ing its course, but only by standing firmly on our
legs and being, first of all, a great power and a German federal state
afterward."

After Napoleon and the interminable elocutionary squabbles of the
German states, first, for constitutional rights, and, second, for some
basis of unity among themselves, which were the two main streams of
political activity, there were three main steps in the formation of
the now existing empire: first, in 1866, the North German
Confederation under the presidency of Prussia and excluding Austria;
second, the conclusion of treaties, 1866-1867, between the North
German Confederation and the south German states; third, the formal
union of the north and south German states as an empire in 1871.

Although the Holy Roman Empire ceased to exist legally in 1806, it is
to be remembered that as a fiction weighing still upon the imagination
of German politicians, it did not wholly disappear until the war
between Prussia and Austria, for then Prussia fought not only Austria
but Bavaria, Wuertemberg, Saxony, Hanover, Nassau, Baden, and the two
Hesse states, and at Sadowa in Bohemia the war was settled by the
defeat of the Austrians before they could be joined by these allies,
who were disposed of in detail. Frankfort was so harshly treated that
the mayor hanged himself, and the Prussianizing of Hanover has never
been entirely forgiven, and the claimants to the throne in exile are
still the centre of a political party antagonistic to Prussia. The
taking over of north Schleswig, of Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and Nassau
by Prussia after the Austrian war was according to the rough
arbitrament of conquest. "Our right," replied Bismarck to the just
criticism of this spoliation, "is the right of the German nation to
exist, to breathe, to be united; it is the right and the duty of
Prussia to give the German nation the foundation necessary for its
existence." In taking Alsace-Lorraine from France, Bismarck insisted
that this was a necessary barrier against France and that Germany's
possession of Metz and Strassburg were necessities of the situation
also.

The history of German unity is the biography of Bismarck. Otto Eduard
Leopold von Bismarck was born in Schoenhausen, in that Mark of
Brandenburg which was the cradle of the Prussian monarchy, on the
first of April, 1815. His grandfather fought at Rossbach under the
great Frederick. He was confirmed in Berlin in 1831 by the famous
pastor and theologian, Schle