Bismarck, as Alan Palmer tells it, left an achievement, but no legacy.

stake. Thousands of their men were killed in Flanders every week. In Ireland young men, in the prime of their vigor, were drilling with arms. They were drilling for a war not against Germany but against England. Newspaper articles, speakers in village streets, called for open insurrection against the English. The English tolerated this. In one sense, their toleration reflected their customary unwillingness to face unpleasant problems, which they hoped would go away. In another sense, it reflected the great general decency of their liberal and free tradition, their unwillingness to coerce people with certain beliefs.

This is why men with complex sentiments and loyalties, such as Augustine Birrell, the British pro-consul in Dublin, or John Redmond, the last leader of the old Irish parliamentary party and a monument of honesty and of probity, may deserve the historian’s interest even more than the single-minded Car- son or De Valera. Dangerfield felt compelled to wade through the morass of political and parliamentary labyrinths, instead of employing his supreme biographical talent. He could have given us portraits of these tragic protagonists that would have stood the test of time for centuries to come.

RM

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Robert W. Merry

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stake. Thousands of their men were killed in Flanders every week. In Ireland young men, in the prime of their vigor, were drilling with arms. They were drilling for a war not against Germany but against England. Newspaper articles, speakers in village streets, called for open insurrection against the English. The English tolerated this. In one sense, their toleration reflected their customary unwillingness to face unpleasant problems, which they hoped would go away. In another sense, it reflected the great general decency of their liberal and free tradition, their unwillingness to coerce people with certain beliefs.

This is why men with complex sentiments and loyalties, such as Augustine Birrell, the British pro-consul in Dublin, or John Redmond, the last leader of the old Irish parliamentary party and a monument of honesty and of probity, may deserve the historian’s interest even more than the single-minded Car- son or De Valera. Dangerfield felt compelled to wade through the morass of political and parliamentary labyrinths, instead of employing his supreme biographical talent. He could have given us portraits of these tragic protagonists that would have stood the test of time for centuries to come.