The decision depended on the events at home; the position of the Government was becoming untenable. The elections had been most unfavourable; the Radicals had ceased to efface themselves, the old leaders of 1848 had appeared again; they had formed a new party of "Progressives," and had won over a hundred seats at the expense of the Conservatives and the moderate Liberals; they were pledged not to carry out the military reforms and to insist on the two years' service. They intended to make the difference of opinion on this point the occasion of a decisive struggle to secure and extend the control of the House over the administration, and for this purpose to bring into prominence constitutional questions which both Crown and Parliament had hitherto avoided. From the day the session opened it was clear that there was now no chance of the money being voted for the army. Before the decisive debate came on, the majority had taken the offensive and passed what was a direct vote of want of confidence in the Ministry. On this the Ministry handed in their resignations to the King; their place was taken by members of the Conservative party and Parliament again dissolved after sitting only six weeks. It was the end of the _new era_. It was doubtful whether the new Ministers would have the skill and resolution to meet the crisis; they still were without a leader; Prince von Hohenlohe, a member of the Protestant branch of the family to which the present Chancellor of the Empire belongs, was appointed provisional President. The opinions of the country was clear enough; the elections resulted in the complete defeat not only of the Conservatives but of the moderate Liberals; not a single one of the Ministers was returned. There was, therefore, no doubt that the King would either have to give in on the question of the army or to govern against the will of the majority of the Chamber. The struggle was no longer confined to the question of the army; it was a formal conflict for power between the House and the Crown. The attempt to introduce a Parliamentary government which had been thwarted ten years before was now revived. Who could say what the end would be? All precedent seemed to shew that in a struggle between Crown and Parliament sooner or later the King must be beaten, unless, indeed, he was prepared to adopt the means which Napoleon used. The King would not give in; he believed that the army reform was necessary to the safety of his country; on the other hand, he was a man of too loyal a character to have recourse to violence and a breach of the Constitution. If, however, the Constitution proved to be of such a kind that it made it impossible for him to govern the country, he was prepared to retire from his post; the position would indeed be untenable if on his shoulders lay the responsibility of guiding the policy and defending the interests of Prussia, and at the same time the country refused to grant him the means of doing so.