¶ The King was in the hands of the Liberals. Bismarck regarded this as a frightful situation. Bismarck, of the Old Regime, stood by the landlords and the titled folk. He had prodigious pride of station, hated to see the King make a fool of himself about paper Constitutions. ¶ In Berlin, along in March, there were amazing scenes. The democrats were crazy for blood; William shrank with horror against fighting his beloved Berliners. But this son, the future William I, who twenty-four years later was to gain the imperial German crown, was not so squeamish. The young prince gained the popular title "Cartridge-box prince," equivalent to saying that he was willing to blaze away at "beloved Berliners," or at any other citizens insane with political excitements hazardous to "Divine-right." ¶ It is true that on March 18th this romantic William IV did indeed enter into negotiations with the insurgents; and--think of the mortification to one of Bismarck's upper-class leanings!--did indeed do no less than wrap the German tricolor around his body and heading a democratic procession march around the streets, even going so far as to make a foolish speech in which he extolled the glories of the German democratic revolution. ¶ Here we might as well close the book, were it not for Bismarck. The surly dog of a king's man flatly refused to vote "Aye!" in the Diet, where the hot-heads were intent on passing resolutions "commending the King for his loyalty to democratic principles," in marching 'round town with the mob. Bismarck for the time being stood like a great mastiff at bay before wolves. His terrific speech upholding royal prerogative made his early and sudden fame. * * * * * ¶ It is a fact that with all their political ambitions, and their solemn belief that Germany's political future was an open book, the Radicals in Prussia never guessed the way events were to turn out; nor for that matter the Radicals never desired the conquest of Germany by Prussia; therefore the subsequent astonishing rise of German Imperialism through Prussian domination, would have proved a most surprising revelation had the patriots of 1806 to 1848 returned from the other world, say in 1870, to view Prussia's rise to glory. * * * * * ¶ The political uprisings of 1848 had parallels in Italy, France, Spain, and Germany; and the excesses cleared the way for wiser action, in years to come. ¶ "The frenzy was a sort of tottering bridge between the French 1789-93 idea of democracy (that has to do with bloodshed and violence) and the purified conception expressed in modern constitutional democracy." ¶ The German democratic uprisings of 1820, '30 and '48 were planned to win a certain type of civil liberty. They failed. The question was "equality," as well as popular "machinery" of representation. How was it to be brought about? Modern "parliamentarism" had not as yet been involved.