“I am quite contented with my existence here; I ask for no change in my position until it be God’s will I settle down quietly at Schoenhausen or Reinfeld and can leisurely set about having my coffin made.”

In October he had to attend the Czar on a journey to Warsaw where he had an interview with the Prince Regent.  The Prince was accompanied by his Minister-President, the Prince of Hohenzollern, who took the opportunity of having long conversations with the Ambassador to St. Petersburg.  It is said that as a result of this the Minister, who wished to be relieved from a post which was daily becoming more burdensome, advised the Prince Regent to appoint Bismarck Minister-President.  The advice, however, was not taken.

Meanwhile events were taking place in Prussia which were to bring about important constitutional changes.  The success of the Ministry of the new era had not answered the expectations of the country.  Their foreign policy had been correct, but they had shewn no more spirit than their predecessors, and the country was in that excited state in which people wanted to see some brilliant and exciting stroke of policy, though they were not at all clear what it was they desired.  Then a rift had begun to grow between the Regent and his Ministers.  The Liberalism of the Prince had never been very deep; it owed its origin in fact chiefly to his opposition to the reactionary government of his brother.  As an honest man he intended to govern strictly in accordance with the Constitution.  He had, however, from the beginning no intention of allowing the Chambers to encroach upon the prerogatives of the Crown.  The Ministers on the other hand regarded themselves to some extent as a Parliamentary Ministry; they had a majority in the House and they were inclined to defer to it.  The latent causes of difference were brought into activity by the question of army reform.

The Prince Regent was chiefly and primarily a soldier.  As a second son it had been doubtful whether he would ever succeed to the throne.  He had an intimate acquaintance with the whole condition of the army, and he had long known that in many points reform was necessary.  His first action on succeeding his brother was to appoint a Commission of the War Office to prepare a scheme of reorganisation.  A memorandum had been drawn up for him by Albert von Roon, and with some alterations it was accepted by the Commission.  The Minister of War, Bonin (the same who had been dismissed in 1854 at the crisis of the Eastern complications), seems to have been indifferent in the matter; he did not feel in himself the energy for carrying through an important reform which he had not himself originated, and of which perhaps he did not altogether approve.  The Prince Regent had set his mind upon the matter; the experience gained during the mobilisation of 1859 had shewn how serious the defects were; the army was still on a war footing and it was a good opportunity for at once carrying through the proposed changes.  Bonin therefore resigned his office and Roon, in December, 1859, was appointed in his place.