scruple, devoid of faith, devoid of pity, and devoid of soul. He had
just removed the only obstacle which could spoil his plan; he had got
rid of Austria. He said to himself: "We are going to make Germany
take over, along with Prussian centralization and discipline, all our
ambitions and all our appetites. If she hesitates, if the confederate
peoples do not arrive of their own accord at this common resolution, I
know how to compel them; I will cause a breath of hatred to pass over
them, all alike. I will launch them against a common enemy, an enemy
we have hood-winked and waylaid, and whom we shall try to catch
unarmed. Then when the hour of triumph shall sound, I will rise up;
from Germany, in her intoxication, I will snatch a covenant, which,
like that of Faust with Mephistopheles, she has signed with her blood,
and by which she also, like Faust, has traded her soul away for the
good things of earth."

He did as he had said. The covenant was made. But, to ensure that it
would never be broken, Germany must be made to feel, for ever and
ever, the necessity of the armour in which she was imprisoned.
Bismarck took his measures accordingly. Among the confidences which
fell from his lips and were gathered up by his intimates is this
revealing word: "We took nothing from Austria after Sadowa because we
wanted to be able one day to be reconciled with her." So, then, in
taking Alsace and a part of Lorraine, his idea was that no
reconciliation with the French would be possible. He intended that the
German people should believe itself in permanent danger of war, that
the new Empire should remain armed to the teeth, and that Germany,
instead of dissolving Prussian militarism into her own life, should
reinforce it by militarizing herself.

She reinforced it; and day by day the machine grew in complexity and