Bismarck had the dangerous gift of framing pregnant and pithy sentences which would give a ready handle to his opponents: _Macht geht vor Recht_; he had not said these words, but he had said something very much like them, and they undoubtedly represented what seemed to his audience the pith of his speeches.

And then these words, _blood and iron_.

He has told us in later years what he really meant: "Put the strongest possible military power, in other words, as much blood and iron as you can, into the hands of the King of Prussia, then he will be able to carry out the policy you wish; it cannot be done with speeches and celebrations and songs, it can only be done by blood and iron." [7] What everyone thought he meant was that blood must be shed and iron used; and perhaps they were not so far wrong.
The attempt at conciliation failed; the report of the Committee was adopted, and an amendment proposed by Vincke, which Bismarck was prepared to accept, was rejected.

Bismarck warned the House not to push the conflict too far; the time would come when the prospect of a peaceful solution would have disappeared; then the Government too would be prepared to oppose theory to theory and interpretation to interpretation.
He showed to the President of the House a twig of olive.

"I gathered this in Avignon to bring it to the House; it does not seem to be time yet." The Budget was sent up to the House of Lords in the amended form in which the House of Representatives had passed it; the Lords unanimously threw it out, as they were legally justified in doing; not content with that, they altered it to the original form in which it had been proposed by the Government and sent it down again to the Lower House.