Bismarck Becomes Prussian Prime Minister — 'Blood and Iron'
Wilhelm I appointed Bismarck minister-president of Prussia in September 1862 because the alternative was abdication. The crisis was over the army. The king and his war minister wanted to expand the regular army, extend conscription to three years and reduce the role of the militia, and the liberal majority in the lower house refused the budget — not over the money but over the political character of the reform, since the militia was the citizen element and the line regiments were the crown's. The chamber had rejected it twice and the king had dissolved it twice and lost both elections. He had a letter of abdication drafted when Roon telegraphed Bismarck in Paris with three words meaning that there was danger in delay. Bismarck was fifty-seven, had been a reactionary deputy in 1848, a delegate to the diet at Frankfurt and ambassador to Petersburg and Paris, and was regarded across the political spectrum as too dangerous for office. He told the king he would govern without a budget if necessary and did, collecting taxes for four years on the argument that the constitution contained no provision for a deadlock and that the government therefore had to carry on. His speech to the budget committee a week after taking office contained the sentence about the great questions of the day being decided not by speeches and majority votes but by iron and blood, which he meant as a remark about German unification and which was heard as a description of his own methods. He was right about both. The constitutional conflict was settled retrospectively. After Königgrätz in 1866 the chamber passed an indemnity bill approving four years of illegal government, and most of the liberals who had opposed him voted for it and split their own party doing so.
- Year: 1862 CE
- Category: Political
