Blood and Iron

ise to Power-The story is always th

to a share of this earth with the sword, which in spite of all Hague

every pinch appealed to courts for decisions formerly decided by individual brawn; till finally, as i

utting incompetents to the test of the sword, society, committed to the soft doctrine that all life is sacred, burdens itself with lengthening the days of the daft. A far cry that from

ts of the old Bismarcks to get on in the world, would say off-

on their side. When the Elector decided to steal Burgstal forest, the Bismarcks set up this pious plea: "We wish to remain in the pleasant place assigned to us by the Almighty." Four hundred years later we find Otto von Bismarck using again and again

formula about God; he repeated it on the blood-drenched field of Koeniggraetz; he

iety and trouble; made no one happy, me, my family nor anyone else, but many unhappy. Had it not been for me, there would have been three great wars less; the lives of 80,000 would not have been sacrificed; and many parents, brothers, siste

the Bismarcks, from earliest recorded history. They were a deep-drinking, prolific gormandizing race, and every mother's son had

urous Bismarcks fought for the sheer delight of doing battle;-it mattered not, whether against the Turks or again

er any flag that promises a gay life and plenty of loot. Three hundred years later-how the wheel turns round!-Otto von Bismarck, as Russian Ambassador to the King

id of Otto von Bismarck's great-great-grandfather, a mercenary soldier; adding that while one Bismarck helped take Alsace away, another