arming of the infantry with repeating rifles as well as new regulations of pension funds and compulsory military service. On 23 April 1888 he was promoted to General of the Infantry. Minister Bronsart resigned on 8 April 1889 and was succeeded by Julius von Verdy du Vernois. At his request, he was appointed commanding general of the I Army Corps at Königsberg. Two years later he died from pneumonia at his estate of Schettnienen near Heiligenbeil (present-day Mamonovo, Kaliningrad Oblast) at the age of 59. Conflict with Bismarck Jonathan Steinberg's Bismarck: A Life records the following: On 18 December Bronsart put his career on the line to frustrate Bismarck's intervention in military matters. As he recorded in his war diary, he had been ordered by Eugen Anton Theophil von Podbielski to provide Bismarck with minutes of a Military Council and decided to obey orders, a court-martial offence. The whole entry records the agony of conscience of one of the most gifted of the 'demi-gods', a lieutenant colonel, a Division Chief in the General Staff, 'for me the hardest day of the entire campaign'. He had received an order from the King approved by the Chief of the General Staff, General Count Moltke, and handed to him by Lieutenant General Podbielski, Quartermaster General of the entire army. As he records the moment of his decision if a man with the ambitious thirst for power like Count Bismarck were once to be admitted, there would be nothing more to be done...I thought about it for ten minutes; the habit of obedience got me through the address and then it failed me, and the feeling of duty, and the need to be disobedient even to the King, won the upper hand even at the sacrifice of my own person. He reported to Podbielski that he could not carry out the order in good conscience and submitted his resignation letter at the same time. Podbielski at first flew into a rage and questioned Bronsart's sanity. Then in the face of this act of moral courage by a senior staff officer, he consulted Moltke, who revoked the order and told the King of his decision. Bismarck never got access to the Military Council minutes. Bronsart joins von Werther as two examples of unusual civil courage in the face of Bismarck's increasing dictatorial attitude. As Bronsart concludes the entry: Had I done the demanded letters, even