“Oct. 6.—For six weeks I have been trying to send this letter—in vain. In the meantime both my brothers have died fighting for the Fatherland. My husband still lives, but—we must, we shall and must win!”
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Bismarck balances between tempestuous outbursts and inscrutable silence; biding his time in the great game of German Unity.
¶ In the gigantic project of creating an Empire for a king who solemnly protested that he was directly accountable to God for the throne, “and would never consent to have so much as a sheet of paper (constitution) between my people and my Maker.” Bismarck was under tremendous nervous pressure for years; and he meant that his political secrets for United Germany should not become too early known. Not only were the people as yet unwilling to help, but Austria was watching with jealous eyes the possibility of plunder for herself;—for where the carrion is there will the vultures wheel.
¶ Bismarck’s ambition bit him by day and by night, and there was for him no rest; he required a continent to turn ’round in, and nothing less would suffice. It was now only a question of waiting for the psychological moment to electrify the inert mass of the people to rally to his cause.
¶ Naturally you ask, “Was this Bismarck then a beast?” Not at all. He was merely a human being who wanted a continent to turn around in.
In the gigantic project, Bismarck was exercising his own peculiar gifts in his own way—for none stood ready to give him what he wanted, without fighting for it—even as you or I lay out lesser plans to beg, or coax, or force the world to give us not what we think we need but what we are strong enough to obtain.
¶ In this attitude, Bismarck needs neither apology nor defense—for, after all, he is Bismarck.
Through thirty-odd years of din and roar and battle largely of his own making Bismarck knew neither rest nor peace; returning again and again to the attack and wearing down his enemies by the sheer brute force of courage. His idea was United Germany, through Prussian military power; at the same time, Prussia must hold her dynastic over-lordship, and must yield it finally only in a territorial German Empire.