With this
utterance
of King Frederick has been
associated a biographical and critical study written
by the historian Treitschke, who made himself the
exponent of the HohenzoUern spirit.
associated a biographical and critical study written
by the historian Treitschke, who made himself the
exponent of the HohenzoUern spirit.
Treitschke - 1915 - Confessions of Frederick the Great
hathitrust.
org/access_use#pd-us
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? The Confessions
of
Frederick the Great
and
The Life of
Frederick the Great
By
Heinrich von Treitschke
Now for the First Time Translated into English
Edited, with a Topical and Historical Introduction
by
Douglas Sladen
With a Foreword by
Geo. Haven Putnam
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
Cbe Ikntcfterbocfter ipress
1915
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? Copyright, igis
BY
G, P. PUTNAM'S SONS
FEB 2 1915
Vbe ftnfclietboclset press, t^ew ]|? ocfc
(C)CI. Aan3585
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? PREFACE
THE origin of the gospel of inhumanity preached
by von Bemhardi in his Germany and the
Next War is to be found in the Confessions of
Frederick the Great, which came into my hands
accidentally a short time ago. The Rev. Graham
McEhoy, whom I met at a friend's house, who
had noticed the resemblance, lent me an eight-
eenth century duodecimo containing an EngHsh
translation of the first five " Mornings" of the Con-
fessions, which up till then were unknown to me.
And about the same time the editor of The Globe
showed me the proof of an article which he had
commissioned upon this book. It was a learned
and intuitive paper, and a perusal of it and the
book made me explore the subject at the British
Museum. There I found the other two "Morn-
ings," in another little eighteenth -century volume
in their original French, and one of them, the
highly important "Morning" which deals with
Finance, had apparently never been translated
into English on account of its banality.
Banal it is, but it contributes not a little to prov-
ing that the Confessions really were written by
Frederick, for it sets forth, so naturally that one
can almost hear Frederick saying the words,
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? iv Preface
his nostrums for improving the administration and
the yield of the Prussian taxes.
But intrinsic evidence is not necessary, for the
manuscript of the Confessions in French has been
preserved in Frederick's own handwriting, and if it
were necessary, I have the opinion of the accom-
plished French scholar to whom I sent, to be typed,
my translation of "Mornings" VI. and VII.
When I met her, I asked if she knew what she
had been typing. "No," she replied, "and what
is more, I cannot be certain whether the transla-
tion is from the French or from the German" -- the
fact being that Frederick, writing in French, was
unable to divest himself of Germanisms.
Even had von Bemhardi not openly confessed,
by allusion, his obligations to Frederick, no one who
had read the two books could fail to perceive that
the seed of Germany and the Next War is to be
found in the extremely amusing and shameless
Confessions of Frederick the Great. It is obvious
in all its nakedness.
And since von Bernhardi constantly admits his
indebtedness to Treitschke, the historian of the
Prussification of Germany, it seemed to me that
I could offer no more interesting commentary on
Frederick's Confessions than a translation of
what Treitschke wrote about the great Frederick.
This, like most of Treitschke's works, had never
been translated into English. It proved very
difficult to translate, and as my knowledge of Ger-
man is slight, Miss Louise Scheerer made a literal
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? Preface v
translation of it, which I transposed, as far as I was
able, into current phraseology. Mr. Sidney Whit-
man, the learned author of our chief books about
Bismarck, who is second to no EngHsh writer on
contemporary Germany and Austria, had almost
completed explaining the phrases which baffled us,
when he introduced Dr. Oscar Levy, the editor of
the great eighteen- volume translation of Nietzsche,
and the chief authority on Nietzsche in Great
Britain. Dr. Lev^^ has most generously gone
through our entire translation to see that no
mistranslations have crept in.
It may be taken, therefore, that whatever the
literary faults, due entirely to me, may be, the
translation is accurate, a matter of immense
importance where Treitschke, who is almost as
difficult to translate as Carlyle would be, is
concerned. Treitschke, Hke Carlyle, is a great
word-coiner and word-joiner, and pours forth
torrents of ideas. But he is not more reliable
than Macaulay, for he generally applied a simi-
larly encyclopaedic knowledge with the partisan-
ship of an advocate rather than the justice of a
judge.
What sort of man Frederick was I shall endeav-
our to show in an introduction more within the
comprehension of a plain man than he would
be Hkely to find Treitschke's pregnant analysis of
Frederick's share in Prussification.
I shall not detain the reader by specifying
the actual passages in the Confessions which are
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? vi Preface
paralleled by von Bemhardi, but shall prefer to
point out how Frederick's unblushing disciple has
put into practice their Royal Larkinism, their
gospel of Tuum est meum.
D. S.
London, December, 1914.
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? FOREWORD
THERE is a sharp conflict of opinion in regard
to the causation of, or the responsibility
for, the great struggle that is now desolating
Europe and that has even extended to the further-
most coast of Asia. It is my own opinion, an
opinion which is I believe held by the great
majority of Americans, that this conflict will go
down to history as the war of German aggression.
The war has been described as the natural ex-
pression of what has come to be known as the
HohenzoUem spirit and as the necessary result of
the HohenzoUern poHcy. Berlin and London are
at this time in accord on very few matters, but it
is possible that this definition in regard to the
inevitability of the European war imder the
conditions existing would be accepted in both
capitals.
Those who are studying the war with reference
to its causes and its probable results, and particu-
larly those who are in the position of Americans
and can investigate the war conditions without
reference to the safety, or at least to the immediate
safety, of their own homes, may naturally be
interested, therefore, in tracing the history of
what is called the HohenzoUem spirit and the
vii
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? viii Foreword
development of this all-important HohenzoUern
policy.
The Hohenzollem family has shown a full
measure of vitality and on the whole of persistence
of purpose; but, like all historic families the record
of which extends over centuries, its successive
personalities have varied very greatly in individual
force and in effectiveness, and also in the nature
and extent of their contributions to the success of
the family in the development of the realms over
which they came to rule and in extending its
influence upon the world outside of those realms.
When, in the thirteenth century, Conrad of
HohenzoUern, at that time Burggrave of Nurem-
berg, directed his political ambitions toward
North Germany, he doubtless indulged in the
usual visions of personal glory for himself and
for his family. He could hardly, however, have
looked forward to the position that was to be
secured, at the close of centuries of effort, by
his HohenzoUern descendants. The first historic
reference that we find to the HohenzoUerns is
connected with the name of Tasselin, who was
active in the time of Charlemagne, but the family
of the ZoUern Castle comes into actual history
only with the wanderjahr and the promotion of
Burggrave Conrad. The beginning of the political
power of the family may be said to date from
1 568 when the duchy of Prussia was made heredi-
tary in the House of HohenzoUern. It is the
state developed from the duchy of Prussia that
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? Foreword ix
to-day dominates the Empire of Germany and
that is fighting for the domination of Europe.
The real founder of the kingdom of Prussia and of
the Empire that has developed from that kingdom
was not the first King, Frederick I, to whom the
crown came in 1701, but his father the great
Elector of Brandenburg. It was the Elector
whose force of will and organizing capacity in-
stituted what might be called the Prussian system,
under which the resources of Brandenburg and
Prussia were later made so wonderfully effective.
The son of the Elector, the first King, did not
impress himself upon the history of the time ; while
the service of the grandson, Frederick William I,
was rendered in the form of saving up the re-
sources in men and in money which were to be
utilized so effectively by his son Frederick II,
known as Frederick the Great.
The Confessions of Frederick were brought into
t print in an English edition in the latter part of the
^ eighteenth century, shortly after the death of the
King. In the frank obliviousness of any moral
responsibility for human, or at least for royal,
action, they recall the famous letters written by
* Lord Chesterfield for the guidance of his godson.
There is, of course, a wide difference between
the subjects considered by the two writers. The
Englishman is giving counsel, based upon his own
\ experience, for the success of his godson in social
and political life, while the Prussian is impressing
upon the young man who is to succeed him in the
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? X Foreword
control of the kingdom the principles and the
policies by which such kingdom should be main-
tained and developed. The letters are, however,
curiously similar in their frank -- one may say
their naive -- disregard of moral principle as hav-
ing anything to do either with the Ufe of an
English courtier or with the work of a Prussian
King.
With this utterance of King Frederick has been
associated a biographical and critical study written
by the historian Treitschke, who made himself the
exponent of the HohenzoUern spirit. From these
two works, so different in purpose and in character,
the reader is able to secure a distinct and fairly
complete picture of the nature, the methods, and
the policy of Frederick the Great. He secures
further an indication of the principles upon which
Frederick's successor, William II, appears to have
planned the policy of Germany with the purpose of
shaping the destinies of Europe. In his Confes-
sions, Frederick remarks that
it is not to eminence in virtues that our family owes
its aggrandizement. The greater part of our princes
have been rather remarkable for misconduct, but it
was chance and circumstances that have been of
service.
He complains that
his kingdom is not well situated and that the different
portions of the territory are not well arranged to each
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? Foreword xi
other. They are dispersed or divided in such manner
that they cannot mutually assist each other.
The series of wars waged by Frederick had for
their purpose the correction of this troublesome
irregularity of boundary; and he succeeded,
through the appropriation from his neighbours of
the pieces of territory needed, in rounding out the
dominions of Prussia.
The principles set forth by Frederick for the
guidance of his nephew in the development of the
Prussian realm, principles based upon the King's
own experience, are affirmed in substance one
hundred and fifty years later, in their philosophic
relation, by Nietzsche, Says Nietzsche:
A good war will sanctify any cause. . . . Active
sympathy for the weak is more dangerous to the
human race than any crime. . . . At the bottom of
all distinguished races, the beast of prey is not to be
mistaken. To demand of strength that it should not
assert itself as strength, that it should not be a will
to oppression, a will to destruction, a will to domina-
tion, that it should not be athirst for foes and opposi-
tion and triumph, is precisely as senseless as to demand
of weakness that it assert itself as strength.
A writer in a recent number of the Unpopular
Review points out that Frederick was no hypocrite.
There never was a straighter monarch. He merely
had the Prussian conscience. His suspicions of for-
eign powers are facts to be acted on, and he feels
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? xii Foreword
that an act which in a foreign nation is that of a cut-
throat is, when done in the behoof of Prussia, not only
justified, but holy.
(We may compare with this the "scrap of
paper," and the havoc wrought in Belgium for
holy ends. )
The article in the Review says further:
This kind of conscience is general in grim, martial,
partially civilized nations which have been forged
tough in the struggle for existence. Such peoples
trust to their suspicions and their hates and they
readily justify their own worst aggressions as simple
anticipatory measures of self-defence. If such a na-
tion can acquire the inventions and the resources of
civilization without permitting civilization to abate
these suspicions and hates, or impair the conviction
that the nation can do no harm, such a nation will be
more formidable in arms than any truly civilized
state can hope to be.
Frederick tells his nephew that "religion is
absolutely necessary in the state," but goes on to
say that "it would not be wise in a King to have
any religion himself . . . . "
There is nothing [he says] that tyrannizes more
over the head and heart than religion, because it
neither agrees with our passions nor with those great
political views by which a monarch ought to be
guided. The true religion of a prince is his interest
and his glory.
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? Foreword xiii
Under the heading of "Justice," Frederick
emphasizes with his nephew that,
we must do justice to all men, and especially to our
own subjects when so doing would not overset or
interfere with our own rights or wound our own
authority. There ought to be no sort of equality
between the right of the monarch and the right of the
subject or slave.
Under the heading of "Pohtics," he expresses
the opinion that,
to cheat or to deceive one's fellow-creatures is a mean
and criminal action. . . . The term that has been in-
vented to describe such action is Politics. . . . I under-
stand by this, dear nephew, that we are ever to try to
cheat others. This is the way to secure the advantage,
or, at least, to be on a footing with the rest of man-
kind; for you may rest persuaded that all the states
of the world run the same career. . . . Never be
ashamed of making alliances, but do not commit the
stupid fault of not abandoning these alliances when-
ever it is to your interest so to do. . . . Stripping
your neighbours is only to take away from them the
means of doing an injury to yourself.
In a later chapter on what might be called
"Applied Politics, " the King tells the nephew that
he "will not trouble him with" a demonstration of
the validity of the pretensions under which Silesia
had been seized, but that he had "taken care to
have these duly estabHshed by his orators. " "It
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? xiv Foreword
is good policy," continues Frederick, "to be
always attempting something, and in any case to
be perfectly persuaded that we have a right to
everything that suits us. " "To form alliances for
one's advantage is a great maxim of state, and
there are no powers that can excuse themselves
for a neglect of this. . . . " It is evident, however,
that "an alliance should be broken as soon as it
becomes prejudicial. I have already, my dear
nephew, told you that politics and villainy are
almost synonymous terms. " This is quite in Hne
with the teachings of Chesterfield.
When a stranger comes to your court, overwhelm
him with civilities, and take pains to have him con-
stantly near you. . . . This is the best way to keep
concealed from him the defects of your government.
One would suppose that in this counsel Frederick
was foreshadowing the ingenious plan of his suc-
cessor William II for the establishment of exchange
professorships.
Under the heading of "Military Counsel,"
in his account of the management of his army
Frederick says:
I ascertained who in the army were regular bandits.
. . . I closed my eyes to the oppressions committed
by the general officers. . . . They work for me in
working for themselves.
Visitors to Germany have been impressed, and
particularly since 1871, with the general recogni-
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? Foreword xv
tion insisted upon by the military authorities, and
accepted by the populace at large, of the superior-
ity of the profession of arms. It is the belief of
not a few friends of Germany that the dominating
manner which actuates the army officers, and
particularly those of Prussia, is not merely an
annoyance to the civilians, but has proved a very
bad training for the officers themselves, but this
right to dominate has been insisted upon consist-
ently in a long series of utterances of William II.
In like manner Frederick says, "Always confer an
air of superiority on the profession of arms. "
A century and a half later, Nietzsche writes:
" The future of German civilization rests on the
sons of the Prussian officers. " It is because this
principle was accepted by Frederick and has been
developed by Frederick's successors, that the word
has gone forth to Germany and the world that
the German officer was something sacrosanct, and
that for the safety and the development of the
state he must be permitted to dominate the
civilian. He was to be accepted as an awe-inspir-
ing representative of the Kaiser. Any temporary
annoyance to the civilian population was to be
fully atoned for later by the glorious success of
''the Day. "
The Confessions close with a chapter having to
do with "Finance," in which Frederick places
before his nephew with considerable detail his
principles of taxation and the methods under which
he managed the resources of the realm. It is
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? xvi Foreword
evident from a study of these tables that the King
was a wonderful organizer, and a good man of
business. One may judge that he was a difficult
bargainer to get the better of or to impose upon.
It is probable that for the purpose of building
up the realm of Prussia, a better instructor than
Frederick could not have been found. It may be
questioned to-day, however, whether the principles
and policies which have been handed down to his
successors by this the greatest of the Hohen-
zoUerns may not in the end prove disastrous to
Germany.
Macaulay, analyzing the successive wars of
annexation of Frederick, says that "his selfish
rapacity gave the signal to his neighbours. . . .
His example quieted their sense of shame. " The
historian proceeds :
On the head of Frederick is to be placed all the
blood which was shed in a war that raged during many
years and in every quarter of the globe. . . . The
evil produced by his wickedness was felt in lands where
the name of Prussia was unknown; and in order that
Frederick might rob a neighbour whom he had sworn
to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coro-
mandel and red men scalped each other by the Great
Lakes of North America.
The historian Treitschke on the other hand
finds Frederick a hero after his own heart. He
takes the same actions that had formed the text
for Macaulay's excoriation and describes these in
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? Foreword xvii
such manner as to show that in his judgment they
were necessary for the development of Prussia and
of Germany, and for the proper carrying out of the
destiny of the HohenzoUerns. Says Treitschke:
Since the days of Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the
Midnight Sun, Germany had had no picture of a hero
to whom the entire nation could look up with awe. . . .
Frederick strode through the middle of the Great
Powers and forced the Germans to believe again in
the wonder of heroism. . . . He was a German, and
the mainspring in this mighty nature is the ruthless,
terrible German directness.
The historian remarks that
not without arbitrariness Frederick arranged the facts
of history according to a one-sided view, but one-
sidedness, turned towards life and light, is, after all,
the privilege of the creative genius. . . .
And again :
Frederick recognized that it had become a necessity
to enlarge the territory of his state . . . and his policy
was to lift the new German state into expansion and
power through the frightfulness of its weapons.
It may be noted that this term "frightfulness" has
been utilized to-day in the instructions given to the
generals who are occupying conquered territories
in Belgium and in eastern France, as necessary
for the terrorizing of the people.
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? xviii Foreword
Treitschke finds no ground for criticizing his
hero "because no treaty or league could make him
resign the right of deciding for himself, " that is to
say, of selecting his own time for the breaking of
his obligation. The historian points out, and with
truth, that as early as 1756 Frederick had recog-
nized that the continuing issue in Germany was
whether it was to accept the supremacy of Prussia
or of Austria. The question was decided for Ger-
many a century later at Koniggratz by William I,
Bismarck, and Moltke. The soldier, reading the
account of the campaigns of the Seven Years'
War, cannot withhold a full measure of admiration
for the pluck, the persistence, the patience, and the
genius which carried the little army intact through
defeats, and through victories which were hardly
less exhausting than defeats, and which saved the
existence of the little kingdom; but the courage of
the troops and the genius of their leader had, of
course, nothing whatsoever to do with the morality
of the cause for which they were fighting, a cause
which for the larger portion of all the campaigns
of Frederick was simply the appropriation of the
territory of his neighbour.
Treitschke writes in reference to the "educa-
tional power of war" that the "alert self-reliance
of the Prussians contrasted strongly with the in-
offensive kindly modesty of the other Germans. "
The quality that Treitschke terms "self-reliance"
has in later years been described by those less
sympathetic with the Prussian spirit as self-
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? Foreword xix
sufficiency or dominating arrogance. The truth
of either definition depends, of course, upon the
point of view.
Treitschke says, naively,
that there then dawned upon Frederick the idea of the
partition of Poland. It was his purpose to combat
the grabbing land-greed of Russia. . .
This work is deemed to be in the public domain in the United States of America. It may not be in the public domain in other countries. Copies are provided as a preservation service. Particularly outside of the United States, persons receiving copies should make appropriate efforts to determine the copyright status of the work in their country and use the work accordingly. It is possible that current copyright holders, heirs or the estate of the authors of individual portions of the work, such as illustrations or photographs, assert copyrights over these portions. Depending on the nature of subsequent use that is made, additional rights may need to be obtained independently of anything we can address.
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? The Confessions
of
Frederick the Great
and
The Life of
Frederick the Great
By
Heinrich von Treitschke
Now for the First Time Translated into English
Edited, with a Topical and Historical Introduction
by
Douglas Sladen
With a Foreword by
Geo. Haven Putnam
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
Cbe Ikntcfterbocfter ipress
1915
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? Copyright, igis
BY
G, P. PUTNAM'S SONS
FEB 2 1915
Vbe ftnfclietboclset press, t^ew ]|? ocfc
(C)CI. Aan3585
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? PREFACE
THE origin of the gospel of inhumanity preached
by von Bemhardi in his Germany and the
Next War is to be found in the Confessions of
Frederick the Great, which came into my hands
accidentally a short time ago. The Rev. Graham
McEhoy, whom I met at a friend's house, who
had noticed the resemblance, lent me an eight-
eenth century duodecimo containing an EngHsh
translation of the first five " Mornings" of the Con-
fessions, which up till then were unknown to me.
And about the same time the editor of The Globe
showed me the proof of an article which he had
commissioned upon this book. It was a learned
and intuitive paper, and a perusal of it and the
book made me explore the subject at the British
Museum. There I found the other two "Morn-
ings," in another little eighteenth -century volume
in their original French, and one of them, the
highly important "Morning" which deals with
Finance, had apparently never been translated
into English on account of its banality.
Banal it is, but it contributes not a little to prov-
ing that the Confessions really were written by
Frederick, for it sets forth, so naturally that one
can almost hear Frederick saying the words,
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? iv Preface
his nostrums for improving the administration and
the yield of the Prussian taxes.
But intrinsic evidence is not necessary, for the
manuscript of the Confessions in French has been
preserved in Frederick's own handwriting, and if it
were necessary, I have the opinion of the accom-
plished French scholar to whom I sent, to be typed,
my translation of "Mornings" VI. and VII.
When I met her, I asked if she knew what she
had been typing. "No," she replied, "and what
is more, I cannot be certain whether the transla-
tion is from the French or from the German" -- the
fact being that Frederick, writing in French, was
unable to divest himself of Germanisms.
Even had von Bemhardi not openly confessed,
by allusion, his obligations to Frederick, no one who
had read the two books could fail to perceive that
the seed of Germany and the Next War is to be
found in the extremely amusing and shameless
Confessions of Frederick the Great. It is obvious
in all its nakedness.
And since von Bernhardi constantly admits his
indebtedness to Treitschke, the historian of the
Prussification of Germany, it seemed to me that
I could offer no more interesting commentary on
Frederick's Confessions than a translation of
what Treitschke wrote about the great Frederick.
This, like most of Treitschke's works, had never
been translated into English. It proved very
difficult to translate, and as my knowledge of Ger-
man is slight, Miss Louise Scheerer made a literal
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? Preface v
translation of it, which I transposed, as far as I was
able, into current phraseology. Mr. Sidney Whit-
man, the learned author of our chief books about
Bismarck, who is second to no EngHsh writer on
contemporary Germany and Austria, had almost
completed explaining the phrases which baffled us,
when he introduced Dr. Oscar Levy, the editor of
the great eighteen- volume translation of Nietzsche,
and the chief authority on Nietzsche in Great
Britain. Dr. Lev^^ has most generously gone
through our entire translation to see that no
mistranslations have crept in.
It may be taken, therefore, that whatever the
literary faults, due entirely to me, may be, the
translation is accurate, a matter of immense
importance where Treitschke, who is almost as
difficult to translate as Carlyle would be, is
concerned. Treitschke, Hke Carlyle, is a great
word-coiner and word-joiner, and pours forth
torrents of ideas. But he is not more reliable
than Macaulay, for he generally applied a simi-
larly encyclopaedic knowledge with the partisan-
ship of an advocate rather than the justice of a
judge.
What sort of man Frederick was I shall endeav-
our to show in an introduction more within the
comprehension of a plain man than he would
be Hkely to find Treitschke's pregnant analysis of
Frederick's share in Prussification.
I shall not detain the reader by specifying
the actual passages in the Confessions which are
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? vi Preface
paralleled by von Bemhardi, but shall prefer to
point out how Frederick's unblushing disciple has
put into practice their Royal Larkinism, their
gospel of Tuum est meum.
D. S.
London, December, 1914.
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? FOREWORD
THERE is a sharp conflict of opinion in regard
to the causation of, or the responsibility
for, the great struggle that is now desolating
Europe and that has even extended to the further-
most coast of Asia. It is my own opinion, an
opinion which is I believe held by the great
majority of Americans, that this conflict will go
down to history as the war of German aggression.
The war has been described as the natural ex-
pression of what has come to be known as the
HohenzoUem spirit and as the necessary result of
the HohenzoUern poHcy. Berlin and London are
at this time in accord on very few matters, but it
is possible that this definition in regard to the
inevitability of the European war imder the
conditions existing would be accepted in both
capitals.
Those who are studying the war with reference
to its causes and its probable results, and particu-
larly those who are in the position of Americans
and can investigate the war conditions without
reference to the safety, or at least to the immediate
safety, of their own homes, may naturally be
interested, therefore, in tracing the history of
what is called the HohenzoUem spirit and the
vii
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? viii Foreword
development of this all-important HohenzoUern
policy.
The Hohenzollem family has shown a full
measure of vitality and on the whole of persistence
of purpose; but, like all historic families the record
of which extends over centuries, its successive
personalities have varied very greatly in individual
force and in effectiveness, and also in the nature
and extent of their contributions to the success of
the family in the development of the realms over
which they came to rule and in extending its
influence upon the world outside of those realms.
When, in the thirteenth century, Conrad of
HohenzoUern, at that time Burggrave of Nurem-
berg, directed his political ambitions toward
North Germany, he doubtless indulged in the
usual visions of personal glory for himself and
for his family. He could hardly, however, have
looked forward to the position that was to be
secured, at the close of centuries of effort, by
his HohenzoUern descendants. The first historic
reference that we find to the HohenzoUerns is
connected with the name of Tasselin, who was
active in the time of Charlemagne, but the family
of the ZoUern Castle comes into actual history
only with the wanderjahr and the promotion of
Burggrave Conrad. The beginning of the political
power of the family may be said to date from
1 568 when the duchy of Prussia was made heredi-
tary in the House of HohenzoUern. It is the
state developed from the duchy of Prussia that
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? Foreword ix
to-day dominates the Empire of Germany and
that is fighting for the domination of Europe.
The real founder of the kingdom of Prussia and of
the Empire that has developed from that kingdom
was not the first King, Frederick I, to whom the
crown came in 1701, but his father the great
Elector of Brandenburg. It was the Elector
whose force of will and organizing capacity in-
stituted what might be called the Prussian system,
under which the resources of Brandenburg and
Prussia were later made so wonderfully effective.
The son of the Elector, the first King, did not
impress himself upon the history of the time ; while
the service of the grandson, Frederick William I,
was rendered in the form of saving up the re-
sources in men and in money which were to be
utilized so effectively by his son Frederick II,
known as Frederick the Great.
The Confessions of Frederick were brought into
t print in an English edition in the latter part of the
^ eighteenth century, shortly after the death of the
King. In the frank obliviousness of any moral
responsibility for human, or at least for royal,
action, they recall the famous letters written by
* Lord Chesterfield for the guidance of his godson.
There is, of course, a wide difference between
the subjects considered by the two writers. The
Englishman is giving counsel, based upon his own
\ experience, for the success of his godson in social
and political life, while the Prussian is impressing
upon the young man who is to succeed him in the
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? X Foreword
control of the kingdom the principles and the
policies by which such kingdom should be main-
tained and developed. The letters are, however,
curiously similar in their frank -- one may say
their naive -- disregard of moral principle as hav-
ing anything to do either with the Ufe of an
English courtier or with the work of a Prussian
King.
With this utterance of King Frederick has been
associated a biographical and critical study written
by the historian Treitschke, who made himself the
exponent of the HohenzoUern spirit. From these
two works, so different in purpose and in character,
the reader is able to secure a distinct and fairly
complete picture of the nature, the methods, and
the policy of Frederick the Great. He secures
further an indication of the principles upon which
Frederick's successor, William II, appears to have
planned the policy of Germany with the purpose of
shaping the destinies of Europe. In his Confes-
sions, Frederick remarks that
it is not to eminence in virtues that our family owes
its aggrandizement. The greater part of our princes
have been rather remarkable for misconduct, but it
was chance and circumstances that have been of
service.
He complains that
his kingdom is not well situated and that the different
portions of the territory are not well arranged to each
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? Foreword xi
other. They are dispersed or divided in such manner
that they cannot mutually assist each other.
The series of wars waged by Frederick had for
their purpose the correction of this troublesome
irregularity of boundary; and he succeeded,
through the appropriation from his neighbours of
the pieces of territory needed, in rounding out the
dominions of Prussia.
The principles set forth by Frederick for the
guidance of his nephew in the development of the
Prussian realm, principles based upon the King's
own experience, are affirmed in substance one
hundred and fifty years later, in their philosophic
relation, by Nietzsche, Says Nietzsche:
A good war will sanctify any cause. . . . Active
sympathy for the weak is more dangerous to the
human race than any crime. . . . At the bottom of
all distinguished races, the beast of prey is not to be
mistaken. To demand of strength that it should not
assert itself as strength, that it should not be a will
to oppression, a will to destruction, a will to domina-
tion, that it should not be athirst for foes and opposi-
tion and triumph, is precisely as senseless as to demand
of weakness that it assert itself as strength.
A writer in a recent number of the Unpopular
Review points out that Frederick was no hypocrite.
There never was a straighter monarch. He merely
had the Prussian conscience. His suspicions of for-
eign powers are facts to be acted on, and he feels
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? xii Foreword
that an act which in a foreign nation is that of a cut-
throat is, when done in the behoof of Prussia, not only
justified, but holy.
(We may compare with this the "scrap of
paper," and the havoc wrought in Belgium for
holy ends. )
The article in the Review says further:
This kind of conscience is general in grim, martial,
partially civilized nations which have been forged
tough in the struggle for existence. Such peoples
trust to their suspicions and their hates and they
readily justify their own worst aggressions as simple
anticipatory measures of self-defence. If such a na-
tion can acquire the inventions and the resources of
civilization without permitting civilization to abate
these suspicions and hates, or impair the conviction
that the nation can do no harm, such a nation will be
more formidable in arms than any truly civilized
state can hope to be.
Frederick tells his nephew that "religion is
absolutely necessary in the state," but goes on to
say that "it would not be wise in a King to have
any religion himself . . . . "
There is nothing [he says] that tyrannizes more
over the head and heart than religion, because it
neither agrees with our passions nor with those great
political views by which a monarch ought to be
guided. The true religion of a prince is his interest
and his glory.
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? Foreword xiii
Under the heading of "Justice," Frederick
emphasizes with his nephew that,
we must do justice to all men, and especially to our
own subjects when so doing would not overset or
interfere with our own rights or wound our own
authority. There ought to be no sort of equality
between the right of the monarch and the right of the
subject or slave.
Under the heading of "Pohtics," he expresses
the opinion that,
to cheat or to deceive one's fellow-creatures is a mean
and criminal action. . . . The term that has been in-
vented to describe such action is Politics. . . . I under-
stand by this, dear nephew, that we are ever to try to
cheat others. This is the way to secure the advantage,
or, at least, to be on a footing with the rest of man-
kind; for you may rest persuaded that all the states
of the world run the same career. . . . Never be
ashamed of making alliances, but do not commit the
stupid fault of not abandoning these alliances when-
ever it is to your interest so to do. . . . Stripping
your neighbours is only to take away from them the
means of doing an injury to yourself.
In a later chapter on what might be called
"Applied Politics, " the King tells the nephew that
he "will not trouble him with" a demonstration of
the validity of the pretensions under which Silesia
had been seized, but that he had "taken care to
have these duly estabHshed by his orators. " "It
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? xiv Foreword
is good policy," continues Frederick, "to be
always attempting something, and in any case to
be perfectly persuaded that we have a right to
everything that suits us. " "To form alliances for
one's advantage is a great maxim of state, and
there are no powers that can excuse themselves
for a neglect of this. . . . " It is evident, however,
that "an alliance should be broken as soon as it
becomes prejudicial. I have already, my dear
nephew, told you that politics and villainy are
almost synonymous terms. " This is quite in Hne
with the teachings of Chesterfield.
When a stranger comes to your court, overwhelm
him with civilities, and take pains to have him con-
stantly near you. . . . This is the best way to keep
concealed from him the defects of your government.
One would suppose that in this counsel Frederick
was foreshadowing the ingenious plan of his suc-
cessor William II for the establishment of exchange
professorships.
Under the heading of "Military Counsel,"
in his account of the management of his army
Frederick says:
I ascertained who in the army were regular bandits.
. . . I closed my eyes to the oppressions committed
by the general officers. . . . They work for me in
working for themselves.
Visitors to Germany have been impressed, and
particularly since 1871, with the general recogni-
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? Foreword xv
tion insisted upon by the military authorities, and
accepted by the populace at large, of the superior-
ity of the profession of arms. It is the belief of
not a few friends of Germany that the dominating
manner which actuates the army officers, and
particularly those of Prussia, is not merely an
annoyance to the civilians, but has proved a very
bad training for the officers themselves, but this
right to dominate has been insisted upon consist-
ently in a long series of utterances of William II.
In like manner Frederick says, "Always confer an
air of superiority on the profession of arms. "
A century and a half later, Nietzsche writes:
" The future of German civilization rests on the
sons of the Prussian officers. " It is because this
principle was accepted by Frederick and has been
developed by Frederick's successors, that the word
has gone forth to Germany and the world that
the German officer was something sacrosanct, and
that for the safety and the development of the
state he must be permitted to dominate the
civilian. He was to be accepted as an awe-inspir-
ing representative of the Kaiser. Any temporary
annoyance to the civilian population was to be
fully atoned for later by the glorious success of
''the Day. "
The Confessions close with a chapter having to
do with "Finance," in which Frederick places
before his nephew with considerable detail his
principles of taxation and the methods under which
he managed the resources of the realm. It is
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? xvi Foreword
evident from a study of these tables that the King
was a wonderful organizer, and a good man of
business. One may judge that he was a difficult
bargainer to get the better of or to impose upon.
It is probable that for the purpose of building
up the realm of Prussia, a better instructor than
Frederick could not have been found. It may be
questioned to-day, however, whether the principles
and policies which have been handed down to his
successors by this the greatest of the Hohen-
zoUerns may not in the end prove disastrous to
Germany.
Macaulay, analyzing the successive wars of
annexation of Frederick, says that "his selfish
rapacity gave the signal to his neighbours. . . .
His example quieted their sense of shame. " The
historian proceeds :
On the head of Frederick is to be placed all the
blood which was shed in a war that raged during many
years and in every quarter of the globe. . . . The
evil produced by his wickedness was felt in lands where
the name of Prussia was unknown; and in order that
Frederick might rob a neighbour whom he had sworn
to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coro-
mandel and red men scalped each other by the Great
Lakes of North America.
The historian Treitschke on the other hand
finds Frederick a hero after his own heart. He
takes the same actions that had formed the text
for Macaulay's excoriation and describes these in
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? Foreword xvii
such manner as to show that in his judgment they
were necessary for the development of Prussia and
of Germany, and for the proper carrying out of the
destiny of the HohenzoUerns. Says Treitschke:
Since the days of Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the
Midnight Sun, Germany had had no picture of a hero
to whom the entire nation could look up with awe. . . .
Frederick strode through the middle of the Great
Powers and forced the Germans to believe again in
the wonder of heroism. . . . He was a German, and
the mainspring in this mighty nature is the ruthless,
terrible German directness.
The historian remarks that
not without arbitrariness Frederick arranged the facts
of history according to a one-sided view, but one-
sidedness, turned towards life and light, is, after all,
the privilege of the creative genius. . . .
And again :
Frederick recognized that it had become a necessity
to enlarge the territory of his state . . . and his policy
was to lift the new German state into expansion and
power through the frightfulness of its weapons.
It may be noted that this term "frightfulness" has
been utilized to-day in the instructions given to the
generals who are occupying conquered territories
in Belgium and in eastern France, as necessary
for the terrorizing of the people.
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? xviii Foreword
Treitschke finds no ground for criticizing his
hero "because no treaty or league could make him
resign the right of deciding for himself, " that is to
say, of selecting his own time for the breaking of
his obligation. The historian points out, and with
truth, that as early as 1756 Frederick had recog-
nized that the continuing issue in Germany was
whether it was to accept the supremacy of Prussia
or of Austria. The question was decided for Ger-
many a century later at Koniggratz by William I,
Bismarck, and Moltke. The soldier, reading the
account of the campaigns of the Seven Years'
War, cannot withhold a full measure of admiration
for the pluck, the persistence, the patience, and the
genius which carried the little army intact through
defeats, and through victories which were hardly
less exhausting than defeats, and which saved the
existence of the little kingdom; but the courage of
the troops and the genius of their leader had, of
course, nothing whatsoever to do with the morality
of the cause for which they were fighting, a cause
which for the larger portion of all the campaigns
of Frederick was simply the appropriation of the
territory of his neighbour.
Treitschke writes in reference to the "educa-
tional power of war" that the "alert self-reliance
of the Prussians contrasted strongly with the in-
offensive kindly modesty of the other Germans. "
The quality that Treitschke terms "self-reliance"
has in later years been described by those less
sympathetic with the Prussian spirit as self-
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? Foreword xix
sufficiency or dominating arrogance. The truth
of either definition depends, of course, upon the
point of view.
Treitschke says, naively,
that there then dawned upon Frederick the idea of the
partition of Poland. It was his purpose to combat
the grabbing land-greed of Russia. . .
