ABSTRACT
While he was in Berlin Schleinitz asked him to prepare a declaration to be made in Frankfurt about the reform of the Confederation. In submitting his draft Bismarck wondered if the issue of establishing an organ of popular
representation within a reformed Confederation should be raised. It was a card he himself was to play at crucial junctures in the future. Already his tactical flexibility and willingness to face in different directions was creating mistrust. It was the reason why the regent, limited and lacking subtlety, was reluctant to make him a minister. In May 1860 in a last letter to Gerlach, who had not much longer to live, he once again defends himself against Bonapartism, admits that France might be a dubious ally, but concludes one must keep the possibility open, for one cannot play chess ‘if 16 out 64 positions are out of bounds’.2 He tries to explain his differences with his old friend and mentor by saying that he, Bismarck, never lived through the fight against the first Napoleon, ‘revolution incarnate’ to Gerlach.
