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Hour after hour went by and the Crown Prince did not come; if he delayed longer the attack would fail and the Prussians be defeated. We can easily imagine what must have been Bismarck's thoughts during this crisis.
Perhaps the best German authorities on Bismarck's falling-out with the young Emperor are the statements regarding it to be found in the memoranda supplied at the time by Prince Bismarck himself to Dr. Moritz Busch; the Memoirs of Prince Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, subsequently Imperial Chancellor; and the monograph on Bismarck by Dr. Hans Blum, one of the Chancellor's confidants.
As this contingent came from Count Bismarck's own section of Germany, there greeted us as we passed along, first in the dim light of the morning, and later in the glow of the rising sun, continuous and most enthusiastic cheering for the German Chancellor. On the way Count Bismarck again recurred to the state of public opinion in America with reference to the war.
Careless words spoken half in jest, which thirty years later Kleist, then Over-President of the province, recalled when he proposed the bridegroom's health at the marriage of Bismarck's eldest daughter.
Thanking him for his kindness, I rejoined Count Bismarck's party, and our horses having arrived meantime, we mounted and moved off to the position selected for the King to witness the opening of the battle.
Here then was at last a hope of a different kind to any that had gone before it; and the German and Austrian workmen were not slow to learn the lesson founded on this theory; from being one of the most backward countries in Europe in the movement, before Lassalle started his German workman's party in 1863, Germany soon became the leader in it: Bismarck's repressive law has only acted on opinion there, as the roller does to the growing grass made it firmer and stronger; and whatever vicissitudes may be the fate of the party as a party, there can be no doubt that Socialistic opinion is firmly established there, and that when the time is ripe for it that opinion will express itself in action.
What Bismarck's plans and hopes were we do not know; during these days he preserved silence; the violence of the French gave him a further reason for refusing to enter into any discussion.
It was just one of those arguments which above all offended Bismarck's Prussian patriotism. Why should Prussia imitate other countries? Why should it not have its own Constitution in its own way? Constitution, as he said, was the mot d'ordre of the day, the word which men used when they were in want of an argument.
But while there are many superficial contradictions between the country squire of 1848 and the Prussian Minister and German Chancellor, the really peculiar quality of Bismarck's intelligence was revealed in his ability to develop a constructive German national policy out of the prejudices and ideas of a Prussian "junker."
As this contingent came from Count Bismarck's own section of Germany, there greeted us as we passed along, first in the dim light of the morning, and later in the glow of the rising sun, continuous and most enthusiastic cheering for the German Chancellor. On the way Count Bismarck again recurred to the state of public opinion in America with reference to the war.
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