The alliance with the Conservatives which he had inherited from the older days had begun to break directly after 1866.  Many of them had been disappointed by his policy in that year.  The grant of universal suffrage had alarmed them; they had wished that he would use his power to check and punish the Parliament for its opposition; instead of that he asked for an indemnity.  They felt that they had borne with him the struggle for the integrity of the Prussian Monarchy; no sooner was the victory won than he held out his hand to the Liberals and it was to them that the prize went.  They were hurt and disappointed, and this personal feeling was increased by Bismarck’s want of consideration, his brusqueness of manner, his refusal to consider complaints and remonstrances.  Even the success of 1870 had not altogether reconciled them; these Prussian nobles, the men to whom in earlier days he himself had belonged, saw with regret the name of King of Prussia hidden behind the newer glory of the German Emperor; it is curious to read how even Roon speaks with something of contempt and disgust of this new title:  “I hope,” he writes, “Bismarck will be in a better temper now that the Kaiser egg has been safely hatched.”  It was, however, the struggle with the Catholic Church which achieved the separation; the complete subjection of the Church to the State, the new laws for school inspection, the introduction of compulsory civil marriage, were all opposed to the strongest and the healthiest feelings of the Prussian Conservatives.  These did not seem to be matters in which the safety of the Empire was concerned; Bismarck had simply gone over to, and adopted the programme of, the Liberals; he was supporting that all-pervading power of the Prussian bureaucracy which he, in his earlier days, had so bitterly attacked.  Then came a proposal for change in the local government which would diminish the influence of the landed proprietors.  The Conservatives refused to support these measures; the Conservative majority in the House of Lords threw them out.  Bismarck’s own brother, all his old friends and comrades, were now ranged against him.  He accepted opposition from them as little as from anyone else; the consent of the King was obtained to the creation of new peers, and by this means the obnoxious measures were forced through the unwilling House.  Bismarck by his speeches intensified the bitterness; he came down himself to make an attack on the Conservatives.  “The Government is disappointed,” he said; “we had looked for confidence from the Conservative party; confidence is a delicate plant; if it is once destroyed it does not grow again.  We shall have to look elsewhere for support.”

A crisis in his relations to the party came at the end of 1872; up to this time Roon had still remained in the Government; now, in consequence of the manner in which the creation of peers had been decided upon, he requested permission to resign.  The King, who could not bear to part with him, and who really in many matters of internal policy had more sympathy with him than with Bismarck, refused to accept the resignation.  The crisis which arose had an unexpected ending:  Bismarck himself resigned the office of Minister-President of Prussia, which was transferred to Roon, keeping only that of Foreign Minister and Chancellor of the Empire.