It is important to notice the date at which this letter was sent.  It shews us that these proposals were Bismarck’s own.  Attempts have often been made since to suggest that the policy of annexation was not his, but was forced on him by the King, or by the military powers, or by the nation.  This was not the case.  He appeals indeed to public opinion, but public opinion, had it been asked, would really have demanded, not the dethronement of the Kings of Hanover and Saxony, but the unity of all Germany; and we know that Bismarck would never pursue what he thought a dangerous policy simply because public opinion demanded it.  It has also been said that the dethronement of the King of Hanover was the natural result of the obstinacy of himself and his advisers, and his folly in going to Vienna to appeal there to the help of the Austrian Emperor.

This also is not true.  We find that Bismarck has determined on this policy some days before the King had left Thuringia.  This, like all he did, was the deliberate result of the consideration:  What would tend most to the growth of Prussian power?  He had to consider three alternatives:  that these States should be compelled to come into a union with Prussia on the terms that the Princes should hand over the command of their forces to the Prussian King, but he knew that the King of Hanover would never consent to this, and probably the King of Saxony would also refuse; he might also require the reigning Kings to abdicate in place of their sons; or he might leave them with considerable freedom, but cripple their power by taking away part of their territory.  These solutions seemed to him undesirable because they would leave dynasties, who would naturally be hostile, jealous, and suspicious, with the control of large powers of government.  Surely it would be better, safer, and wiser to sweep them away altogether.  It may be objected that there was no ground in justice for so doing.  This is true, and Bismarck has never pretended that there was.  He has left it to the writers of the Prussian Press to justify an action which was based purely on policy, by the pretence that it was the due recompense of the crimes of the rival dynasties.

Sybel says that Bismarck determined on these terms because they were those which would be most acceptable to France; that he would have preferred at once to secure the unity of the whole of Germany, but that from his knowledge of French thought and French character he foresaw that this would be possible only after another war, and he did not wish to risk the whole.  So far as our information goes, it is against this hypothesis; it is rather true to say that he used the danger of French interference as a means of persuading the King to adopt a policy which was naturally repugnant to him.  It is true that these terms would be agreeable to Napoleon.  It would appear in France and in Europe as if it was French power which had persuaded Prussia to stop at the Main and to spare