THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
“That would have created a new situation. But to meet that situation, I would have had a shot in my locker which, perhaps, will surprise you when I mention it.”
I was indeed curious. “What would have been the effect,” said Bismarck, “if under those circumstances I had appealed to the national feeling of the whole people by proclaiming the constitution of the German Empire made at Frankfurt in 1848 and 1849?”
“I think it would have electrified the whole country and created a German nation,” I replied. “But would you really have adopted that great orphan left by the revolution of 1848?”
“Why not!” said the Chancellor. “True, that constitution contained some features very objectionable to me. But after all it was not so very far from what I am aiming at now. But whether the old gentleman would have adopted it, is doubtful. Still, with Napoleon at the gates, he might have taken that jump too. But,” he added, “we shall have that war with France anyhow.”
I expressed my surprise at this prediction—a prediction all the more surprising to me as I again thought of the great statesman carrying on his shoulders such tremendous responsibilities, talking to an entire stranger,—and his tone grew quite serious, grave, almost solemn, when he said: “Do not believe that I love war. I have seen enough of war to abhor it profoundly. The terrible scenes I leave witnessed, will never cease to haunt my mind. I shall never consent to a war that is avoidable, much less seek it. But this war with France will surely come. It will be forced upon us by the French Emperor. I see that clearly.”
Then he went on to explain how the situation of an “adventurer on a throne,” such as Louis Napoleon, was different
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