"The policy of your Government will bring you to Jena," said

M. de Moustier to Herr von Bismarck during the Crimean War. Why not to Waterloo?" was the prompt and prophetic reply.

66

Wo Kraft und Muth in deutscher Seele flammen.

INTRODUCTION.

IN July, 1870, fifty-five years after the Allied Armies, who had marched from the decisive field of Waterloo, entered Paris, a young diplomatist, Baron Wimpfen, started from the French capital, for Berlin. He was the bearer of a Declaration of War, from the Emperor Napoleon III., to William I., King of Prussia; and the fatal message was delivered to the French Chargé d'Affaires, M. le Sourd, and by him to the Prussian Government on the 19th of July. Thus, once again, a Napoleon, at the head of a French Empire, was destined to try his strength against the principal German Power beyond the Rhine.

was

Yet, under what different conditions! The Emperor

not now the Napoleon who surrounded the Austrians at Ulm, broke down the combined forces of Austria and Russia at Austerlitz, and extorted a peace which set him free to overthrow, at Jena and Auerstadt, the fine army left by Frederick the Great, and allowed to crystallize by his weak successors. Nor did the late Emperor find in his front a divided Germany, and the mere survival of a great military organization. He found a united people, and an army surpassing in completeness, as it did in armaments-the victors of Prague,

Rosbach, and Leuthen. The Germany known to the Congress of Vienna had disappeared-the deformed had been transformed. The little seed of unity, sown early in the century, had grown into a forest tree. The spirit of Arndt had run through the whole Teutonic nation, which, after the turmoil of 1848 had subsided, and the heavy hand of Russia had been taken off by the Crimean War, found a leader in the stronglyorganized kingdom of Prussia. When the weak and hesitating will of Frederick William IV. ceased, first, by the operation of a painful disease, and then by extinction, to disturb the course of his country's fortunes, Prussia, in a few years, became practically a new Power. King William I., who crowned himself with his own hands at Königsberg, began his task, as a ruler, in a grave and earnest spirit, holding that kingship was not only a business, but a trust, and taking as his watchwords, Work and Duty. No monarch in any age, no private man, ever laboured more assiduously and conscientiously at his métier, to use the word of Joseph II., than the King of Prussia. He became Regent in 1858, when Napoleon III. was engaged in preparing for his Italian campaign against the House of Austria. French policy, with varying watchwords, had run that road for centuries; and, during the summer of 1859, it was the good fortune of the Emperor to win a series of victories which brought his army to the Mincio, and before the once famous Quadrilateral. The German Bund had taken no part in the fray, but the rapid successes of the French aroused some apprehensions in Berlin, and there went forth an order to mobilize a part of the army, which means to put each corps on a war-footing, and to assemble a force in Rhenish Prussia. Whatever share that demonstration may have had in producing the sudden arrangement between the rival

Emperors, who made peace over their cigarettes and coffee at Villafranca, the experiment tried by the Berlin War Office had one important result-it brought to light serious defects in the system then practised, and revealed the relative weakness of the Prussian army. From that moment, the Regent, who soon became King by the death of his brother, began the work of reforming the military system. For this step, at least from a Prussian standpoint, there was good reason; since the kingdom, although it was based on a strong and compact nucleus, was, as a whole, made up of scattered fragments lying between great military Powers, and therefore could not hope to subsist without a formidable army. The relative weakness of Prussia had, indeed, been burnt into the souls of Prussian statesmen; and King William, on his accession, determined that so far as in him lay, that grave defect should be cured. A keen observer, a good judge of character and capacity, his experience of men and things, which was large, enabled him at once to select fit instruments. He picked out three persons, two soldiers and a statesman, and severe ordeals in after years justified his choice. He appointed General von Roon, Minister of War, and no man in modern times has shown greater qualities in the organization of an army. He placed General von Moltke at the head of the General Staff, which that able man soon converted into the best equipped and the most effective body of its kind known to history. It rapidly became, what it now is, the brain of the army, alike in quarters and in the field. Finally, after some meditation, he called Herr Otto von Bismarck from the diplomatic service, which had revealed his rare and peculiar qualities, and made this Pommeranian squire his chief political adviser, and the manager of his delicate and weighty State affairs.

Thenceforth, the long-gathering strength of Prussia, the foundations of which were bedded deep in the history of its people, began to assume a form and a direction which great events revealed to astonished and incredulous Europe. The experiment undertaken by the King and his chief councillors was rendered less difficult by that effect of the Crimean War which so materially lessened the influence of Russia in Germany. The intimate and friendly relations subsisting between the two Courts remained unbroken, and to its preservation in fair weather and foul, Prussia owed, to a large extent, the favourable conditions surrounding the application and development of her policy. It seemed as necessary to Prussian, as it now does to German interests, that the Russian Government should be, at least, benevolently neutral; and probably the art of keeping it so was profoundly studied by Herr von Bismarck when he filled the post of Ambassador to the Court of St. Petersburg. The large military reforms designed by the King and his advisers aroused an uncompromising opposition in the native Parliament, which was only overcome by the firmness with which King William supported his outspoken and audacious Minister. The victory was secured by methods which were called, and were, unconstitutional. The control of the Chamber over the Budget was placed in abeyance, by a clever interpretation of the fundamental law. It was held that if the Deputies could not agree with the Government respecting the estimates of the current year, the law which they had sanctioned in the preceding year still remained valid. Thus the taxes were collected, appropriated and expended, just the same as if the Chamber had not virtually "stopped the supplies" in order to defeat the measures which were intended to give the army stability, numbers, efficiency and