The event shewed that Bismarck knew well the country with which he was dealing; the Press ordinances were not actually illegal, they were strictly enforced; many papers were warned, others were suppressed; the majority at once changed their tone and moderated their expression of hostility to the Government. In England, under similar circumstances, a host of scurrilous pamphlets have always appeared; the Prussian police were too prompt for this to be possible. The King refused to receive the addresses; an order from the Home Office forbade town councils to discuss political matters; a Bürgermeister who disregarded the order was suspended from his office; public meetings were suppressed. These measures were successful; the discontent remained and increased, but there was no disorder and there were no riots. Great courage was required to defy public opinion, but with courage it could be defied with as much impunity as that of the Parliament. Englishmen at the time asked why the people did not refuse to pay the taxes; the answer is easy: there would have been no legal justification for this, for though, until the estimates had been passed, the Ministers were not legally enabled to spend a farthing of public money, the taxes could still be levied; they were not voted annually; once imposed, they continued until a law was passed withdrawing them. The situation, in fact, was this, that the Ministry were obliged to collect the money though they were not authorised in spending it. To this we must add that the country was very prosperous; the revenue was constantly increasing; there was no distress. The socialist agitation which was just beginning was directed not against the Government but against society; Lassalle found more sympathy in Bismarck than he did with the Liberal leaders. He publicly exhorted his followers to support the Monarchy against these miserable Bourgeois, as he called the Liberals. Except on the one ground of the constitutional conflict, the country was well governed; there was no other interference with liberty of thought or action.
Moreover, there was a general feeling that things could not last long; the Liberals believed that the future was with them; time itself would bring revenge. At the worst they would wait till the death of the King; he was already nearly seventy years of age; the political difficulties had much injured his health. When he was gone, then with the Crown Prince the constitutional cause would triumph.
How different was the future to be! Year after year the conflict continued. Each year the House was summoned and the Budget laid before it; each year the House rejected the Budget; they threw out Government measures, they refused the loans, and they addressed the King to dismiss his Ministers. The sessions, however, were very short; that of 1864 lasted only a few weeks.
Each year Bismarck's open contempt for the Parliament and their unqualified hatred of him increased. The people still continued to support their representatives. The cities still continued to withhold their loyal addresses to the King. With each year, however, the Government gained confidence. It was easy to see that the final result would depend on the success of the Government in external affairs. To these we must now turn.
English opinion at that time was unanimously opposed to the King; it is difficult even now to judge the issue. It was natural for Englishmen to sympathise with those who wished to imitate them. Their pride was pleased when they found the ablest Parliamentary leaders, the most learned historians and keenest jurists desirous to assimilate the institutions of Prussia to those which existed in England. It is just this which ought to make us pause. What do we think of politicians who try to introduce among us the institutions and the faults of foreign countries? "Why will not the King of Prussia be content with the position which the Queen of England holds, or the King of the Belgians,—then all his unpopularity would be gone?" was a question asked at the time by an English writer. We may ask, on the other hand, why should the King of Prussia sacrifice his power and prerogative? The question is really as absurd as it would be to ask, why is not an English Parliament content with the power enjoyed by the Prussian Parliament? It was a commonplace of the time, that the continued conflict shewed a want of statesmanship; so it did, if it is statesmanship always to court popularity and always to surrender one's cause when one believes it to be right, even at the risk of ruining one's country. It must be remembered that through all these years the existence of Prussia was at stake. If the Prussian Government insisted on the necessity for a large and efficient army, they were accused of reckless militarism. People forgot that the Prussian Monarchy could no more maintain itself without a large army than the British Empire could without a large navy. In all the secret diplomatic negotiations of the time, the dismemberment of Prussia was a policy to be considered. France wished to acquire part of the left bank of the Rhine, Austria had never quite given up hope of regaining part of Silesia; it was not fifty years since Prussia had acquired half the kingdom of Saxony; might not a hostile coalition restore this territory? And then the philanthropy of England and the intrigues of France were still considering the possibility of a revived Poland, but in Poland would have to be included part of the territory which Prussia had acquired.
It is often said that from this conflict must be dated the great growth of militarism in Europe; it is to the victory of the King and Bismarck that we are to attribute the wars which followed and the immense armaments which since then have been built up in Europe. To a certain extent, of course, this is true, though it is not clear that the presence of these immense armies is an unmixed evil. It is, however, only half the truth; the Prussian Government was not solely responsible. It was not they who began arming, it was not they who first broke the peace which had been maintained in Europe since 1815. Their fault seems to have been, not that they armed first, but that when they put their hand to the work, they did it better than other nations. If they are exposed to any criticism in the matter, it must rather be this, that the Government of the late King had unduly neglected the army; they began to prepare not too soon but almost too late. It was in Austria in 1848 that the new military dominion began; Austria was supported by Russia and imitated by France; Prussia, surrounded by these empires, each at least double herself in population, was compelled to arm in self-defence. By not doing so sooner she had incurred the disgrace of Olmütz; her whole policy had been weak and vacillating, because the Government was frightened at stirring up a conflict in which they would almost certainly be defeated.
There is one other matter with regard to the conflict so far as regards Bismarck personally. We must always remember that he was not responsible for it. It had originated at a time when he was absent from Germany, and had very little influence on the conduct of affairs. Had he been Minister two years before, there probably would have been no conflict at all. The responsibility for it lies partly with the leaders of the Liberal party, who, as we know from memoirs that have since been published, were acting against their own convictions, in opposing the military demands of the Government, for they feared that otherwise the party would not follow them. Much of the responsibility also rests with the Ministry of the new era; they had mismanaged affairs; the mismanagement arose from the want of union among them, for the Liberal majority were in many matters opposed to the King and the throne. It was this want of cordial co-operation in the Ministry which led to the great blunder by which the Minister of War acted in a way which seemed to be, and in fact was, a breach of an engagement made by the Minister of Finance. Had Bismarck been in authority at the time, we can hardly doubt that he would have found some way of effecting a compromise between the Government and the leaders of the Moderate Liberal party. At least no blame attached to him for what had happened. Still less can we afford him anything but the highest commendation, that, when the King had got into an absolutely untenable position, he came forward, and at the risk of his reputation, his future, perhaps his life, stood by his side.