Page:Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire (1899).djvu/194

152 a member of the Protestant branch of the family to which the present Chancellor of the Empire belongs, was appointed provisional President. The opinions of the country was clear enough; the elections resulted in the complete defeat not only of the Conservatives but of the moderate Liberals; not a single one of the Ministers was returned. There was, therefore, no doubt that the King would either have to give in on the question of the army or to govern against the will of the majority of the Chamber. The struggle was no longer confined to the question of the army; it was a formal conflict for power between the House and the Crown. The attempt to introduce a Parliamentary government which had been thwarted ten years before was now revived. Who could say what the end would be? All precedent seemed to shew that in a struggle between Crown and Parliament sooner or later the King must be beaten, unless, indeed, he was prepared to adopt the means which Napoleon used. The King would not give in; he believed that the army reform was necessary to the safety of his country; on the other hand, he was a man of too loyal a character to have recourse to violence and a breach of the Constitution. If, however, the Constitution proved to be of such a kind that it made it impossible for him to govern the country, he was prepared to retire from his post; the position would indeed be untenable if on his shoulders lay the responsibility of guiding the policy and defending the interests of Prussia, and at the same time the country refused to grant him the means of doing so.