when I had invited him for the purpose of ascertaining whether
the march of the army could not be begun twenty-four hours sooner, he
answered in the affirmative and was pleasantly excited by the hastening
of the struggle. As he left my wife's drawing-room with elastic step, he
turned round at the door and asked me in a serious tone: "Do you know
that the Saxons have _blown up_[37] the bridge at Dresden?" Upon my
expression of amazement and regret he replied: "Yes, with water, for the
dust." An inclination to innocent jokes very seldom, in official
relations like ours, broke through his reserve. In both cases his love
of combat and delight in battles were a great support to me in carrying
out the policy I regarded as necessary, in opposition to the
intelligible and justifiable aversion in a most influential quarter. It
proved inconvenient to me in 1867, in the Luxemburg question, and in
1875 and afterwards on the question whether it was desirable, as regards
a war which we should probably have to face sooner or later, to bring it
on _antici-pando_ before the adversary could improve his preparations. I
have always opposed the theory which says "Yes"; not only at the
Luxemburg period, but likewise subsequently for twenty years, in the
conviction that even victorious wars cannot be justified unless they are
forced upon one, and that one cannot see the cards of Providence far
enough ahead to anticipate historical development according to one's own
calculation. It is natural that in the staff of the army not only
younger officers, but likewise experienced strategists, should feel the
need of turning to account the efficiency of the troops led by them, and
their own capacity to lead, and of making them prominent in history. It
would be a matter of regret if this effect of the military spirit did
not exist in the army; the task of keeping its results within such
limits as the nations' need of peace can justly claim is the duty of the
political, not the military, heads of the State. That at the time of the
Luxemburg question, during the crisis of 1875, invented by Gortchakoff
and France, and even down to the most recent times, the staff and its
leaders have allowed themselves to be led astray and to endanger peace,
lies in the very spirit of the institution, which I would not forego. It
only becomes dangerous under a monarch whose policy lacks sense of
proportion and power to resist one-sided and constitutionally
unjustifiable inf