He rose to the rank of colonel, and fell fighting against the Austrians at Chotusitz in 1742.  “Ein ganzer Kerl” (a fine fellow), said the King, as he stood by the dying officer.  His son, Carl Alexander, succeeded to Schoenhausen; the next generation kept up the military traditions of the family; of four brothers, all but one became professional officers and fought against France in the wars of liberation.  One fell at Moeckern in 1813; another rose to the rank of lieutenant-general; the third also fought in the war; his son, the later Count Bismarck-Bohlen, was wounded at Grossbehren, and the father at once came to take his place during his convalescence, in order that the Prussian army might not have fewer Bismarcks.  When the young Otto was born two years later, he would often hear of the adventures of his three uncles and his cousin in the great war.  The latter, Bismarck-Bohlen, rose to very high honours and was to die when over eighty years of age, after he had witnessed the next great war with France.  It is a curious instance of the divisions of Germany in those days that there were Bismarcks fighting on the French side throughout the war.  One branch of the family had settled in South Germany; the head of it, Friedrich Wilhelm, had taken service in the Wurtemburg army; he had become a celebrated leader of cavalry and was passionately devoted to Napoleon.  He served with distinction in the Russian campaign and was eventually taken prisoner by the Germans in the battle of Leipzig.

The youngest of the four brothers, Karl Wilhelm Friedrich v.  Bismarck, had retired from the army at an early age:  he was a quiet, kindly man of domestic tastes; on the division of the estates, Schoenhausen fell to his lot, and he settled down there to a quiet country life.  He took a step which must have caused much discussion among all his friends and relations, for he chose as wife not one of his own rank, not a Kleist, or a Katte, or a Bredow, or an Arnim, or an Alvensleben, or any other of the neighbouring nobility; he married a simple Fraeulein Mencken.  She was, however, of no undistinguished origin.  Her father, the son of a professor at the University of Leipzig, had entered the Prussian Civil Service; there he had risen to the highest rank and had been Cabinet Secretary to both Frederick William II. and Frederick III.  He was a man of high character and of considerable ability; as was not uncommon among the officials of those days, he was strongly affected by the liberal and even revolutionary doctrines of France.

Fraeulein Mencken, who was married at the age of sixteen, was a clever and ambitious woman.  From her her son inherited his intellect; from his father he derived what the Germans call Gemueth, geniality, kindliness, humour.  By his two parents he was thus connected with the double foundation on which Prussia had been built:  on his father’s side he had sprung from the fighting nobles; on his mother’s, from the scholars and officials.  In later life we shall find that while his prejudices and affections are all enlisted on the side of the noble, the keen and critical intellect he had inherited from his mother enabled him to overcome the prejudices of his order.