Free Republic

Bismarck's Blood and Iron Speech 150 Years Later Written by Bruce Walker One hundred and fifty years ago, on September 30, 1862, Otto von Bismarck gave his famous “Blut und Eisen” (“Blood and Iron”) speech before the Landtag, the Prussian legislature. In his speech, Bismarck claimed that the international policy of a modern state is built upon the willingness to fight — “Blut” (blood) — and the willingness to spend vast amounts of public treasure in creating giant armies — “Eisen” (iron). "The great questions of the time will not be resolved by speeches and majority decisions ... but by...

Even while the Civil War raged, slaves in Cuba could be heard singing, “Avanza, Lincoln, avanza! Tu eres nuestra esperanza!” (Onward, Lincoln, Onward! You are our hope!) – as if they knew, even before the soldiers fighting the war far to the North and long before most politicians understood, that the war in America would change their lives, and the world. The secession crisis of 1860-1861 threatened to be a major setback to the world antislavery movement, and it imperiled the whole experiment in democracy. If slavery was allowed to exist, and if the world’s leading democracy could fall apart...

LUEBECK - The German parliament is due to gain a deputy with one of the most prominent historical names in Germany when Carl-Eduard Graf von Bismarck takes a seat for the opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Carl-Eduard, 43, is a great-great grandson of Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), who as the "Iron Chancellor" was the driving force in the creation of the modern German state. The Luebecker Nachrichten newspaper said Carl-Eduard was to take the seat in the German parliament of Peter Harry Carstensen, who led the CDU in the 27 February elections in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein. The paper...