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Eisen und Blut: Observations of the Aftermath of a Liberal Victory in the German Elections of 1861
"The election of the Liberal Party and their cabal of economic interests is a sign that our great nation is headed for ruin. The Liberals are a mob of the democratic: they claim they wish to extend the promise of reform to those among our countrymen who live in filth and squalor among the endless black smokestacks of our cities, yet the condition of these wretches grows worse. They preach much about the spread of constitutional governance to the settlements in Africa, as if our place in the sun is worth the vast amount of expenditure wasted on it. Gagern, the great white priest of this nonsensical movement, may try to rein in these aspects of his movement but the charger has long since bolted. The failure to push through the military budget, that would provide our country with the means to wrest the duchies back to their rightful place within the German orbit. The position of Germany in Europe will not be determined by its liberalism but by its power. Germany must concentrate its strength and hold it for the favorable moment, which has already come and gone several times. Since the debacles of Vienna and London, our frontiers have been ill-designed for a healthy body politic. Not through speeches and majority decisions will the great questions of the day be decided—this is the great mistake of the Frankfurt Mob—but by iron and blood."

(Otto von Bismarck's editorial in Der Kürier, the leading conservative newspaper following the appointment of Heinrich von Gagern as Prime Minister for a third time in June 1861.)

"The return of Heinrich von Gagern was greeted with a sense of mild relief in the diplomatic circles that rippled and shaked in Frankfurt, if only because he offered a sense of the familiar. The tense compromise of the Catholics and the Junkers had dissipated into nothingness, the two sides circling each other like punch drunk sailors in a bar room brawl. I met with an American sailor who told me the mood in the northern port cities was ripe with tension: antagonism towards the Danes, anger towards the poor Polish migrants who strike out west in search of work. Said it reminded him of the rage that convulsed in Ohio in the 1850s. The Bavarians say that Gagern was persuaded to return to prevent the Liberals splitting into coffee house factions like the early days of the Frankfurt Parliament. In Munich, the attitude towards Frankfurt is one of decided hostility: they look to Vienna, it's squares and fountains offering hope of a return to the days of church, king and structured order rather than the constant wash of change which extends from the centre to the periphery. The country seems paralysed in a state of permanent tension, it's national tapestry becoming more moth eaten and thread bare."

(Extract from the diary of Edgar Allan Poe, an American journalist, author and critic who had relocated to Germany in the 1850s.)

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