ABSTRACT
The confrontation actually crystallized around a question that ultimately determined not only the fate of the ‘New Era’ but in a sense the development of Prussia and of Germany for the next two generations: the question of the reform of the Prussian army constitution. Agreement about the need for reform was as widespread as about the fact that such a reform must increase the fighting power of the army and with it Prussia’s importance in power-political terms. In addition to the systematic implementation of the liberal constitutional state at home, the party stood for a resolute policy of federal reform in the liberal direction of a Lesser Germany. In 1848, leaving aside all differences of opinion over the standpoint of concrete self-interest, Otto von Bismarck had agreed in principle with his arch-conservative friends that the economic and social reforms of the Prussian reform period had been politically and socially detrimental.
