Bellowing his defiance, though the Liberals bring the rope—The new man explains his novel position, not as a politician but as a Prussian in deadly earnest—The Jew, and time’s revenge.
¶ There were three sessions of the Baby Parliament, and Bismarck was soon looked upon as the conservative leader. Perhaps conservative is not the word; reactionary would be closer. There was no Conservative party, nor a Liberal party for that matter. The obstinate fight with Bismarck was not because he wished to prevent the common people from having a share in their Prussian government, but because the change, if ever it came, would set up a peculiar type of Prussian government; a state-government, as it were, as against the old-time liege-lord master-and-servant conception of Hohenzollern “Divine-right” policy.
¶ The very word “people” threw Herr Bismarck into hysterical frenzy! He determined upon resisting the heresy with all the virile courage of his colossal bulk.
It had been his duty, as Elbe dyke-captain, to protect his country against torrential waters; now he would do similar service against the rising floods of revolution. He set up the historical agreement that the edifice of Prussia, under an aristocratic form of rulership, was firmer toward foreign foes, firmer than was possible under the leader rule of the people.
¶ A conservative deputy from Pomerania, addressing the administration member for West Havelland, said: “We have conquered!”
¶ “Not so!” replied Bismarck, coolly. “We have not conquered, but we have made an attack, which is the principal thing. Victory is yet to come, but it will take years!”
¶ These words accurately convey the nature of the situation. Bismarck was master of short phrases in which complex situations are summed up.
¶ He had dog-like love for his master, the King: “No word,” he exclaimed, “has been more wrongly used in the past year than the word ‘people.’ Each man has held it to mean just what suits his individual view.”
¶ “We are Prussians,” was his eternal keynote, “and Prussia is all-sufficient. Our hosts follow the Prussian flag and not the tricolor; under the black and white they joyfully die for their country. The tricolor has been, since the March riots, recognized as the color of their opponents. The accents of the Prussian National Anthem, the strains of the Dessau and Hohenfriedberg March are well known and beloved among them; but I have never yet heard a Prussian soldier sing, ‘What is the German Fatherland?’ The nation whence this army has sprung, and of which the army is the truest representative in the happy and accurate words of the president of the First Chamber, Rudolph von Auerswald, does not need to see the Prussian monarchy melt away in the filthy ferment of South German immorality. We are Prussians, and Prussians we desire to remain! I know that in these words I utter the creed of the Prussian army, the creed of the majority of my fellow-countrymen, and I hope to God that we shall continue Prussians, when this bit of paper is forgotten like the withered leaf of autumn!”