f German unification the support of the more moderate, that is
to say, the second and third. The ultra-Conservatives clung to the
particularistic regime of earlier days, and with them the genius of
"blood and iron" broke definitely in 1866. The Free Conservatives
comprised at the outset simply those elements of the original (p. 230)
Conservative party who were willing to follow Bismarck.

[Footnote 342: To so great an extent is this true
that, having described in this place the parties of
the Empire, it will not be necessary subsequently
to allude at length to those of Prussia.]

*244. Rise and Preponderance of the National Liberals.*--Similarly among
the Progressives there was division upon the attitude to be assumed
toward the Bismarckian programme. The more radical wing of the party,
i.e., that which maintained the name and the policies of the original
Fortschritt, refused to abandon its opposition to militarism and
monarchism, opposed the constitution of 1867 for its illiberality, and
withheld from Bismarck's government all substantial support. The
larger portion of the party members, however were willing to
subordinate for a time to Bismarck's nationalizing projects the
contest which the united Fortschritt had long been waging in behalf of
constitutionalism. The party of no compromise was strongest in Berlin
and the towns of east Prussia. It was almost exclusively Prussian. The
National Liberals, on the contrary, became early an essentially
German, rather than simply a Prussian, party. Even before 1871 they
comprised, in point both of numbers and of power, the preponderating
party in both Prussia and the Confederation as a whole; and after
1871, when the Nationalists of the southern states cast in their lot
with the National Liberals, the predominance of that party was
effectually assured. Upon the National Liberals as the party of unity
and uniformity Bismarck relied absolutely for support in the
upbuilding of the Empire. It was only in 1878, after the party had
lost control of the Reichstag, in consequence of the reaction against
Liberalism attending the great religious contest known as the
Kulturkampf, that the Chancellor was in a position to throw off the
not infrequently galling bonds of the Liberal alliance.

*245. The Newer Groups: the Centre.*--Meanwhile the field occupied by
the various parties that have been named was, from