Excerpt from Personal Reminiscences of Prince Bismarck Shortly after Prince Bismarck's death a distinguished German Parliamentarian wrote a series of essays dealing with the personality and career of the deceased statesman. In the course of these he declared that nothing concerning Prince Bismarck is too trivial to be worth knowing and preserving. The man who expressed this view was not a partisan of the Unifier of Germany; on the contrary, he was an unsparing, even ungenerous critic. Such an opinion from such a source affords me some justification for the belief that my recollections of Prince Bismarck may prove of interest. In view of the fragmentary character of such compilations, I have added a short Introduction of a personal nature. It may assist the reader to enter into my train of thought, and thus to judge fairly of my standpoint. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Originally published in 1960, “[t]he political biography of Albrecht von Stosch (1818-1896), a prominent man of action, opens unique insights into the entire Bismarckian epoch. Stosch became a general, an admiral, and a minister of state. As Chief of the Admiralty he was the founder of the Imperial German Navy. He was also a member of the Prussian Chamber of Peers and of the Bundesrat, and he spoke in the Reichstag. His friendship with members of the royal family, the armed forces, the bureaucracy, and his close ties with journalists, members of the Reichstag and Bundesrat, and other leaders of public opinion gave him unusual opportunities to observe the German military and political system at work. His opportunities for observation, combined with a talent for expression and an objective temper of mind, make his published volume of memoirs one of the chief sources of the history of the German Wars of Unification. Paul Matter and Sir Charles G. Robertson, major biographers of Bismarck, regretted that the volume ends with the year 1871. The present study relies in part on the unpublished manuscripts in which Stosch carried the story into the 1890’s. [...] “In presenting the political life of Stosch, I have chosen to recount the events of his career and the development of his opinions at some length. It seems to me that truth in modern German history has suffered from the attempts of doctrinaire theorists to cut events and personalities to their own patterns and that what is needed is biographies and monographs which present more elaborate descriptions and more subtle and complex explanations of men and their actions than do books which drive a thesis. Also, it is hoped that to the general historian narrative and descriptive I detail in a specialized account will be more useful than a bare statement.”