The first day of April--"All-Fools' Day"--is the birthday of one who has
done more to change the map of Europe than any man now living.
Otto von Bismarck was born in 1815, the year of the battle of Waterloo.
When quite a little fellow he was sent away to boarding-school. The boys
were badly fed and strictly ruled, and the lad who, many years
afterward, was called "the man of blood and iron" was a "home boy," and
did not like school. At the university, however, he seems to have
overcome his gentleness in some degree, for he was always in mischief,
and very popular.
It is not until he is thirty-three years old that we find him in public
life as a member of the Prussian Diet, or parliament. His sympathies
were with the King as against the people, because he thought that
Germany could only exist as a kingdom. Of course his views on this
subject brought him plenty of enemies. He complains in a letter to his
wife that he is "famous, but not popular." On two occasions he has been
shot at and wounded, and the first of these would-be assassins he seized
with his own hands, gave him into charge of the police, and then
returned home to a dinner party in his own house.
Though Bismarck is a statesman by profession, and not a soldier, he has
seen much of war. The short but decisive campaign between Prussia and
Austria in 1866 was Bismarck's doing, and his forethought hastened on
the great war between France and Germany in 1870, for he knew that the
Germans would win.
In 1871, Count von Bismarck was appointed Chancellor of the German
Empire, and created a Prince. No man in Europe wields greater power than
he, and yet in his tastes he is extremely simple, being fond of country
life and sports.
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