Note 164 — Chapter XXX · WAR.
Reading edition
An appeal to fear rarely influences German statesmen. In 1868, during the debate in the Customs Parliament at Berlin, the Separatist Party objected to the discussion of national politics, lest, as one of them said, they might provoke an attack from France. Bismarck’s retort was that “an appeal to fear had never yet found an echo in German hearts.”—Lowe’s Life of Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 458.