Blood and Iron
nvil of destiny. Enter, thou massive figure, Bismarck,
with their monotony; they do not at all times march on; they drag, but the
our grim blacksmith, looming through the encir
brawny Prussian giant; magnificent in his Olympian mien; his bellows cracking, his shop aglow
Pomeranian smith with ponderous hammer beats and batters th
, we do not always s
h within and without the distracted German lands. Russia, Austria, Italy, Great Britain, France, Spain, have their spies engaged
down the book convinced that, in a welter
ultimately emerge triumphant, in spite of her
anhood-and thus the Bismarck
d to re-inspire the Germa
ient Teutons had to be aroused; for though
the town by the Tiber; and the fearsome struggle between the Romans and
he Germans as the brave
heroic pages of all history. It was a hand-to-hand contest, and torrents of human blood ran that day. Menzel tells us, (Germany, p. 85), that the place of battle enr
train fought with animal ferocity. The battle went against the Germans and the slaughter was frightful. When all was lost, the Germans killed their women and children, rather than see them fall into the hands of the Romans. German cou
ming lineal descendants of the Empire. And on the ruins were build
e battle-scenes to show you that Germans were ever
man oak died at the top. Along came Napoleon, hacking away the limbs and scarring the gnarled trunk with fire and sword. The ruin seemed complete. Dead at the top, dead at the root, men s
reciation of the ancient legend, to make the German oak green a
lds. Bismarck in the crudity of his early inspiration scarcely finds himself for years. But all the while he is holding fas
rking his own plans to be sure, but those plans in the end are to
ss and we hope with some of his str
im black, now and then, deliberately, that you may know how very small ofttimes are the very great; also to rea
belittled by the glamour of spur
eing in order to carry out his work. He remained, to