France wished to acquire part of the left bank of the Rhine, Austria had never quite given up hope of regaining part of Silesia; it was not fifty years since Prussia had acquired half the kingdom of Saxony; might not a hostile coalition restore this territory?  And then the philanthropy of England and the intrigues of France were still considering the possibility of a revived Poland, but in Poland would have to be included part of the territory which Prussia had acquired.

It is often said that from this conflict must be dated the great growth of militarism in Europe; it is to the victory of the King and Bismarck that we are to attribute the wars which followed and the immense armaments which since then have been built up in Europe.  To a certain extent, of course, this is true, though it is not clear that the presence of these immense armies is an unmixed evil.  It is, however, only half the truth; the Prussian Government was not solely responsible.  It was not they who began arming, it was not they who first broke the peace which had been maintained in Europe since 1815.  Their fault seems to have been, not that they armed first, but that when they put their hand to the work, they did it better than other nations.  If they are exposed to any criticism in the matter, it must rather be this, that the Government of the late King had unduly neglected the army; they began to prepare not too soon but almost too late.  It was in Austria in 1848 that the new military dominion began; Austria was supported by Russia and imitated by France; Prussia, surrounded by these empires, each at least double herself in population, was compelled to arm in self-defence.  By not doing so sooner she had incurred the disgrace of Olmuetz; her whole policy had been weak and vacillating, because the Government was frightened at stirring up a conflict in which they would almost certainly be defeated.

There is one other matter with regard to the conflict so far as regards Bismarck personally.  We must always remember that he was not responsible for it.  It had originated at a time when he was absent from Germany, and had very little influence on the conduct of affairs.  Had he been Minister two years before, there probably would have been no conflict at all.  The responsibility for it lies partly with the leaders of the Liberal party, who, as we know from memoirs that have since been published, were acting against their own convictions, in opposing the military demands of the Government, for they feared that otherwise the party would not follow them.  Much of the responsibility also rests with the Ministry of the new era; they had mismanaged affairs; the mismanagement arose from the want of union among them, for the Liberal majority were in many matters opposed to the King and the throne.  It was this want of cordial co-operation in the Ministry which led to the great blunder by which the Minister of War acted in a way which seemed to be, and in fact was, a breach of an engagement