ABSTRACT
In September 1862 Otto von Bismarck, Prussia’s newly appointed Minister President, addressed the Budget Commission of the Prussian Landtag. The delegates had recently rejected over-whelmingly an Army Bill, introduced by von Roon, to increase the number of cavalry and infantry régiments. Bismarck now reminded them that if Prussia were to play a dominant role in German affairs, this role must be underpinned by military security. ‘Germany’, he concluded, ‘looks not to Prussia’s Liberalism, but to her power… The questions of the day will not be decided by speeches and majority decisions…but by blood and iron.’1
