Blood and Iron

e lust for control is idiomatic; le

gnificent reserve force, making his battling blood leap; is transformed into a catapult, bearing down his adversar

g is this: The dog during the fight, looks now and then at h

arck looked

n his physiognomy that shows his ugly disposition, when aroused. If you saw that moody face in the crowd, one glance

usionary. The dog at heart is genial in a brute way, and never a more loyal

Chancellor had but to come into the room to make his onlookers experience uneasiness. There was an ever-pre

d thousands of admirers to one friend. During the greater part of his life he was either hated or feared-at b

of the situation regardless of cost, sorrow or suffering to other men, is seen

. He never allowed familiarities; you could not safely presume on his good nature. He never permitted you to get too near. This

o amuse himself making faces at his sister;

, and by his offensive manners conveyed an immediate impression of

rat, in a sense of high

s intellect, even in the early days when he used his power in an undiscipl

ficent audacity of the bulldog expressed itself in scars, woun

urage, greater in import than t

n a human being. There is a school of writers that never mentions his name except with upturned eyes, as though he were a demigod. The tendency

which they draw is always grossly human, rather dull when you understand

His idiomatic lust for control is to be accepted as a root-fact of his peculiar type of being. And while on the whole his ambition is exercised for the good of his country, herein he is acting, in addition, under

not necessary to believe that Bismarck poses as the Savior of his country. In fact, he distinct

of Emperor William I," show that however much other men were unable to comprehend t

a final sweep of his long and turbulent life, asked hi

Empire, you have held in your hand the globe of this earth; call you

ts high lights and its deep shadows, could be expressed in four simple words, "A Faithful Germ

ge man-Bismarck brought a massive mind charged with a peculiar clairvoyance; often, his fore-knowledge seemed well-nigh uncanny in its exact realism;

all his Bismarckian pomp and majesty, in camp, co

great mind. His overbrooding silence, as it

We incline to the belief that hereditary tendencies explain him more than does environment. It is Bismarck as a human being, and not the tremendou

hat vicious mental attitude, as vain as it is egotistical on part of the o

Time. Whether his plan was dedicated to this world or to the glory of some invisible God, you may de

in his aims. His life does not borrow anything because a certain type of mind professes to see behind Bismarck's history, as indeed behind the careers of all great men,

genius, he is an exception to conventional

ble jaw, which, like the jaws of the bulldog, when onc

ldog, Bismarck favored one feed a day. He took a light breakfas

ing never looks from the plate, and the water fa

wind drives the clouds and asks not when or why.

the soldier, the priest, the ci

in money at cards, and then get him to sign papers; how to remember old obligations or to forget new favors; how to read a document in more than one way; how to turn historical parallels upside

or world benevolences. He was for himself and his own ends,

ty to work all night like a horse week after week; go to bed at dawn and sleep ti

r that he was, he sometimes gained his point by his frankness, kn

of champagne without taking the silver tankard from his lips; in younger years he used to eat from four to eleven eggs at a meal

emper; his superstition about the number 13; his strange mixing of God with all his despotic conduct; his fondness for mastiffs; his attacks of jaundice; his volcanic outbursts; his belief in ghosts, in the influence of the moon to

h or without their consent; but he always studied to place himself in a strat

in when the game was short and sharp, he kicked some men out of his path contemptuously, others he parl

of diplomacy. Dr. Busch, the press-agent of Bismarck during the Franc

about. Blome had heard that this game gave the best possible opportunity for discovering a man's real nature, and wanted to try it on with me. So I thought to myself, here's for you then, and a