upheaval anywhere. Bismarck asserted that power supplied its own legitimacy; the conservatives that legitimacy represented an independent force. Bismarck believed that a correct evaluation of the attributes of power would yield a doctrine of self-limitation; the conservatives that force could be restrained only by a superior principle.

The inextricable element of the debate between the conservatives and Bismarck therefore resided less in their goals than in the perspective from which they viewed them. Bismarck's was the point of view of an observer standing outside of the events, careful in assessing their qualities, rigorous in drawing conclusions, pitiless in applying them. The conservative position on the other hand involved the conviction almost instinctive and therefore clumsily stated, that the maxims of analysis do not necessarily supply imperatives of conduct. For the strength of analysis is the irrelevance of the personal attitude to the subject of analysis; but the impetus of action involves a personal commitment. To analysis man is a force among many, a means to be manipulated. To his intuition he represents an end. To announce that self-interest always motivated man is to utter a platitude for the crucial question is precisely the nature of man's self-interest. To preach the value of commitments is equally hollow unless the commitment can be given some content. It is the paradox of analysis that it may equal the convictions which animate conduct, that increased understanding may only lead to a paralysis of will. It is the paradox of action that it is unable to relate man to the forces outside himself whose making he sees but whose motives he can grasp only by analogy. Conservatives have always insisted that the balance between these two aspects of human conduct is derived from a sense of reverence, a recognition of forces in an accompanying sense of

popular sovereignty and he understands this as well as his predecessor.
Prussia's policy must be anti-revolutionary not only in principle but in
practice so that at the proper time the vacillating powers such as perhaps
Austria and Britain will know what to expect of it. For only he is reliable
who acts according to principle and not according to changing concepts of
national interest."

For all its obtuseness this was a letter not lacking in pathos.
It is difficult to escape the power of the picture of Gerlach, at the end of
his life, being forced into a theoretical defense by his protégé whose
rapid career he had sponsored precisely because he had seen in him the best
advocate of the very doctrines now at issue. Whenever faith encounters
skepticism the result can only be exasperation. For the power of faith lies
in the act of commitment, the necessity of which as a guide for conduct
skepticism denies. Gerlach was therefore more at home in a contest with the
revolution where the consciousness of defending absolute values endowed the
contenders with an aura of righteousness than in a dispute with a cynic who
asserted the relativity of all beliefs. Nor was the dispute deprived of
frustration because Bismarck with his marvelous diplomatic skill immediately
transferred it to a plane on which Gerlach was not only intellectually but
morally at a distinct disadvantage. Bismarck began by denying that his
proposal was motivated by a personal weakness for Napoleon: "The man does
not impress me at all. The ability to be a man is in any case only
moderately developed in me and it is a fault of my eye that it is more
receptive to the weakness of others than to their strengths." But this
appraisal of the condition for Bismarck's cold-blooded manipulation was only
preliminary to confronting Gerlach with an unanswerable argument: that his

5. G. E. I, p. 169.

- 15

infidelity; God and the devil then I can argue no longer and can merely say
'I am not of your opinion and you judge in me what is not yours to judge.'"

And even this bitter declaration of faith paled before the cynical
avowal whose wounding quality was only heightened by its reminder of Gerlach's
role in Bismarck's career and by being couched in the religious categories
of Gerlach's Pietism: "I did not seek the service of the King. . .and the
God Who unexpectedly placed me into it will probably rather show me the way
out of it than let me soul perish. Or at least he will listen to my daily
prayer and send me friends to help me do so. I would overestimate the
value of this life strangely. . .should I not be convinced that after 30
years it will be irrelevant to me what political successes I or my country
have achieved in Europe. I can even think out the idea that someday
'unbelieving Jesuits' will rule over the Mark Brandenburg together with a
Bonapartist absolutism. . .I am a child of different times as you, but as
honest a one of mine as you of yours."

This was the last letter ever exchanged between Bismarck and Gerlach.

With the exchange with Gerlach the main lines of Bismarck's thought
were established: One by one he had exploded the myths of the "Metternich
system"; he had declared the German Confederation as a fetter to the develop-
ment of Prussia's power and the Holy Alliance as a means to perpetuate the
disparity between Austria and Prussia; the traditional ally had been asserted
as Prussia's antagonist and France the "hereditary" enemy as a potential ally.
And the unity of conservative interests, the truism of policy for over a

10. L. G., p. 345f, 2/4 May, 1860.

- 24

opportunity to assume the role of the injured. . .in order to bring about a revision of existing institutions. . .I see in the Confederation a disease which sooner or later we must heal <u>ferro et igni</u> unless we take a cure 18 against it in time." Here was the first utilization of the phrase which was to be identified with Bismarck, the method of blood and iron and its disregard of Confederate relationships was only the reverse side of his renewed insistence on using parliamentary debates to paralyze Austria. And once more as in the Crimean war there came the demand for a maximum of ruthlessness: "The present situation once more presents us with the great prize if we let the war between Austria and France become well-established and then move south with <u>OUR</u> whole army, taking the border-posts in our field-packs not to impale them again until we reach Lake Constance or at least the limits where the Protestant confession ceases to predominate." 19

Distrustful of the German Confederation, isolated from Russia, with Prussia vacillating between tentative efforts of mediation and uncertain promises of support, Austria suddenly made peace directly with Napoleon at Villafrance. Nothing could have demonstrated more clearly the impotence of the national movement than the fact that neither Prussia nor the German Confederation heeded its calls. But equally nothing could have discredited further the Frankfurt Assembly than the manner with which it was completely ignored by the two major German powers during a European crisis. And the loss by Austria of Lombardy to Sardinia was another branch of the Vienna settlement, another warning of what might be in store for the Central Empire if Prussia should ever succeed in matching its will with its opportunities.

But the man who had no doubt of his ability to do so was temporarily in eclipse. For with the advent of the Prince Regent, a new group of ministers

18. W. III, p. 35, 12 May, 1859.

19. W. XIV, p. 517.

- 2 -

something which it would be totally unnecessary formally
to defend, the reality of Prussia's greatness, its historic
mission, and above all its uniqueness.

In the West the idea of freedom has ever had to
be reconciled with that of commitment in the determination
of where man might find his ultimate fulfillment. But both
history and environment forced Prussia to opt for commit-
ment. In Prussia situated amidst potentially hostile pow-
ers, freedom was always identified with the absence of
foreign restraint which in turn could be achieved only
through a domestic tour de force. Such a state could only
with difficulty admit the [belief in] the possibility of
bad government which had produced the demand of the liberal
movement for constitutional guarantees. Its notion of
justice was equated with good administration; its version
of equality was contained in the uniform application of
legal norms. In Prussia was not a fertile ground for the con-
stitutional theories of the French Revolution. Its King
was not simply a symbol of an entity which existed beyond
him but perhaps the only tangible expression of Prussia's
reality. The ideas of nationalism had in Prussia a peculiar
incarnation, therefore: "I must protest," said Bismarck in
an early speech, "against the identification of patriotism
and liberalism ... We in Prussia have not yet learned to
distinguish between service to the prince and service to the
fatherland and God willing we shall never do so."²

P. Koll I. p. 140.

- 3 -

Nor could an attack on the aristocracy carry the
came degree of conviction as in France. For the Prussian
aristocracy had not wasted away amidst the splendor of a
capital city. It might be narrow and unimaginative but it
was also tough and virile. And it was surrounded by the
number of past successes. Not without justice could Bismarck say of it: "Everywhere the root of Prussian liberty
is fertilized by the blood of its noble families. The
mercenary army with which Frederick the Great saved Prussia
from dismemberment would have been an impossibility had
the nobility not supplied the means in the officer corps.
At the end of the war cadets were leading the army, the
sole survivors of their families..."³ And because the
aristocracy accepted the Prussian social myth, the royal
absolution was always tempered by the consciousness of the
existence of a watchful nobility and the Prussian population reassured by the tangible gain in Prussia's power:
"Prussia has become great," wrote Bismarck, "Not through
liberalism or free-thinking, but by means of a succession
of powerful, decisive and wise regents who carefully husbanded the military and financial resources of the state,
and kept them together in their own hands in order to throw
them with ruthless courage into the scale of European politics as soon as a favorable opportunity presented itself...
It is undoubtedly just that every Prussian should enjoy that
degree of liberty which is consistent with the public welfare

- 4 -

and with Prussia's career in European politics, but no
more. This degree of liberty is possible even without
parliaments and at the present stage of Prussia's intel-
lectual development, the abuse of royal power belongs to
the most improbable contingencies ... Long before the
continent thought of constitutional government...Prussian
royalty was a born of justice, a protection for the free-
dom of the individual as of the community and a source of
wise administration."⁴ It was this Prussia to which Bis-
marck appealed in his maiden-speech, the Prussia held to-
gether by the self-evidence of its social obligation, the
monolithic state whose genius lay in conserving its
energies for foreign policy.

And it was an appeal not without merit. For
however monolithic Prussia appeared to the outsider, its
vision of itself was not expressed by absolute power but
by justice and despite the authority of the King the Prus-
sian myth did not deny itself the attribute of freedom.
This was possible largely because of the virility of its
aristocracy. Bismarck said once that true freedom was al-
ways aristocratic and although he spoke as a partisan, he
NEVEK THOSE LESS SPOKE A ME ASUKE OF TRUTH.
spoke the less truly. For if the most difficult task
of society is to learn the limits of righteousness and
the meaning of self-restraint, the class which most incorpo-
rates these qualities is a tightly-knit aristocracy; not
an aristocracy.
indeed because it contains a superior morality or a lesser

4. W. I, p. 375.

- 5 -

degree of selfishness than other classes but because by
structure and ethos it must combat the preeminence of an
individual which is the foundation of absolutist rule,
while it legitimizes itself by a notion of quality which
is anathema to the despotism of egalitarian democracy.
In an aristocratic society the King's power is limited
by the consciousness that he is only the first of his
peers while Parliamentary excesses are made difficult by
the restraints of traditional forms. Britain is the ex-
ample of an aristocratic democracy; Prussia that of an
aristocratic autocracy.

But the condition of the efficacy of an aristocracy is the self-evidence of its function. Whenever an aristocracy is fundamentally challenged, it loses its spontaneity and becomes merely one of the contending forces and one moreover which is morally at a distinct disadvantage. When what has been the standard of political conduct based on a traditional code finds itself attacked as a claim of special privilege, dogmatism is its instinctive reaction. And this intransigence denies the ethos of a healthy aristocracy, which is to ameliorate, to bridge chasms, and to integrate. To be sure, no aristocracy sets itself these goals consciously; rather they grow out of its awareness as a corporate entity which places a necessary limit on the assertion of the individual will and out of the consequent traditions of mutual respect which keep disagreements from being pushed to their

- 6 -

ultimate conclusions.

But it was a root-fact of the Prussian political situation that the prerogatives of the aristocracy came increasingly to be questioned -- indeed the change in the situation was precisely the fact that they had come to be thought of as "prerogatives" and not as "rights". Thus the Prussian aristocracy was forced into a theoretical defense of their position -- an all but impossible task, for aristocracies justify themselves not by their truth but by their existence. And because the task was unfamiliar, the Junkers tended to substitute doctrinal rigidity for originality of thought. Their arguments were in practice the precise reverse of the claims of their liberal opponents and exhibited the same insistence on universality. They confronted the vision of the essential harmony of constitutional states with the assertion of the inherent sanctity of legitimate rule. And they opposed the superiority of liberal institutions to the insistence on the superior justice of historical authority. It was in this group, small, somewhat defensive but still highly influential, that Bismarck found his place. And if his reception was based in part on a misunderstanding, this was a pardonable error. For the vehemence of Bismarck's language tended to obscure the fact that his conclusions, no safety conservative, were in fact based on premises radically different from the legitimist ones. "It is difficult to know public

- 7 -

opinion," said Bismarck in one of his early speeches in
the parliament. "I believe I have become acquainted with
it at several places ... and I found it to be still the old
Prussian opinion to which the word of the King means more
than any interpretation or twisting of the letter of the
law."⁵

It was not surprising that Bismarck was wel-
comed with open arms by the extreme Right of the Landtag.
Here was a man animated by a fervor equal to that of his
opponents and with an eloquence almost completely unknown
among the Junkers. And Bismarck had at last found his vo-
cation. He reported to his bride that he had been gripped
to an unexpected degree by the political problems. "I am
sure you will find me aged ten years when you see me again.
No velvet jacket, no Jean Paul, only law, politics and the
rage of parties fill my head and the whole range of the
Alps with its lakes will not be able to elicit a glance
from me if the <u>Preussische Allgemeine</u> /a newspaper/ lies
next to me."⁶ And soon there emerged the most characteris-
tic of Bismarck's qualities, the inability to grant the
good faith of his opponents, the insistence on reducing
political disputes to personal contests: "I am choleric
from morning till night about the lying, calumniating dis-
honesty of the opposition and the malevolent intent with
which it shuts itself against all reason and about the
thoughtless superficiality of the mass with which the

5. Kohl I, p. 13.

- 8 -

mightiest arguments do not count against the banal phrase-
ology of the Rhenish wine-merchants' policy."⁷

Well might the stodgy land-owners who represented
Prussian conservatism congratulate themselves on the acqui-
sition of this fighter. And as he made speech after speech
against the laws to eliminate the vestiges of feudal rule,
such as the power of the landed nobility to appoint the
judges, against granting legal equality to the Jews (for
the characteristic reason that he could not imagine a Jew
as a representative of a King by the grace of God), against
an attempt to tax the agricultural districts more heavily
-- all delivered with a with and sarcasm heretofore foreign
to the conservative cause, Bismarck soon achieved promi-
nence as one of the ablest advocates of the legitimist side.
He was received at court 'by our friend the King and the
High Personages spoiled me very much.'"⁸

But had his colleagues listened more closely they
would have realized that they had acquired an ally who
might ultimately prove more dangerous to them than their
antagonists who, pedantry prevented them from drawing ulti-
mate conclusions. For what Bismarck was defending in the
Vereinigte Landtag was not a principle but a fact, not a
doctrine but a preference. He attacked liberalism not be-
cause of its violation of the lessons of universal history but
because of its violation of the laws of Prussian history; and

7. W. 14/I, p. 91.

8. W. 14/I, p. 97.

- 9 -

he defended the monarchy not because legitimate rule was sacrosanct but because of the historical accident that Prussia had never undergone a revolution. "In 1688 the British people found themselves in a different position from that of Prussia to-day; a century of revolution and civil war had placed it in the position of being able to bestow a crown and to attach conditions to it ... While the Prussian kings are in possession of a crown not by the grace of the people but by that of God."⁹ And even the defense of the privileges of the Junkers did not base itself on a postulated order of the universe but on an accident or birth, not on the interest of the state, but on the claims of the Estates: "The appointment of judicial officials is an important and honorable right when gives the Estate of the landed aristocracy a weight in our constitution which I am determined not to surrender voluntarily."¹⁰ "I am a Junker," he said another time, "and I want to reap some advantages from it."¹¹ More, Bismarck soon proved that the identification of nationalism and liberalism was a misapprehension, that on the contrary an appeal to nationalism could be used⁹⁹ as a weapon against the advocates of domestic reform: "... A few speakers have referred, as so often before, to the example of Britain and France as valuable of imitation ... I should like to recommend to the gentlemen who tend so much to seek their ideals across the Vosges.

One guiding principle which distinguishes the Britons and the Frenchmen: the proud feeling for national honor which does