I am a Prussian! see my colors gleaming—
The black-white standard floats before me free;
For Freedom’s rights, my fathers’ heart-blood streaming,
Such, mark ye, mean the black and white to me!
Shall I then prove a coward? I’ll e’er be marching forward!
Though day be dull, though sun shine bright on me,
I am a Prussian, will a Prussian be!
Sixteen years later, when endeavoring with all his strength to bring about German National unity, his “Prussians we are and Prussians we will remain” was used against him with mocking effect.
¶ By October, nerves were steadied. The King sent Gen. Wangrel to occupy Berlin and disperse the radicals—with cannon, if necessary.
That speech has the right sound; but William has before this veered around many times, like a weather-vane, and may he not shift again?
For the instant, he stood for the Old Regime and Divine-right.
¶ The following month William appointed Brandenberg, an old-line Prussian aristocrat, Prime Minister. The siege of Berlin was declared; the Assembly protested but finally gave in. Along in December, without consulting the Assembly, William invited the states to send delegates to Berlin and made an alliance of three kings—Prussia, Saxony and Hanover.
¶ What is going to happen next?
34
At last the people have a share in their government, but Bismarck sees to it that the radicals are not favored.