particularism of the German princes, the opposition of Austria, and looming in the background the possible opposition of France; and Bismarck alone thoroughly understood that such obstacles could be removed by war and war only.  But in order to wage war successfully, a country must be well-armed; and in the attempt to arm Prussia so that she would be equal to asserting her interests in Germany, Bismarck and the king had to face the stubborn opposition of the Prussian representative assembly.  Bismarck did not flinch from fighting the Prussian assembly in the national interest any more than he flinched under different circumstances from calling the German democracy to his aid.  When by this policy, at once bold and cautious, of Prussian aggrandizement, he had succeeded in bringing about war with Austria, he fearlessly announced a plan of partial unification, based upon the supremacy of Prussia and a national parliament elected by universal suffrage; and after the defeat of Austria, he successfully carried this plan into effect.  It so happened that the special interest of Prussia coincided with the German national interest.  It was Prussia’s effective military power which defeated Austria and forced the princes to abate their particularist pretensions.  It was Prussia’s comparatively larger population which made Bismarck insist that the German nation should be an efficient popular union rather than a mere federation of states.  And it was Bismarck’s experience with the anti-nationalism “liberalism” of the Prussian assembly, elected as it was by a very restricted suffrage, which convinced him that the national interest could be as well trusted to the good sense and the patriotism of the whole people as to the special interests of the “bourgeoisie.”  Thus little by little the fertile seed of Bismarck’s Prussian patriotism grew into a German semi-democratic nationalism, and it achieved this transformation without any essential sacrifice of its own integrity.  He had been working in Prussia’s interest throughout, but he saw clearly just where the Prussian interest blended with the German national interest, and just what means, whether by way of military force or popular approval, were necessary for the success of his patriotic policy.

When the Prussian Minister-President became the Imperial Chancellor, he pursued in the larger field a similar purpose by different means.  The German national Empire had been founded by means of the forcible coercion of its domestic and foreign opponents.  It remained now to organize and develop the new national state; and the government, under Bismark’s lead, made itself responsible for the task of organization and development, just as it had made itself responsible for the task of unification.  According to the theories of democratic individualistic “liberalism,” such an effort could only result in failure, because from the liberal point of view the one way to develop a modern industrial nation was simply to allow the