¶ What a magnificent scramble for place, pelf and power! It were blasphemy to call this riot the desire for progress for the masses. It were equal blasphemy to call it stupidity and reaction, on the part of the contending monarchs, as against crushing with iron heel the hopes of the people for political and intellectual life. Either one of these diagonally opposed interpretations of the time is too extreme. The truth is in neither view. As a matter of fact, behind the seething mass of human forms was the age-old motive of human selfishness; and while here and there some lofty soul may have glimpsed in his fervid imagination a United Germany, based on a “German national faith,” in which the rights of each citizen should be no more or no less than the rights of all others, with each man working for all men and all men for each man, this poetical idea was only another evidence of how the noblest minds place the illusion and the dream before the appalling fact of human selfishness in the universal struggle for personal aggrandizement.
¶ The merging of the various German states, or the transference of land from one German monarch to another, in the ensuing political struggle for power, is, after all, as nothing compared with the change in ideas, now close at hand; what may be called the “mind” of Germany was about to undergo a veritable French Revolution! However, it was not to be a French Revolution in the sense of mob-rule. We shall make this clear as we come more especially to tell you, in details, of a certain political millennium which Bismarck scorned, although courageously pressed upon him by leaders of the party of the people.
¶ On the whole, however, the drift of events was toward “German national faith,” bringing in turn some form of representative government, as against the doctrine of Divine-right of kings. The monarchs were placed more and more on the defensive; it was to be their last stand, not only for their crowns but for their very lives!
¶ And now face to face with the gigantic problem of a United Germany, again we study our last hope of kings—our Prussian Strafford von Bismarck. In some respects he is the historical foil of Strafford of Charles I, whose money-needs compelled the calling of the Long Parliament; and the help Strafford had given to the king in ruling without a parliament had mortally offended the Commons; Strafford was declared guilty of high treason—and despite Charles’ efforts, Strafford went to the block!
¶ Will Bismarck come to a similar end on the scaffold of the Prussian liberals?
¶ We see before us a giant in form and in mental strength; a monster of will-power, with the iron ambition to compel men to do his individual bidding; a political superman.
¶ He had spent his time more with cattle, horses and dogs than he had with men.
¶ His spirit was high, untrammelled, rebellious. He ironically despised the common people; the burden-bearers in all forms of government were in this giant’s opinion not good enough to sit beside kings.