BOOK THE FIFTH The German People Are One and United CHAPTER XIV Windrows of Corpses 49 He is no longer the roaring delegate of the "White Saloon," but has developed the astuteness of the devil, the open sincerity of a saint. ¶ Fight, fight, fight! Nothing but fight! And all this trying time, Bismarck suffered excruciating pains from his old rheumatic complaint. He was irritable, melancholy and jaundiced; sat up all night half-buried in his mounds of state papers; dictating telegrams, quarreling with callers, denouncing, adjusting, scheming; four o'clock found him in bed; he tossed about till seven, when he managed to get to sleep; and was not seen again till late in the afternoon. The situation was getting on the master's nerves. ¶ Enemies in the house of his friends spied on Bismarck, endeavored to poison the King against the doughty Minister. The Crown Prince, especially, who always had an aversion to Bismarck, despite the war-dog's inestimable services to the House of Hohenzollern, now tried to pull the Pomeranian giant down. To this end, the Prince dissassociated himself from Bismarck's policy, avoided the great man at court. The situation passed rapidly from political to social objections on part of the Prince, who spread before the King the ruin of Hohenzollern if Bismarckian policies were longer pursued. ¶ But the King would not give Bismarck up. In this regard, William was as cold as ice. He saw that should Bismarck be asked to go, at that time, the Liberals would be irresistibly strengthened. The recoil of the mighty wave against kingcraft might even end by forcing abdication for the Prussian monarch. ¶ Instead of fearing the Liberal leaders, Bismarck despised their plots. The master knew enough of human nature to see clearly one great central fact. The fire-breathing Democrats would, at the hour of Prussia's peril, join with the hated system of Bismarck and march to glory. In defense of Prussia, Liberals, Socialists and political nonconformists of every description, would be carried off their feet. Then, Bismarck would be able to call on his very enemies to come forward and help him win the day. ¶ And the old man, as usual, was absolutely correct. In the hour of danger how the Prussian Liberals fought! Like fiends they stood, took the murderous fire and went to their death singing, "I am a Prussian, will a Prussian be!" * * * * * ¶ The opportunity to test German National faith first came through the Holstein war, precipitated by Bismarck's clever manipulation of events.