the broken glass?' The coup de verre had succeeded, and the voice of the room was unanimous in a verdict of Served right.' 6 'Les hommes se prennent par la douceur,' says the French proverb. Such as above narrated-and it is not a solitary traitwere the douceurs by which Bismarck disarmed opponents in his hot youth,' if that description is applicable to a man between thirty and forty. Such traits almost justify Mr. Grant Duff's remark that 'the groundtone of Bismarck's character is üßptg.' * A story less violent, but not less characteristic, is told of him on arriving at Frankfort, in 1851, to exercise his first political function. under his present royal master, namely, that of Prussian representative at the Diet of the since dissolved German Confederation. In that capacity Bismarck visited the Austrian * 'Studies in European Politics,' p. 235. President of the Diet, Count Thun. The Count, a 'vornehmer Cavalier' with a sufficient sense of his own superior rank, received the representative of Prussia with scant ceremony, went on smoking his cigar standing, and did not ask his visitor to sit down. The new envoy showed himself-as at all times-equal to the situation, drew out his cigar-case, and said with unruffled ease, May I ask your Excellency for a light?' His Excellency was considerably taken aback Im höchsten Grade verblüfft-but gave Bismarck his light. The latter smoked his cigar, took his seat without ceremony, and opened the conversation. * It may not be an uninstructive subject of consideration for Englishmen-why it was that, from the close of the Revolution year, 1848, Prussian politics took a course so difown constituferent from that which our tional history has led us to think the normal one. The organisation of the army, due to Frederick William I. and Frederick II., had begirt the throne with a military aristocracy not been taken off that basis by the modern founded on a landed basis, and which has reforms of the system. This has preserved that species of modern feudalism in the Prussian army which regards the obligation of loyalty to the Crown as paramount to that of allegiance to any paper or parliamentary constitution. And the course of events has cut out work for the army, the successful performance of which has finally justified, even in the eyes of Prussian popular politicians, the stubborn adherence of the King and his Minister Bismarck to their measures for increasing its strength, taken in direct defiance of decided parliamentary majorities from 1862 to 1866. Count Bismarck has been sometimes compared to Strafford; and his position, during the first four of his years ministry, towards the Prussian Second Chamber, was not very dissimilar to that of the chosen minister of Charles I. The difference was that the Prussian Strafford had for his master a steady single-minded soldier, and that he was able to achieve, as the first result of his policy, an ascendancy of Prussia in Germany, to the exclusion of Austria, at which every true Prussian had aspired as a consummation devoutly to be wished. Now the ends of Strafford had been as much ab horred as his means by the antagonists of Popery and prerogative, who carried all before them in the Long Parliament; and whereas, in England, Parliament was thus predestined to success in its struggle with the Crown-in Prussia the Crown was predestined to success in its struggle with Parliament, because, in the latter case, that struggle was finally seen by all parties to have had for its object what had long been the object of Prussian popular ambition-an ambition, it may be added, which was the natural offspring of the very conditions of Prussian national existence. Prussia,' wrote a Hanoverian statesman, about the beginning of the present century,* is not a country which possesses an army, but an army which possesses a country.' The Prussian Government,' says a French writer, M. Cherbuliez, 'sets its Chambers at defiance, because in Prussia there is nothing really solid in the shape of institutions but the administration and the army.' In a pamphlet recently published, ascribed to one of the leaders of the old Prussian Conservative party, Von Gerlach,t it is observed, 'The soul of Prussia is Prussian royalty, and that royalty is essentially military and feudal. The events of 1866 have proved that there was nothing really popular amongst us but the King and the army.' In the interesting correspondence lately published between Strauss and Renan, in which each asserts the cause of his country with ardour so well tempered as to make us think they both originally mistook their vocation in devoting themselves to polemics instead of politics, Dr. Strauss, after confessing that, with his South-German compatriots generally, he is by no means particularly fond of the Prussians, goes on, nevertheless, to ascribe to them political and military points of superiority, which render Prussian leadership, unpopular as it is, still indispensable to Germany : 'One thing,' he says, 'must be conceded to the North-German-to the Prussian especially he is superior to the South-German as a political animal. This superiority he owes partly to the nature of his country, which, poor in natural resources, compels to labour rather than allures to enjoyment, partly to his history-a history of hard schooling under princes of stern energy-but above all to the general obligation to military service. This obligation renders the State, and the duty owing to the State, ever present to the minds of every class of the population. Every son growing up, every year bringing round the regular season of military exercises, reminds every family in the most direct manner of the * Rehberg. Deutschland am Neujahr, 1870.' State, and not only of the duty owing to the State, but the honour of belonging to it. The war of 1866 had already given our South-Germans much to think of; the present war, it is judgments. They must see that, if they have to be hoped, will complete the maturing of their lent their arms to the struggle, the Prussians have found the head for it. They must feel that, with all their good will and good heart, with all their vigour and manhood, they could yet have achieved nothing against the French. An extended State-system, exclusively put together of South-German elements, might indeed form a full-fed, full-juiced but a puffy and unwieldy body. While, on the other hand, elements exclusively North-German would go to the making of a firm and athletic but a spare and dry one. Prussia will contribute to our future German State her strong bones and stiff muscles, which South-Germany will fill and round with her richer flesh and blood. without detriment could dispense with the And now, imagine, if you can, that the one other-doubt, if you dare, that both are destined to develop in union to a full-grown State and nation!' In the last number of the Revue des before the siege of Paris, M. Ernest Renan, Deux Mondes' which reached this country in an article entitled La France et l'Allemagne-observed with perfect truth of the present Chancellor of the North German birth to the Prussian Junker or Squires' party, Confederation, that, though he belongs by came to the front, he has shown since in in the Parliamentary ranks of which he first political action that he is by no means wedded His policy-so soon as he distinctly formed indissolubly to the prejudices of that party. a policy of his own*-had two objects: first, *Sir Alexander Malet, in his instructive volume on The Overthrow of the Germanic Confederation in 1866,' has the following observations on Bismarck's earlier politics : "There is little doubt that the earliest aspirations of M. de Bismarck, when chosen by his sovereign to represent Prussia in the Diet, were limited to establishing parity between the two great German courts, and that he would have been well satisfied with alternation in the presidency of the Diet, and such a division of influ ence in the Confederation as that nominal When, equality would have carried with it. however, the Prussian statesman found that Austria would abate no iota of her pretensions, and that her influence in the Diet was generally preponderant; when, further, his clear insight into the future saw only one mode of attaining his ends, and that the destinies his patriotism conceived for his own country could no otherwise be accomplished than by the humiliation of her rival, he at once threw himself into the task with all the energy of his nature. whole soul glowed with the passionate resolve to expel Austria from Germany. It was not in his nature to hesitate as to means; and neither moral nor material obstacles diverted him from his object. In fact, he entered on the contest unencumbered M. de Bismarck's to expel Austria from the Germanic body; secondly, to rally round Prussia those members of that body which the events of history had dispersed : asks M. 'Did M. de Bismarck see farther Renan. 'Did his necessarily limited range of view as a practical man allow him to anticipate that one day Prussia would be absorbed by Germany-that one day Prussia would vanish in her own victory, as Rome ceased to exist as a ruling city from the day when she had accomplished her work of unification? I know not, for M. de Bismarck hitherto has not submitted himself, and perhaps never will submit himself to analysis.' M. Renan's question is in some sort answered by the following passage of a letter of Von Bismarck from St. Petersburg, in 1859, when he was Prussian Ambassador there: 'I shall be happy to see the word German instead of the word Prussian inscribed on our flag, when we shall be bound together in a closer and more purposelike manner with our countrymen, but the word loses its charm when abused, as at present, by application to the Confederate nexus now existing. I discern in our present federal relations a source of Prussian weakness, which sooner or later we shall have to heal ferro et igni, if we do not betimes, at the favourable season undertake its cure.' He says in the same letter, 'The result of my eight years' official experience at Frankfort [as representative of Prussia at the Bund] has been that the subsisting federal arrangements form a fetter for Prussia at all times oppressive, at critical times perilous to her very existence, without securing to her any of those equivalent advantages which Austria derives from them in the infinitely greater measure of independent individual movement which they afford her.' When two men ride on one horse,' says the proverb, one must ride behind.' So long as Prussia remained content to ride behind Austria in the old German Confederation, as she had remained content to do throughout the whole period of the ascendancy of the policy of immobility of the late Prince Metternich, peace was preserved between the two great Powers of Germany. So soon as Prussia resolved (or Von Bismarck resolved for her) not to ride behind, so soon war in Germany, which might be termed civil war, became imminent, and Von Bismarck had long not obscurely indicated that he should be prepared to face it. It may be regarded as due to that daring Min by scruples of any kind. To raise Prussia to the political status which he thought his country ought to hold was his religion. He entered the path of action with the fervour of a Mahomet enforcing a rival faith, and, like Mahomet, succeeded.' ister's temper and character that the situation, when it had become strained beyond pacific arbitrament, was at once seen and accepted, and the quarrel was fought out mit Blut und Eisen-to borrow his own expression. But the seeds of that quarrel had been sowing for centuries-ever since, in fact, the days of the Great Elector; and even if war between Austria and Prussia had been avoided in 1866, situations strained to the very verge of war would have recurred would have met at last in armed conflict, as again and again, till the two rival forces they did in that year, to decide which of the two should constitute the armed force of Germany for all time within present human prevision. Germany, which has apparently come to an That dualism of power and influence in end, had formed the main source of the whole recent action of Austria and Prussia in German politics, from the abortive Austrian attempt at a new scheme of Confederation in 1863, to the formation (excluding Austria) of the North German Confederation of 1865. The intervening episode of Prussian and Austrian participation in the Federal execution' on Denmark in 1864, was prompted on both sides by the same motive of rivalry, no idea of German right or European interest having anything to do with it. garded the successful partner in that operaThis was abundantly proved, as retion, by Prussia at last resting her title to the territory, wrung by treaty from Denmark, on the transfer of the Danish title to that territory; whereas the 'Schleswig-Holstein' war had been commenced on the German popular plea that Denmark had no title to hold, nor, therefore, to cede that territory. What the astute Prussian Minister himself had thought, at a previous period, of that German popular plea for the repeated raids on Denmark, had been expressed by him sixteen years before, in a speech he made in 1848, in the character of an independent member of the Prussian Second Chamber, when he stigmatised the first armed attack on Holstein, in that year, as a most unjust, frivolous, and pernicious enterprise, undertaken to support a revolution without legitimate motive.' In 1852 Von Bismarck accepted from the late King of Denmark, the Grand Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog, conferred in recognition of his activity in the pacification of the Danish duchies. At that latter epoch, Von Bismarck was acting as the representative of Prussia at the Frankfort Diet. To do him. justice he has never pretended any special sympathy with the popular pretexts on which the last invasion of Denmark was perpetrat ed. He struck into it on the part of Prussia to take it out of the hands of the Middle States and Austria; to get possession of the oyster, and leave the other claimants the shells. Why Austria made herself also an accomplice in the Danish raid, can only be explained on the motive assigned with little of decent reserve by her own diplomatists. Forsooth Austria could not afford to forfeit her share of German popularity, by refusing to lead the march of the minor German States, on the much-besung 'Schleswig-Holstein!' And, above all, she felt herself as usual 'bound' (in American phrase) to prevent Prussia from acquiring an accession of territory-which Prussia has acquired in spite of her. When Austria appealed to the vote of the Frankfort Diet, to frustrate the aforesaid purpose of Prussian acquisition of Danish territory, Prussia, under Count Bismarck's government, at once treated that vote as a casus belli, seceded from the Confederation, and made her short and decisive campaign of Sadowa. And thus the old Austro-Prussian dualism came to its tragic termination. In the life of nations, as of individuals,' writes Strauss to Renan, in the correspondence already cited, 'conjunctures take place, in which the very thing long wished for is realised in so strange a shape, that we do not recognise-nay, turn from it with dis gust and anger.' 'Thus was it with the Prusso-Austrian war of 1866 and its results. It achieved for us Germans that which we had long wished for, but not in the way we wished, and therefore repelled the sympathies of a great part of the German people from its accomplishment. We had wished to bring about the union of Germany by pacific evolution from the idea the will of the people-from the calm deliberations of the best men amongst that people. But we now saw the way paved to it by the action of material force-by "blood and iron." We had wished to include all German races under one imperial Constitution, but now not only the Germans in Austria but also in the Southern Middle States, are left out. It required time for the German idealism, and for the Ger man self-will also to become reconciled with the real conditions of the problem; but the *We translate_the following passage from Varnhagen Von Ense's 'Tagebücher' (vol. xiii. p. 428):- What Austria and Prussia seek at the hands of Denmark is not more regard to the Germanism of Schleswig-Holstein-they don't care much about that. But the Anti-German Ministry at Copenhagen is democratic-Danish; they want a reactionary one-that is, the root of the matter! This was written in 1857, under Frederick William IV. Count Bismarck, five or six years later, founded his first remonstrances to the Danish Government explicitly on its too democratic character. imperativeness and, I may add, the reasonableness of those conditions was so self-evident, that better views had, in a very short time, made the most gratifying progress.' As Austria would not accept Prussian hegemony in Germany, so France would not accept German ascendancy in Europe without an appeal to the God of Battles. We speak of France, as France was lately represented, not only by the Imperial Govern1 ment, but by the parliamentary and extraparliamentary organs of popular opposition. He Five years back few would have singled out Count Bismarck as the Sphinx destined to devour an empire that could not read his riddle. Napoleon III. had hitherto been the great propounder of enigmas in recent European politics. Every one was attent to hearken to that which Louis the Silent thought fit to utter at rare intervals. thinks reticence is his talent,' Count Bismarck is reported to have said in 1865 to a Spanish retired statesman, sojourning like himself at Biarritz. The reverse of reticence certainly is the talent of the North German Chancellor. To know distinctly what he is driving at, and to drive straight at it, when circumstances appear favourable, is a main element of his power-a species of straightforwardness not by any means excluding simulation or dissimulation, as there may be occasion for either, but decidedly excluding all superfluous subtleties and aimless irreBismarck on some ground of common insolutions. To know how to meet Count terest and common policy, might haply have been for Napoleon III., any time these last five years, to know how to have preserved France from humiliation, and himself from overthrow. It must be no ordinary man who has held what may be termed joint command with the late Ruler of France over such tremendous issues for the weal or woe of two great nations. M. Thiers is reported to have said, on some occasion, 'The Second Empire has produced two great MinistersCount Cavour and Count Bismarck.' leon III. failed at last in much the same enIt might be interesting to seek why Napoterprise as that in which Count Bismarck succeeded-in twisting parliaments round his finger, and carrying through political revolutions mit Blut und Eisen. But first occurs the question-Has Count Bismarck succeeded where Napoleon III. has failed? The first eight or ten years of the Second French Empire seemed a signal success, and if Count Bismarck's ministry should last as long as Napoleon III.'s reign, his policy has ample time before it for equal eventual failure. It is undeniable, however, that the main object which Count Bismarck's policy has effected, had been the main object of German popular aspirations for a whole generation. That object is unity of national organisation and national force. The Prussian Minister's past successes and present ascendancy are chiefly owing to the clearness with which his eight years' embassy to Frankfort led him to discern that object, and the boldness and decision for which his accession to power gave scope in pursuing it. Quand on sait ce qu'on veut, et qu'on le veut vite et bien,' says a French historian,*on l'obtient toujours-always with the proviso that what one wills shall lie in the direction of the natural course of events, and shall take due account of the nature of men and things. Von Bismarck had soon surmounted as a speaker the stammering hesitation of his first parliamentary appearances; but he never acquired that even, uninterrupted flow of words which generally indicates no high pressure of thought or passion forcing its way to utterance. In the marshalling of his topics there is not much parade of parliamentary logic-still less much display, smelling of the lamp, of parliamentary rhetoric. What is chiefly perceptible in Von Bismarck's speeches, from first to last, is the speaker's ever-present sense of the logic of the situation. It was this which sustained him during his four years' struggle with parliamentary majorities-it was this which he probably succeeded in conveying some sympathetic sense of, even to those majorities. When the King's Government,' he said on one occasion (the refusal of a vote of 6000 thalers by the Chamber of Deputies to defray the charge of a military envoy at St. Petersburg) shows itself obstinate apparently for a trifle, in an exceptional case of this kind, you may be assured that, after mature examination, and following the dictates of its duty, it could not do otherwise than maintain this post, and refuse to consent to its suppression.' On another occasion (the discussion of the affairs of the Danish Duchies) Von Bismarck told the Chamber-For the last year half, if we could have openly declared the object at which we were aiming, I believe, gentlemen, you would not have met us with so much opposition. . . . If you were better initiated in the technical part of diplomatic affairs, it would not happen to you to put such pressure upon us as to reduce the Ministry to the alternative either of seeming by its silence to admit the justice of your censures, or, in refuting them, of expressing openly what, for political reasons, were better left to be understood.' and a In the first period of Von Bismarck's Min * Mignet. istry, during which he represented what might be called His Majesty's Opposition to his Second Chamber, he stood upon his undoubting and determined confidence in the tenableness of his position as the King's Minister-no matter against what majority of the popular Chamber. If that Chamber would not pass the military budget-why, they were only one power out of three whose concurrence was required for its passing, and thus there was no more reason why the Crown and the Upper House should give way to the Second Chamber, than that the latter should come to some terms of compromise with the two other co-ordinate powers. If the President of the Chamber took upon him to call the King's Minister to order, the King's Minister refused to recognise the President's right to do so. It is an edifying example of German phlegm and German longanimity, that this strained state of relations between the legislative and executive powers could go on for four years without terminating in some more violent situation or total rupture. 'All the talents' in the Lower Chamber were firing away as incessantly at the King's Minister as the Paris forts have been doing lately at the Prussian positions, and the Minister was opposing an imperturbable front to all their verbal artillery, and telling them with cutting conciseness, and often happy humour, leurs vérités in return. After the conflict had terminated, in consequence of the events of 1866, in the sort of compromise which he had declared throughout could be its only possible termination, we find Count Bismarck, in the newly convoked Reichstag' of the North German Confederation, in 1867, quietly replying as follows to an old antagonist in the Prussian Chamber (Duncker) who again met him in the new arena with the old topics: * 'Since the last speaker has expressed a certain degree of surprise that I should have spent perhaps the best years of my public life in combating the parliamentary right of discussing the Budget, I will just remind him that it may not be quite certain that the army, which gained last year's battles, would have possessed the organisation by which it gained them, if, in the autumn of the year 1862 (the date of Von Bismarck's accession to power), no one had been found ready to undertake the conduct of |