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The storm increases—Bismarck decides to defy the Chamber and rule alone!
¶ In the general turmoil, along comes a fanatic named Cohen, who attempts to kill Bismarck.
This was in May, 1866. The war broke within thirty days! Cohen fired point-blank three shots, and there was a personal struggle. The giant coolly handed the would-be murderer over to the guards, then went home. His greeting to his wife was characteristic. “They have tried even to kill me, my dear, but do not mind, no harm has been done. Let us go out to dinner.”
It was a time of assassins and their plots follow. Struck down by the police, Ferd Cohen, step-son of Karl Blind, meets in the eyes of the Democrats a martyr’s death; his body is crowned with flowers, as though the corpse were a consecration of Prussian Liberalism on the altar of liberty.
The frenzy takes still other forms; suicide cults become notorious; here and there, we read that some lunatic patriot “seeks voluntary death, for the sacred cause of the people.”
¶ And as for Cohen, ladies of high degree bring flowers, soldiers of the common cause wear on their coats his picture crowned with oak leaves. The cult of murder, with Bismarck as the arch enemy in the centre of the picture, was indulged to prevent what was termed the War of the Brothers.
¶ “I believe,” rumbled the granite rock Bismarck, with frowning clouds around his brow, “I do solemnly believe in victory—whether or not I shall live to see it!” This speech was regarded as little short of blasphemy!
¶ Bismarck now spoke more than ever of God, and of high German convictions. There was always grave danger of ingratitude, of insufficiency of time and place, but he certainly thought God on his side.
¶ What lashed Bismarck into fury was the contention that the Crown and the two Chambers were equal, in political legitimacy.