'If we put Germany in the saddle, it will certainly be able to ride." Thus Bismarck concluded a speech to plenipotentiaries of the North German Confederation on March 11th, 1867, four years before a united Germany.
It is uncertain today whether last Sunday's general election will allow a government to be formed without further reference to the people.
German business and investors want to put a Christian Democrat-led government in the saddle, but the chances of that in the short term may have been blown.
To survive, Angela Merkel needs to reach the chancellor's office soon. A triumphant Schröder will do everything possible to frustrate that, exploiting her weak internal party position.
Despite present instability, no one should underestimate Germany's strengths. Chancellor Schröder called it a world champion exporter, one that has not given up on its manufacturing sector, despite high labour costs.
As our own experience shows, minority or coalition governments, if they exercise the necessary will, can decisively turn around a country's fortunes. Confidence in Germany is poised to return once there is a government that takes a real grip.
Germany is still the locomotive of the European economy. Ireland has an interest in a strong German economy, notwithstanding the countervailing advantages of low interest rates arising from a languishing European economy or the prospect of stiffer competition.
The outgoing Schröder government has already set Germany on a reform path. Any successor is likely to proceed further. Nonetheless, like the referendums on the European Constitution in France and the Netherlands, in Germany also the election has shown that attachment to the social model and to some concept of social justice runs deep.
Whatever the final outcome, the Franco-German partnership is likely to continue. It can no longer dominate a larger European Union, but it can still give important impulses. While relations with Washington may improve, public opinion likes the idea of a more independent German and European foreign policy. Fears about Turkish EU membership were not a trump card for the CDU.
The British Labour government seems almost to prefer centre-right governments, whether in Spain or Germany. In the European press, Ireland is generally grouped with the "Anglo-Saxon" economies, however wounding this may be to our amour propre. However, unlike Britain, we are part of the euro zone, and a feature of our economic management is social partnership, which is continental European in inspiration.
The president of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, the French Jean-Claude Trichet, could not have paid a more handsome compliment when he said, in an interview with this paper on Wednesday, that countries carrying out structural reforms "have been magnificent performers. I quote Ireland".
With our own election looming, the recent election in Germany will have been of considerable interest to all parties here.
In economic terms the German Red-Green coalition registered little success, with unemployment running over five million. Confidence went downhill in the first few months, and even Oskar Lafontaine's early resignation as finance minister in 1999 did not reverse the slide.
His attempt to wreak revenge by leaving the SPD and forming a new party by a merger between successors of the GDR's communist party and left-wing dissidents in the SPD failed, even though they achieved a respectable vote.
The impact of the Hartz IV reforms of summer 2004 (cutting back on generous social welfare provision) was blunted by Schröder's inability to bring his party with him. In effect, by calling for an early election Schröder signalled that the present government could do no more.
He fought the election almost as if his party were in opposition. His critique of Merkel's economic policies was more relevant to the electorate than Lafontaine's onslaught against the reforms of the outgoing coalition.
The chancellor shows how an energetic, charismatic and articulate leader can stem the tide towards near-certain electoral defeat, despite having a flat economy. He went into the election with bleak poll ratings and ended up neck-and-neck, something that pundits and pollsters claim is virtually impossible in an Irish context.
Merkel sought to be upfront. Yet few things alienate electorates more than promised tax rises (VAT up 2 per cent), as John Smith, former British Labour leader, demonstrated when he lost the 1992 election from a favourable starting position. Loose opposition talk here about a carbon tax and "afflicting the comfortable" could cost votes.
Little more is likely to be heard of a flat rate of income tax in developed European countries. British Tory leadership contender Ken Clarke has already warned his party against it. Germans like their tax breaks. Radical tax changes create winners and losers and it is easy to frighten the electorate.
It is inconceivable that in a parliamentary system the most important minister-designate, for finance, should be plucked from a university.
Prof Paul Kirchhof, a former judge of the constitutional court attracted by an old idea of Milton Friedman, wrecked the Merkel campaign instead of bolstering its credibility, by peddling his own nostrum, instead of sticking to the manifesto.
At a private bankers' dinner in Dublin in 1987 one of the hosts suggested to taoiseach Charles Haughey that the government and the country would benefit from appointing a banker to run the economy. This would not actually be constitutionally possible, as the minister for finance must be an elected member of the Dáil and cannot be a taoiseach's appointee in the Seanad.
He retorted sharply that bankers should mind their business and leave politicians to get on with theirs.
The problem facing democratic governments trying to kick-start national recovery is not a lack of expert opinion, often conflicting, about what needs to be done. It is about mustering the will and creating the consensus required to carry through effective confidence-building measures, a task of persuasion which is essentially for politicians.
Meanwhile the whole of Europe wishes Germany a government, whether led by a chastened Angela Merkel or a reinvigorated Gerhard Schröder or some compromise candidate.