fofi/irif/hl, 1921, '?// Harper ?( firo*
( Tn Ix' roittinui >1.?
"Bismarck Realize* His Days Are
Numbered" is the title of the second
instalment of the Iron Chancellor's
memoirs, which will appear next Sun
day.
The Historical Background of Bismarck's fcSook
By CHARLES DOWNER HAZEN,
Professor of History, Columbia University.
WILLIAM I. died on March 9, 1888, at the age of 91; his .on and successor,
Frederick III., after a reign of a hundred days of physical agony and
spiritual fortitude, died on June 15, at the age of 56. and William II., 29
years old, on that day ascendcd the most powerful throne in Europe, from which
thirty years later he was to be hurled in the midst of a whirlwind of destruction
which with incredible lightness of heart he had let loose upon the world.
Behind the three figures and looming far above them was the man who had
made them great by vastly elevating their station in the world and by endowing
them with a power commensurate with their magnified opportunities.
If ever there was a maker of emperors Bi.marck was that man, Bismarck^
who had begun life as a narrow, provincial Junker of the strictest and straitest
sect and who had contrived to become a great national and international Sgure,
dominating his age as did no other single personal force; dominating it partly by
superior astuteness and partly by a franker brutality of method than the world
had latterly experienced.
