¶ He became a fanatic on the subject of expelling Austria from Germany! He had no scruples, stopped at nothing, paused at nothing; and at the right moment defied the Chamber, smashed the Prussian Constitution that would restrain the King's action in peace or war--and ruled alone! ¶ There are few parallels in history of a stronger man. ¶ Looked at in a large way, we are forced to conclude that the German masses were not ready to believe, at this moment, in Bismarck's Old Testament faith in a God of Battles. To fulfil the Bismarckian political ideal, there was essential an implied humility on part of the people; and this attitude of submission and renunciation was a sin against the spirit of '48. Bismarck's idea of political efficiency was also by no means worked out in detail; it had yet to find a place for the tailor, the shoemaker and the barber, side by side with the King of Prussia; even that miracle was ultimately accomplished, but at the present hour the street-bred people felt it their solemn duty to get up and howl, and to profess to know nothing of political efficiency, wherever kings were concerned. ¶ At all times, the speeches of the crowd in the market-place were blatant enough, but there was also an unrecognized undercurrent of courage and patriotism passing with the flood that was to mean much to Germany, in days to come. The cause of the crowd was really an early form of our vital modernist democratic movement, not to be put down nor yet shut out; all political life was to be revalued, also all new ideas of political happiness were to be henceforth tested by their virility and actuality, cutting away completely bookish ideals. ¶ The part that lagged was this: leaders of the people were soon over-engaged, so to say, with the many-sided aspects and problems of the new political leadership; the German compatriots failed at this time to realize their obligations to a German Empire, to be; the people's politicians were still insular with little or no consciousness of the great German National destiny just around the bend of the road. Thus, Bismarck's function was to force the people to join the National movement--do so as it were in spite of themselves; and when Bismarck fought back and called the people fools, he did not pause there, but stopped at nothing to lead a hitherto indifferent people to warlike patriotism over the Austrian question--over which they had gabbled and slept for years. Bismarck's unity of purpose for the Fatherland deftly combined sordid as well as exalted motives. ¶ And the demands Bismarck finally made on German character were not in vain. For years, however, he was looked upon as an ogre in the eyes of the masses, who misread his patriotism for jingoism in behalf of the King of Prussia. CHAPTER XIII The Dream of Empire 45 Bismarck tricks them all--and by under-play matches King against King.