emocratic political
institutions.

After the failure of the Frankfurt Constitution it slowly became clear to
far-sighted Germans that there was only one way in which German unity could
come about. If, unlike the separate provinces of Canada and South Africa,
the German States would not voluntarily sink their identity in a larger
whole, unity could only come through their acceptance of the supremacy of
one of the existing States.

There were only two possible candidates for the supremacy, Austria and
Prussia. Austria was still, at that time, as she had been for centuries,
in a position of undisputed headship. But her German policy was always
hampered because she had also to consider her non-German subjects.
Prussia, a younger and more homogeneous State, with a better organised
administration and a better disciplined people, was preparing to assert
herself. In 1862, at a moment when liberalism was gathering strength in
Prussia, Count Bismarck became chief Minister of the Prussian Crown and
the dominating force in Prussian policy. Bismarck was a Conservative and a
reactionary, wholly out of sympathy with the ideals of 1848. His immediate
object was to secure the supremacy of Prussia among the German States.
In the very first months of his leadership he made it clear, in a famous
sentence, by what methods he hoped to achieve his end. "The great questions
are to be settled," he told the Prussian Diet, with a scornful hit at the
Confederation, "not by speeches and majority resolutions, but by blood and
iron."

He was not long in translating words into action. In 1864 the King of
Denmark died, and difficulties at once arose as to the succession to the
Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, which still belonged to the German
Confederation. Austria and Prussia intervened jointly in the name of the
Confederation, and, as a result, the Duchies were separated from Denmark,
Schleswig being administered by Austria and Holstein by Prussia. The object
of this rather clumsy plan, which originated with Bismarck, was to create
difficulties which would enable him to pick a quarrel with Austria. In 1866
this manoeuvre proved successful. Bismarck goaded Austria into war and
succeeded, after a six weeks' campaign, in expelling her from the German
State system, following this up by rounding off her own dominions with the
annexation of a number of the smaller pro-Austrian States, amongst them the
kingdom of Hanover. His victory also had the effec