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blood and iron

American  

idiom

  1. reliance on armed force rather than diplomacy to achieve political or international objectives.


Example Sentences

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Reporters, allured by the fact that the young man was "the eldest son of the eldest son of the man of blood and iron," buttonholed 28-year-old Prince Otto von Bismarck.

From Time Magazine Archive

He loved its sense of pageantry and or der, qualities he attributed to the pervasive military creed of "blood and iron."

From Time Magazine Archive

The latest chapter in the bizarre saga of the Krupp dynasty, whose fortunes were based on blood and iron, unfolded in Germany's Ruhr last week.

From Time Magazine Archive

The entire paleotechnic period was ruled . . . by the policy of blood and iron.

From Time Magazine Archive

Which process, judged by all things that men desire, gives the better result, the physical force of blood and iron which we see, or the intellectual or psychic force which we cannot see?

From The Great Illusion A Study of the Relation of Military Power to National Advantage by Norman Angell

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