¶ Historians may talk as much as they please about Bismarck’s executive and administrative genius, but these, great as they are, are overshadowed by his power of political spirit-healing, as it were; through practice of his peculiar psychotherapy he cured sick Germany of many of her ills; at the same time bringing about German brotherhood in a way that added to the great glory of Prussia.
¶ Appealing to the solemn religious side of Prussian character that expresses itself in upholding authority, in church or state, Bismarck incessantly lauds the descendants of noble families, and sets up that Prussian military aristocracy alone reared up Prussian political legitimacy.
He presents likewise the idea that the supreme quality of German manhood is courage; and to Bismarck’s mind the sovereign German virtue is revealed in strong-willed eager soldiers.
While in these lofty moods, Bismarck displays enormous family pride for his beloved aristocrats of Brandenburg, is never weary of telling of their military prowess.
He avows on many occasions his life-long regret that he did not enter the army as a career, instead of taking up the civil service; he digs into his family records and proudly numbers each Bismarck who carried arms, even down to distant cousins, and is never so happy as when telling of Bismarcks on many blood-drenched fields.
Above all else, he everlastingly insists that behind his demands for his King is the direct will of God.
¶ There is not the slightest doubt that as time passed and Bismarck kept telling over and over for years that the King represented God’s will on this earth, true Prussians came at last to believe it more and more; for the reason that it was in their blood to believe, as it is the nature of a bull-dog to fight, a glutton to eat, a thief to steal, the sun to shine.
¶ Bismarck called on heaven to send its avenging lightnings on the heads of those who deserted their monarch, to their perpetual dishonor; could think of no crime more monstrous than ingratitude to his King, especially to a king by the grace of God.
And Bismarck declared again and again, as his deepest conviction, that the Prussian crown was encircled by a heavenly aureole. In short, Bismarck revived in its purest and most uncompromising form the doctrine of Divine-right.