Convention after convention, diet after diet, contending monarchs using any plea that will give the upper hand to Prussia or to Austria, or over princes and whimsical knights, from the one who holds his sovereignty because his ancestor had been a king’s barber, to another who in a lucky moment had found the queen’s lace handkerchief, and after that lived like a parasite on the land;—all these high contracting parties must be sent to the dump heap and the soil sprinkled with precious German brothers’ blood, mingling freely with vile blood, before the new political crop can grow.
¶ Between 1750 and 1870 the German problem had been settled over and over again, but was not finally settled till by Bismarck’s blood and iron. This means in Frederick the Great’s own obstinate way!
¶ We have heard from political fanatics, poets, lawyers, kings, thieves, church-people; all manner of men and not a few women have babbled and cackled; and there has been blood-letting, generation after generation, all up and down the Rhine, the Main, the Spree and the Elbe; then there would follow a lull brought about by some great Charter of Liberty framed by the Liberals, at their latest conference; and when it all went up in smoke, we would hear again that the Prussian government had its own plan, which, quite naturally Austria would never consent to advance.
¶ Indeed, the ox-like patience of the German people, with their great moral dream of “German National faith,” was strongly tried.
¶ It remained for the obstinate spirit of Frederick, through Bismarck, to find the only way, by blood and iron. Sentimentalists should not shed tears. It is no less an authority than Marshal Davout, the great French soldier who had for his watchword, “The world belongs to the obstinate.”
Was not the Great Frederick, in his youth, an idealist, and did he not write a touching essay on the evils of absolutism? But he ended by embracing the tyranny of kings—even as you and I, if we have the power.
¶ At the very outset, then, let it be made clear that it is short-sighted to call Bismarck Prussian tyrant. What would you, please? Cakes for the child, when the child cries? That has often been tried, and always in vain.
Next time, the child wants two cakes instead of one. It will not do.
Frederick was dubbed the “last of the tyrants.” We are sorry if this were true.