Parliament.  They were asked to cease to be Prussians in order that they might become Germans.  This Bismarck refused to do.  “Prussians we are,” he said, “and Prussians we will remain.”  He had no sympathy with this idea of a United Germany which was so powerful at the time; there was only one way in which he was willing that Germany should be united, and that was according to the example which Frederick the Great had set.  The ideals of the German nation were represented by Arndt’s famous song, “Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?” The fatherland of the Germans was not Suabia or Prussia, not Austria or Bavaria, it was the whole of Germany wherever the German tongue was spoken.  From this Bismarck deliberately dissociated himself.  “I have never heard,” he said, “a Prussian soldier singing, ‘Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?’” The new flag of Germany was to be the German tricolour, black and white and gold.

“The Prussian soldiers,” cried Bismarck, “have no tricoloured enthusiasm; among them you will find, as little as in the rest of the Prussian people, the desire for a national regeneration; they are contented with the name of Prussia, and proud of the name of Prussia.  These troops follow the black and white flag, not the tricolour; under the black and white they die with joy for their country.  The tricolour they have learnt since the 18th of March to look on as the colours of their foes.”

These words aroused intense indignation.  One of the speakers who followed referred to him as the Prodigal Son of the German Fatherland, who had deserted his father’s house.  Bismarck repudiated the epithet.  “I am not a prodigal son,” he said; “my father’s house is Prussia and I have never left it.”  He could not more clearly repudiate the title German.  The others were moved by enthusiasm for an idea, he by loyalty to an existing State.

Nothing was sound, he said, in Germany, except the old Prussian institutions.

“What has preserved us is that which is specifically Prussian.  It was the remnant of the Stock-Preussenthum which has survived the Revolution, the Prussian army, the Prussian treasure, the fruits of many years of intelligent Prussian administration, and the living co-operation between King and people.  It was the attachment of the Prussian people to their hereditary dynasty, the old Prussian virtues of honour, loyalty, obedience, and the courage which, emanating from the officers who form its bone and marrow, permeates the army down to the youngest recruit.”

He reminded the House how the Assembly at Frankfort had only been saved from the insurgent mob by a Prussian regiment, and now it was proposed to weaken and destroy all these Prussian institutions in order to change them into a democratic Germany.  He was asked to assent to a Constitution in which the Prussian Government would sink to the level of a provincial council, under the guidance of an Imperial Ministry which itself would be dependent on a Parliament in which the Prussian interests would be in a minority.  The most important and honourable duties of the Prussian Parliament would be transferred to a general Parliament; the King would lose his veto; he would be compelled against his will to assent to laws he disliked; even the Prussian army would be no longer under his sole command.  What recompense were they to gain for this?