A General Sketch of the European War | Page 7

What it means is that, wherever they are
met by the dilemma, "Shall I do this, which is to the advantage of my
country but opposed to European and common morals, or that, which is
consonant with those morals but to the disadvantage of my country?"
they choose the former and not the latter course.
Prussia, endowed with this doctrine and possessed of a most excellent
military organization and tradition, stood out as the first military power
in Europe until the French Revolution. The wars of the French
Revolution and of Napoleon upset this prestige, and in the battle of
Jena (1806) seemed to have destroyed it. But it was too strong to be
destroyed. The Prussian Government was the first of Napoleon's allies
to betray Napoleon after the Russians had broken his power (1812).
They took part with the other Allies in finishing off Napoleon after the
Russian campaign (1813-14); they were present with decisive effect
upon the final field of Waterloo (1815), and remained for fifty years
afterwards the great military power they had always been. They had
further added to their dominions such great areas in Northern Germany,
beyond the original areas inhabited by the true Prussian stock, that they
were something like half of the whole Northern German people when,
in 1864, they entered into the last phase of their dominion. They began

by asking Austria to help them in taking from Denmark, a small and
weak country, not only those provinces of hers which spoke German,
but certain districts which were Danish as well. France and England
were inclined to interfere, but they did not yet understand the menace
Prussia might be in the future, and they neglected to act. Two years
later Prussia suddenly turned upon Austria, her ally, defeated her in a
very short campaign, and insisted upon Austria's relinquishing for the
future all claims over any part of the German-speaking peoples, save
some ten millions in the valley of the Middle Danube and of the Upper
Elbe. Four years later again, in 1870, Prussia having arranged, after
various political experiments which need not be here detailed, for the
support of all the German States except Austria, fought a war with
France, in which she was immediately and entirely successful, and in
the course of which the rulers of the other German States consented (1)
to give the Hohenzollern-Prussian dynasty supreme military power for
the future over them, under the hereditary title of German Emperors; (2)
to form a united nation under the more or less despotic power of these
emperors.
This latter point, the national unity, though really highly centralized at
Berlin, especially on the military side, was softened in its rigour by a
number of very wise provisions. A great measure of autonomy was left
to the more important of the lesser States, particularly Catholic Bavaria;
local customs were respected; and, above all, local dynasties were
flattered, and maintained in all the trappings of sovereign rank.
From that date--that is, for the last forty-four years--there has been a
complete Northern Germany, one strong, centralized, and thoroughly
co-ordinated nation, in which the original Prussian domination is not
only numerically far the greatest element, but morally overshadows all
the rest. The spiritual influence ruling this state issues from Berlin and
from the Prussian soul, although a large minority consist of contented
but respectful Catholics, who, in all national matters, wholly
sympathize with and take their cue from the Protestant North.
So far one may clearly see what kind of power it is that has initiated the
German theory of supremacy which we have described above, is

prepared to lead it to battle, and is quite certain of leading it to victory.
But we note--the fatal mark in all German history--that the unity is not
complete. The ten millions of Austrian Germans were, when Prussia
achieved this her highest ambition, deliberately left outside the new
German Empire. And this was done because, in Prussian eyes, a
so-called "German unity" was but a means to an end, and that end the
aggrandizement of the Hohenzollern dynasty. To include so many
southern and Catholic Germans would have endangered the mastery of
Berlin. The fact that Austria ruled a number of non-German subjects far
larger than her Austrian population would further have endangered the
Hohenzollern position had Austria been admitted to the new German
Empire, and had the consolidation of all Germans into one true state
been really and loyally attempted. Lastly, it would have been
impossible to destroy the historic claims to leadership of the Imperial
Hapsburgs, and that, more than anything else, was the rivalry the
Hohenzollerns dreaded. Once more had the Germans proved
themselves incapable of, and unwilling to submit to, the discipline of
unity. What part, then, was Austria, thus left out, to play in