TREITSCHKE AS A HISTORIAN
Lord Acton says of Treitschke :
"He is the one writer of history who is more bril-
liant and more powerful than Droysen: he writes
with the force and incisiveness of Mommsen.
Lord Acton says of Treitschke :
"He is the one writer of history who is more bril-
liant and more powerful than Droysen: he writes
with the force and incisiveness of Mommsen.
Treitschke - 1915 - Confessions of Frederick the Great
Frederick the Great 193
schools, and found enthusiastic supporters in the
Empire, so that in the end Catholic Germany
participated in the greatest blessing of the Refor-
mation.
It seemed an easy thing to gather in Berlin a
brilliant circle of the best intellects of Germany
for pregnant activity. Every young genius in the
Empire angled for the eye of the national hero.
Even Winckelmann, who had once fled from the
country in hot hatred, now experienced with what
strong bands this State fettered the hearts of its
sons. "For the first time," he wrote, "the voice
of the Fatherland makes itself heard within me,
which was iinknown to me before. " He burned
with an eager desire to show the Aristotle of mili-
tary art that a born subject could achieve some-
thing worthy, and negotiated for years for an
appointment in Berlin.
But in Frederick's French academy there was no
place for German thinkers. The Medicean days,
which one had once awaited from the inspired
Prince of the Rheinsberger Parnassus, only came
for the foreign intellects at the table of Sans Souci ;
the pupil of French culture would not and could
not understand the young unruly life which stirred
in the depths of his own people. While the Ber-
liner company intoxicated themselves to over-
refinement with the idea of the new literature,
and jeering scepticism and refined epicureanism
were almost crowding out the old strict moral
simplicity, the Prussian administration main-
13
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? 194 The Life of
tained their one-sided utilitarian bias which only
troubled itself about everyday matters. That
intolerably stiff, home-baked, prosaic spirit which
was instilled into the State of the old Soldiei-King
was somewhat humanized by Frederick but not
broken ; only the baroque glory of the New Palace
and the mighty cupolas of the Gensdarmenkirche^
made it possible to recognize that at least the
barbaric culture-hatred of the thirties had begun
gradually to give way.
But still the Prussian State represented only
the one half of our national life; the delicacy and
the yearning, the profoundness and the enthusiasm
of the German character, could not obtain just
recognition in this prosaic world. The centre-
point of the German policy was not the home of
the intellectual work of the nation; the classical
period of our poetry found its scene of action in
the minor States.
In this momentous fact lies the key to many
puzzles of modern German history. To the coolly
averted attitude of King Frederick our Literature
owes the most precious thing it possesses -- ^its
imequalled freedom; but this indifference of the
' I cannot find out about this anywhere, but there is the
Gensdarmenmarkt, with the French Church and the New
Church, because Frederick was fond of French things. But in
Baedeker, it does not say anything about the change of name,
though it does say that the two churches with the theatre form
the finest group of buildings in Berlin. In an 1893 Baedeker, it
says that they are of the last century, which would make it
about the time. -- L. S.
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? Frederick the Great 195
Crown of Prussia during the days which decided
the character of modern German culture was to
blame for the fact that it was for a long time
difficult for the heroes of German thought to
understand the one vital State in Germany. After
Frederick's death two full decades elapsed before
Prussia gave hospitable reception to the intellec-
tual powers of the new Germany; and then more
long decades passed before German learning re-
cognized that it was of one blood with the Prus-
sian State, that the State-organizing power of
our people had its root in the same strong idealism
which inspired the German intellectual curiosity
and artistic industry to bold daring.
Frederick's coldness towards German culture is
perhaps the saddest, the most unnatural pheno-
menon in the long history of the suffering of
modern Germany. The first man of the nation,
who awakened again in the Germans the courage
to believe in themselves, was quite a stranger to
the noblest and most characteristic works of his
people; it cannot be expressed too clearly and
strongly, how slowly and with what difficulty
this people threw off the hard inheritance of
the thirty years, the spiritual supremacy of the
foreigner.
Frederick was not, like Henry IV of France, a
faithful representative of the national vices and
virtues, intelligible to the national disposition
in every undulation of his mood. Two natures
struggled within him: the philosophical scholar,
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? 196 The Life of
who revelled in the sound of music, in the melody
of French verse, who considered poetical fame
the greatest happiness on earth, who cried to his
Voltaire in honest admiration: "Destiny bestowed
on me the empty show of rank, on you every
talent; the better portion is yours" -- and the
robust North-German man, who stormed at his
Brandenburgers with rough Brandenburg Jod,^
a model of martial courage, restless energy, and
iron severity, for the stern, austere people.
The French enlightenment of the eighteenth
century was tainted with a deep insincerity: it
had neither the will nor the strength to make the
life agree with the idea: people raved of the holy
simplicity of Nature, and were unutterably pleased
with the most unnatural customs and costumes
which ever governed the European world; people
jeered at the absurd chance of birth, dreamed of
the original freedom and equality, and yet lived
gaily on in an insolent contempt of humanity,
and all the sweet sins of the old fawning society,
borne up with the hope that sometime in a distant
future Reason would set up her throne on the
fragments of all existing things.
At the Prussian Court, witty, malicious Prince
Henry was a faithful representative of this new
culture; theoretically a disdainer of that empty
smoke, which is called fame and power by the
mob, practically a man of hard and fast concep-
tion of political rulership, unscrupulous, versed
' Idiom.
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? Frederick the Great 197
in all tricks and intrigues. And Frederick, too,
in his way, led this double life of the men of the
French enlightenment. ^ His was that tragic fate
to think and to speak in two languages, neither
of which did he absolutely master. The crude
gibberish which was shouted at the Tahakskolle-
gium (smoking club, or the Tobacco Parliament
of Frederick William I of Prussia) of his father
seemed to the beauty-intoxicated youth just as
offensive as the ponderous literary German of
the learned pedantism which he came to know from
the works of orthodox theologists; good or evil,
he contented himself with this clumsy language,
discharged passing business now in rough dialect,
now in stiff pulpit-style.
For the world of ideas, with which his head
bubbled over, he found worthy expression only in
the language of cosmopolitan culture. He knew
well that his bizarre and Teutonic^ Muse spoke a
barbaric French, and in the consciousness of this
weakness estimated the art-worth of his verses
at a lower value than they deserved. The one
thing, at least, which makes the poet, the protean
gift, was in no way denied him. His Muse com-
manded the whole scale of emotions; she now
expressed with lofty earnestness the great and
noble, now, in a satirical mood, with the mischiev-
ousness of an elf -- or, to tell the truth, with the
' The period of Voltaire, the period preceding the Revolution,
humanistic in character.
* In the original "tudesque. "
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? 198 The Life of
mischievousness of a Berlin street-arab -- teased
and tormented her victim. And yet instinct tells
him that the richness of his mind does not flow so
full and clear in his verses as in the notes of
his flute; the fullest melody, the deepest feeling
were unattainable to the German in the foreign
language.
The philosopher of Sans Souci never became
quite at home in the foreign culture which he so
earnestly admired. Above all, the strictness of
his moral conception of the world divided him
from his French companions. It is the greatness
of Protestantism, that it imperiously commands
or requires the unity of thought and will, the unity
of the religious and moral life.
Frederick's moral training was too deeply
rooted in the German Protestant life not to per-
ceive the secret weakness of the French philosophy.
He viewed the Church with a more liberal mind
than the Catholic Voltaire, who, in his Henriade,
the gospel of the new toleration, in the end arrived
at the conclusion that all respectable people
should belong to the Roman Church ; he had never,
as Voltaire, bowed his neck to religious forms
which his conscience condemned, and could endure
with the calm serenity of the born heretic the fact
that the Roman Curia placed his works on the
Index of forbidden books. Although he from
time to time condescendingly defined philosophy
as his hobby, yet the reflection on the great prob-
lems of existence was far more to him than an
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? Frederick the Great 199
ingenious pastime; in the fashion of the ancients,
he sought and found in intellectual work the rest
of the mind at peace with itself, that lofty superior-
ity of the soul to all vicissitudes of fortune.
After the errors of his passionate youth, he soon
learned to subdue that impulse of artistic tender-
ness and sensuality, which threatened to drive
him to epicurean pleasures. Boldly as scorn and
scepticism stirred in his head, the moral order of
the Universe, the idea of duty, remained inviolable
to him. The terrible earnestness of his life, wholly
dedicated to duty, was divided as by all the breadth
of heaven from the effeminate and loose morals
of the Parisian enlightenment. As his writings
-- in that clear and sharp style, which at times
becomes trivial, but never vague -- always irre-
sistibly aimed at a certain decided and palpable
conclusion, so he wished to fashion his life accord-
ing to what he recognized as truth; as far as the
opposition of a barbaric world allowed, he sought
to ensure in State and Society a humane concep-
tion of things, which he called the cardinal virtue
of every thinking being, and went to meet death
with the calm consciousness "of leaving the world
loaded with my good deeds. "
For all that, he never succeeded in wholly over-
coming the duality of his mind. The struggle
within betrays itself in Frederick's biting wit,
which came out so harshly because the hero in
his arrogant directness never thought of hiding it.
The life of genius is always mysterious, but seldom
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? 200 The Life of
does it appear so difficult to understand as in the
richness of this dual mind. The King looks down
with superior irony on the coarse ignorance of his
Brandenburg nobility; he breathes freely when
he can refresh himself from the boredom of this
unintellectual company with the one man to
whom he looks up admiringly, the Master of the
French poetry; at the same time he recognized
what he owed to the sword of that rude race, he
could not find sufficient words to praise the cour-
age, the fidelity, the honourableness of his nobility;
he curbs his jeering before the stern Biblical
faith of old Zieten. The French are welcome
guests for the cheerful after-dinner hours; his
respect belongs to the Germans.
No one of the foreign companions got so near
to the heart of Frederick as that " Seelenmensch " ^
Winterfeldt, who courageously maintained his
German nature even against his royal friend. In
his letters Frederick often yearned for the new
Athens away on the Seine, and bewailed the envy
of jealous gods, who had condemned the son of
the Muse to rule over slaves in the Cimmerian
land of the North. And yet he shared as patiently
as his father the troubles and cares of this wretched
people, glad from the bottom of his heart of the new
life which was springing up under the rough fists
of his peasants, and cried proudly: "I prefer our
simplicity, even our poverty, to those damned
riches which corrupt the dignity of our race. "
^ A man of great feeling and tactful understanding.
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? Frederick the Great 201
Woe to the foreign poets if they presumed to give
the King political advice; hard and scornful he
waved them back to the limits of their art.
Vigorously as he was occupied with the ideas of
the modern France, he was only a great author
when he was expressing German thoughts in
French words, when he spoke as a German Prince
and General in his political, military, and historical
works. Not in the foreign school, but through his
own strength and an unrivalled experience, Fred-
erick became the first publicist of our eighteenth
century, the only German who approached the
State with creative criticism, and spoke of the
duties of the citizen in lofty style: no one before
of that people without a country had known how
to speak so warmly and deeply as the author of the
Letters of Philopatros about the love of the Father-
land.
The old King no longer considered it worth the
trouble to climb down from the height of his
French Parnassus into the lowlands of the German
Muse, and judge with his own eyes whether the
poetical art of his people was not awakened at
last. In his essays on German Literature, six years
before his death, he repeated the old impeach-
ment of the fastidious Parisian critic against the
undisciplined wildness of the German language,
and dismissed the horrible platitudes of Gotz von
Berlichingen, which he had hardly read, with
words of contempt. And yet this infamous dis-
cussion itself gives an eloquent proof of the passion-
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? 202 The Life of
ate national pride of the hero. He prophesied
for the future of Germany a period of intellectual
fame, which already irradiated the unsuspecting
nation with its dawning glory. As Moses he sees
the Promised Land lying in the distance, and
concludes hopefully: "Perhaps the late-comers
will surpass all their predecessors. " So close and
so distant, so foreign and so familiar, was the
relationship of Germany's greatest King to his
people.
The great period of the old monarchy was set-
ting. Round the King it became more and more
silent; the heroes who had fought his battles, the
friends who had laughed and revelled with him,
sank one after the other into the grave ; loneliness,
the curse of the great, came over him. He was
never accustomed to spare with his irony any
single human emotion ; for all the rapturous dreams
of his own youth had been trampled underfoot by
his pitiless father. In old age inconsiderate auster-
ity became inexorable harshness. The stern old
man, who in his rare leisure hoiH"s paced along the
picture-gallery at Sans Souci with his greyhounds,
or in the round temple of the Park dwelt dejectedly
on his dead sister, saw far beneath his feet a new
generation of tiny human beings growing up
aroimd him : they must fear him and obey him ; he
was indifferent to their love. The preponderance
of one man weighed oppressively on the people.
On the rare occasions when he went to the Opera
House, opera and the singers seemed to the audi-
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? Frederick the Great 203
ence to be swallowed up; everyone gazed towards
that place in the parterre where sat the failing old
man, with the large, hard eyes. When the news
of his death came, a Swabian peasant, from the
hearts of countless Germans, cried: "Who will
rule the world now? "
To his last breath all the will-power of the
Prussian Monarchy emanated from this one man;
the day of his death was the first day of rest of his
life. His will told the nation once more how differ-
ently from the domestic politics of the minor
courts was the HohenzoUerns' idea of kingship:
"My last wishes at the moment of my death will
concern the happiness of this State ; may it be the
happiest of States through the mildness of its
laws, the most justly administered in its internal
affairs, the most valiantly defended by an army
which breathes only honour and noble fame, and
may it last and flourish imtil the end of time. "
A century and a half had elapsed since a Fred-
erick William sought among the fragments of the
old Empire the first materials for the building of
the modern Great Power. Hundreds of thousands
of Prussians had found a hero's death, colossal
labour had been expended on the establishment
of the new German kingdom, and at least one
rich blessing of these terrible struggles was felt
forcibly in the Empire: the nation felt at home
again, mistress on her own soil. A long-missed
feeling of safety beautified life for the Germans in
the Empire; it seemed to them as if this Prussia
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? 204 The Life of
was destined by Nature to protect the peaceftil
industries of the nation with its shield against all
foreign disturbers. Without this strong feeling
of national ease our German poetry woiild never
have found the joyous courage to achieve great
things.
Public opinion began gradually to be reconciled
to the State which had grown up against their will;
one took it up as a necessity of German life, with-
out troubling much about its future. The difficult
question : how such a bold conception of the State
could be maintained without the invigorating
strength of genius? -- was only seriously raised by
one contemporary, by Mirabeau, The old and
new epochs gave each other a friendly greeting
once more, when the tribune of the approaching
revolution stayed at Sans Souci, shortly before
the death of the King. With the glowing colour-
splendour of his rhetoric, Mirabeau portrayed the
greatest man he had ever beheld; he called Fred-
erick's State a truly noble work of art, the one
State of the present which could seriously occupy
a brilliant mind; but it did not escape him that
this daring building unfortunately rested on much
too weak a foundation. The Prussians of those
days could not understand such uncertainty; the
glory of the Frederician epoch seemed so wonderful
that even this most fault-finding of all European
peoples was blinded by it.
For the next generation the fame of Frederick
proved fatal; men lived in delusive security, and
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? Frederick the Great 205
forgot that only renewed hard labour could uphold
the work of unutterable toil. But when the days
of shame and trial came, the Prussian again
experienced the surviving efficacy of Genius; the
memory of Rossbach and Leuthen was the last
moral force which kept the leaking ship of the
German Monarchy above water; and when the
State once more took up arms for the struggle of
despair, a South-German poet saw the figure of
the great King descend from the clouds, and call
to the people: "Up, my Prussians! Under my
flag! and you shall be greater than your ancestors ! "
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?
TREITSCHKE AS A HISTORIAN
Lord Acton says of Treitschke :
"He is the one writer of history who is more bril-
liant and more powerful than Droysen: he writes
with the force and incisiveness of Mommsen. "
Heinrich von Treitschke (1834- 1896) was a
Saxon who in 1863 became Professor at Freiburg, in
Baden, and in 1866 became a Prussian subject and
editor of the Preussische Jahrbiicher. After being a
Professor at Kiel and Heidelberg, in 1874 he became
Professor at Berlin. From 1871 he was a Member of
the Reichstag. At first a Liberal, he became the chief
panegyrist of the House of Hohenzollern. According
to the EncyclopcEdia Britannica: "He did more than
anyone to mould the minds of the rising generation,
and he carried them with him even in his violent
attacks on all opinions and all parties which appeared
in any way to be injurious to the rising power of
Germany. He supported the Government in its
attempts to subdue by legislation the Socialists, Poles,
and Catholics; and he was one of the few men of
eminence who gave the sanction of his name to the
attacks on the Jews which began in 1878. As a
strong advocate of colonial expansion he was also a
bitter enemy of Great Britain, and he was to a large
extent responsible for the anti-British feeling into
207
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? 2o8 Treitschke as a Historian
which so much of German Chauvinism was directed
during the last years of the nineteenth century. "
"As a historian," says the E. B. , "Treitschke holds
a very high place. His work, indeed, lies entirely in
the history of the last two centuries. He approached
history as a politician ; he had none of the passion for
research for its own sake, and confined himself to those
periods and characters in which great political prob-
lems were being worked out; above all, he was a
patriotic historian, and he never wandered far from
Prussia. His great achievement was the History of
Germany in the Nineteenth Century. The first volume
was published in 1879, and during the next sixteen
years four more volumes appeared, but at his death he
had only advanced to the year 1847. It will remain a
fragment, and it is much to be regretted that he did
not live to complete the account of the Revolution, in
which he would have had a subject worthy of his
peculiar powers. The work shows extreme diligence,
scrupulous care in the use of authorities, and in the
years he covered he has left little for future historians
to discover. It is too discursive and is badly arranged,
but it is marked by a power of style, a vigour of
narrative, and a skill in delineation of character which
give life to the most unattractive period of German
history; notwithstanding the extreme spirit of par-
tisanship and some faults of taste, it will remain a
remarkable monument of literary ability. Besides
this he wrote a number of biographical and historical
essays, as well as numerous articles and papers on
questions rising out of contemporary politics, of which
some are valuable contributions to political thought,
while others are political controversy not always of
the best kind. "
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? Jk Selection from the
Catalogue of
C P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Complete Catalogue sent
on application
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? The Great Illusion
By Norman Angell
A Study of the Relation of Military
Power to National Advantage.
Fourth Edition Revised with Additional Material
Crown 8? . $1. 00
"Mr. Angell throws into the dust-bin the worn-out
theories, the axioms of statecraft, the shibboleths of
diplomats, the mouthings of politicasters, as to the
necessity of war. And from this to a brilliant arraign-
ment of standing armies and navies and war establish-
ments of all kinds is but another step in Mr. Angell's
altogether splendid monograph. To use a familiar
phrase, no book of similar trend in recent years has
caused so many thinking men to sit up and take notice. "
St. Louis Globei'Detnocrat.
Arms and Industry
A Study of the Foundations of Inter-
national Polity
By Norman Angell
Author of " The Great Illusion," etc.
12? . $1. 25
In this book the author of " The Great Illusion " shows
systematically and scientifically, though with the same
clearness and simplicity which mark his earlier work, the
nature of those forces which are transforming the re-
lationship of states, and indeed, to some extent, the
mechanism of organized society as a whole.
New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London
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? France Herself Again
By Ernest Dimnet
The well-known historian, Abbe Ernest Dimnet, draws
a comparison between the demoralized France of 1870
and the united France of to-day. Headings: The De-
terioration of France ; Under the Second Empire; Under
the Third Republic ; The Return of the Light ; Immediate
Consequences of the Tangier Incident; Intellectual
Preparation of the New Spirit; Evidences of the New
Spirit; The Political Problems and the Future; France
and the_,War of 19 14.
S2. 50
Japan to America
Edited by Professor Naoichi Masaoka,
of Tokio. A Symposium of Papers by
Statesmen and Other Leaders of Thought
in Japan.
The book is issued under the auspices of the Japanese
Society and contains an introduction by Lindsay Russell,
President of the Society. It gives first-hand information
as to present conditions in Japan, as to the ideals and
policies of Japanese leaders, and on the all-important
matter of the state of public opinion in Japan in regard
to the continuing interest of the Empire in maintaining
peaceful relations with the United States.
$1. 25
New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London
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? Deutschland Uber AUes
Or Germany Speaks
A Collection of the Utterances of Representative
Germans -- Statesmen, Military Leaders, Scholars, and
Poets-- in Defence of the War Policies of the Fatherland.
Compiled and Analyzed by
John Jay Chapman
i6? . 75c
Alsace and Lorraine
From Caesar to Kaiser. 58 B. C. -1871 A. D.
A sketch of the political affiliations of the provinces
before the creation of the Reichsland of Elsass-
Lothringen.
By Ruth Putnam
Author of " A Mediaeval Princess," " Charles the Bold,"
" William the Silent," etc.
mth Eight Maps, 8? . $125
Alsace -- Romans, Gauls, and Others on the Soil of
Alsace -- The Treaties of Verdun and Other Pacts Affect-
ing Alsace -- The Dream of a Middle Kingdom -- The
People of Alsace in the 15th Century and After -- The
Thirty Years of War and the Peace of Westphalia -- Louis
XIV and Strasburg -- Alsace after Annexation to France -- ?
Lorraine in Several Phases of its History -- ^Alsace-Lorraine,
1871-1914.
New York G, P. Putnam*S Sons London
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-08-05 01:03 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/loc. ark:/13960/t5h99vc8g Public Domain in the United States / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us
? Treitschke
I2\ $1. 50
The Writings of Bernhardi's Teacher,
Heinrich von Treitschke, Together
with a Life, by His Close
Friend, Adolf Hausrath
The works of this great German historian
have shaped the present policy of Germany in
its attempt to secure a dominating influence in
Europe and throughout the world. The follow-
ing is a brief summary of the subjects presented
in this distinctive work :
I. Treitschke's Life and Work, by Adolf
Hausrath. 2. TlieArmy. 3. International Law.
4. German Colonization. 5. The Two Emperors.
6. In Memory of the Great War. 7. Germany
and the Neutral States. 8. Austria and the
German Emperor. 9. Russia from the German
Point of View. 10. On Liberty.
Treitschke was a close friend of Bismarck, and
his list of pupils include the political and military
leaders of the present generation, such as the
Emperor William, Bernhardi, and others.
Lord Acton says of Treitschke: "He is the
one writer of history who is more brilliant and
more powerful than Droysen; and he writes
with the force and incisiveness of Mommsen,
but he concerns himself with the problems of
the present day, problems that are still demand-
ing solution. "
New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London
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? The Real
"Truth About Germany *'
From the English Point of View
By Douglas Sladen
Author of " Egypt and the English," etc.
With an Appendix
Great Britain and the War
By A. Maurice Low, M. A.
Author of " The American People," etc.
300 pages, 12? , Cloth $100
Mr. Sladen has taken as his text a pamphlet which, while not
formally published, has been widely circulated in the United Statesj
entitled The Truth About Germany. This pamphlet was prepared
in Germany under the supervision of a Committee of Repre-
sentative Germans, and may fairly be described as the "official
justification of the War. " Care has been taken to prevent copies
from finding their way into England, which has caused Mr. Sladen
to describe the pamphlet as The Secret White Paper. He has taken
up one by one the statements of the German writers, and has
shown how little foundation most of these statements have and
how misleading are others which contain some element of truth.
In answering the German statements, Mr. Sladen has naturally
taken the opportunity to state clearly the case of England. England
claims that it was impossible to avoid going into this struggle if
it was to keep faith with and fulfill its obligations to Belgium
and Luxemburg. Apart from this duty, it is the conviction of
England, that it is fighting not only in fulfillment of obligations
and to prevent France from being crushed for a second time, but
for self-preservation. The German threat has been made openly
" first Paris, then London. "
In order that the case for England may be complete, the pub-
lishers have added an essay by the well-known historian, A. Maurice
Low. As the title. Great Britain and the War, indicates, England's
attitude toward the great conflict is clearly portrayed, and her
reasons for joining therein are ably presented.
New York G. P. PutnaiD^S SonS London
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? The Evidence in
the Case
In the Supreme Court of
Civilization
The Case of The Dual Alliance rs> The Triple Entente
By
James M. Beck
Late Assistant Attorney-General of the U. S.
/2^ $1. 00
In this volume the scholarly author sums up,
speaking as a judge in a world's court of abso-
lute impartiality, the causation of the present
European War and the relative responsibilities
of the nations that are parties to the War. The
author's verdict is based upon the official docu-
ments in the case, and these documents are
presented in the original text as an appendix to
the argument.
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York London
H82 89 rJ
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? ?
schools, and found enthusiastic supporters in the
Empire, so that in the end Catholic Germany
participated in the greatest blessing of the Refor-
mation.
It seemed an easy thing to gather in Berlin a
brilliant circle of the best intellects of Germany
for pregnant activity. Every young genius in the
Empire angled for the eye of the national hero.
Even Winckelmann, who had once fled from the
country in hot hatred, now experienced with what
strong bands this State fettered the hearts of its
sons. "For the first time," he wrote, "the voice
of the Fatherland makes itself heard within me,
which was iinknown to me before. " He burned
with an eager desire to show the Aristotle of mili-
tary art that a born subject could achieve some-
thing worthy, and negotiated for years for an
appointment in Berlin.
But in Frederick's French academy there was no
place for German thinkers. The Medicean days,
which one had once awaited from the inspired
Prince of the Rheinsberger Parnassus, only came
for the foreign intellects at the table of Sans Souci ;
the pupil of French culture would not and could
not understand the young unruly life which stirred
in the depths of his own people. While the Ber-
liner company intoxicated themselves to over-
refinement with the idea of the new literature,
and jeering scepticism and refined epicureanism
were almost crowding out the old strict moral
simplicity, the Prussian administration main-
13
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? 194 The Life of
tained their one-sided utilitarian bias which only
troubled itself about everyday matters. That
intolerably stiff, home-baked, prosaic spirit which
was instilled into the State of the old Soldiei-King
was somewhat humanized by Frederick but not
broken ; only the baroque glory of the New Palace
and the mighty cupolas of the Gensdarmenkirche^
made it possible to recognize that at least the
barbaric culture-hatred of the thirties had begun
gradually to give way.
But still the Prussian State represented only
the one half of our national life; the delicacy and
the yearning, the profoundness and the enthusiasm
of the German character, could not obtain just
recognition in this prosaic world. The centre-
point of the German policy was not the home of
the intellectual work of the nation; the classical
period of our poetry found its scene of action in
the minor States.
In this momentous fact lies the key to many
puzzles of modern German history. To the coolly
averted attitude of King Frederick our Literature
owes the most precious thing it possesses -- ^its
imequalled freedom; but this indifference of the
' I cannot find out about this anywhere, but there is the
Gensdarmenmarkt, with the French Church and the New
Church, because Frederick was fond of French things. But in
Baedeker, it does not say anything about the change of name,
though it does say that the two churches with the theatre form
the finest group of buildings in Berlin. In an 1893 Baedeker, it
says that they are of the last century, which would make it
about the time. -- L. S.
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? Frederick the Great 195
Crown of Prussia during the days which decided
the character of modern German culture was to
blame for the fact that it was for a long time
difficult for the heroes of German thought to
understand the one vital State in Germany. After
Frederick's death two full decades elapsed before
Prussia gave hospitable reception to the intellec-
tual powers of the new Germany; and then more
long decades passed before German learning re-
cognized that it was of one blood with the Prus-
sian State, that the State-organizing power of
our people had its root in the same strong idealism
which inspired the German intellectual curiosity
and artistic industry to bold daring.
Frederick's coldness towards German culture is
perhaps the saddest, the most unnatural pheno-
menon in the long history of the suffering of
modern Germany. The first man of the nation,
who awakened again in the Germans the courage
to believe in themselves, was quite a stranger to
the noblest and most characteristic works of his
people; it cannot be expressed too clearly and
strongly, how slowly and with what difficulty
this people threw off the hard inheritance of
the thirty years, the spiritual supremacy of the
foreigner.
Frederick was not, like Henry IV of France, a
faithful representative of the national vices and
virtues, intelligible to the national disposition
in every undulation of his mood. Two natures
struggled within him: the philosophical scholar,
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? 196 The Life of
who revelled in the sound of music, in the melody
of French verse, who considered poetical fame
the greatest happiness on earth, who cried to his
Voltaire in honest admiration: "Destiny bestowed
on me the empty show of rank, on you every
talent; the better portion is yours" -- and the
robust North-German man, who stormed at his
Brandenburgers with rough Brandenburg Jod,^
a model of martial courage, restless energy, and
iron severity, for the stern, austere people.
The French enlightenment of the eighteenth
century was tainted with a deep insincerity: it
had neither the will nor the strength to make the
life agree with the idea: people raved of the holy
simplicity of Nature, and were unutterably pleased
with the most unnatural customs and costumes
which ever governed the European world; people
jeered at the absurd chance of birth, dreamed of
the original freedom and equality, and yet lived
gaily on in an insolent contempt of humanity,
and all the sweet sins of the old fawning society,
borne up with the hope that sometime in a distant
future Reason would set up her throne on the
fragments of all existing things.
At the Prussian Court, witty, malicious Prince
Henry was a faithful representative of this new
culture; theoretically a disdainer of that empty
smoke, which is called fame and power by the
mob, practically a man of hard and fast concep-
tion of political rulership, unscrupulous, versed
' Idiom.
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? Frederick the Great 197
in all tricks and intrigues. And Frederick, too,
in his way, led this double life of the men of the
French enlightenment. ^ His was that tragic fate
to think and to speak in two languages, neither
of which did he absolutely master. The crude
gibberish which was shouted at the Tahakskolle-
gium (smoking club, or the Tobacco Parliament
of Frederick William I of Prussia) of his father
seemed to the beauty-intoxicated youth just as
offensive as the ponderous literary German of
the learned pedantism which he came to know from
the works of orthodox theologists; good or evil,
he contented himself with this clumsy language,
discharged passing business now in rough dialect,
now in stiff pulpit-style.
For the world of ideas, with which his head
bubbled over, he found worthy expression only in
the language of cosmopolitan culture. He knew
well that his bizarre and Teutonic^ Muse spoke a
barbaric French, and in the consciousness of this
weakness estimated the art-worth of his verses
at a lower value than they deserved. The one
thing, at least, which makes the poet, the protean
gift, was in no way denied him. His Muse com-
manded the whole scale of emotions; she now
expressed with lofty earnestness the great and
noble, now, in a satirical mood, with the mischiev-
ousness of an elf -- or, to tell the truth, with the
' The period of Voltaire, the period preceding the Revolution,
humanistic in character.
* In the original "tudesque. "
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? 198 The Life of
mischievousness of a Berlin street-arab -- teased
and tormented her victim. And yet instinct tells
him that the richness of his mind does not flow so
full and clear in his verses as in the notes of
his flute; the fullest melody, the deepest feeling
were unattainable to the German in the foreign
language.
The philosopher of Sans Souci never became
quite at home in the foreign culture which he so
earnestly admired. Above all, the strictness of
his moral conception of the world divided him
from his French companions. It is the greatness
of Protestantism, that it imperiously commands
or requires the unity of thought and will, the unity
of the religious and moral life.
Frederick's moral training was too deeply
rooted in the German Protestant life not to per-
ceive the secret weakness of the French philosophy.
He viewed the Church with a more liberal mind
than the Catholic Voltaire, who, in his Henriade,
the gospel of the new toleration, in the end arrived
at the conclusion that all respectable people
should belong to the Roman Church ; he had never,
as Voltaire, bowed his neck to religious forms
which his conscience condemned, and could endure
with the calm serenity of the born heretic the fact
that the Roman Curia placed his works on the
Index of forbidden books. Although he from
time to time condescendingly defined philosophy
as his hobby, yet the reflection on the great prob-
lems of existence was far more to him than an
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? Frederick the Great 199
ingenious pastime; in the fashion of the ancients,
he sought and found in intellectual work the rest
of the mind at peace with itself, that lofty superior-
ity of the soul to all vicissitudes of fortune.
After the errors of his passionate youth, he soon
learned to subdue that impulse of artistic tender-
ness and sensuality, which threatened to drive
him to epicurean pleasures. Boldly as scorn and
scepticism stirred in his head, the moral order of
the Universe, the idea of duty, remained inviolable
to him. The terrible earnestness of his life, wholly
dedicated to duty, was divided as by all the breadth
of heaven from the effeminate and loose morals
of the Parisian enlightenment. As his writings
-- in that clear and sharp style, which at times
becomes trivial, but never vague -- always irre-
sistibly aimed at a certain decided and palpable
conclusion, so he wished to fashion his life accord-
ing to what he recognized as truth; as far as the
opposition of a barbaric world allowed, he sought
to ensure in State and Society a humane concep-
tion of things, which he called the cardinal virtue
of every thinking being, and went to meet death
with the calm consciousness "of leaving the world
loaded with my good deeds. "
For all that, he never succeeded in wholly over-
coming the duality of his mind. The struggle
within betrays itself in Frederick's biting wit,
which came out so harshly because the hero in
his arrogant directness never thought of hiding it.
The life of genius is always mysterious, but seldom
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? 200 The Life of
does it appear so difficult to understand as in the
richness of this dual mind. The King looks down
with superior irony on the coarse ignorance of his
Brandenburg nobility; he breathes freely when
he can refresh himself from the boredom of this
unintellectual company with the one man to
whom he looks up admiringly, the Master of the
French poetry; at the same time he recognized
what he owed to the sword of that rude race, he
could not find sufficient words to praise the cour-
age, the fidelity, the honourableness of his nobility;
he curbs his jeering before the stern Biblical
faith of old Zieten. The French are welcome
guests for the cheerful after-dinner hours; his
respect belongs to the Germans.
No one of the foreign companions got so near
to the heart of Frederick as that " Seelenmensch " ^
Winterfeldt, who courageously maintained his
German nature even against his royal friend. In
his letters Frederick often yearned for the new
Athens away on the Seine, and bewailed the envy
of jealous gods, who had condemned the son of
the Muse to rule over slaves in the Cimmerian
land of the North. And yet he shared as patiently
as his father the troubles and cares of this wretched
people, glad from the bottom of his heart of the new
life which was springing up under the rough fists
of his peasants, and cried proudly: "I prefer our
simplicity, even our poverty, to those damned
riches which corrupt the dignity of our race. "
^ A man of great feeling and tactful understanding.
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? Frederick the Great 201
Woe to the foreign poets if they presumed to give
the King political advice; hard and scornful he
waved them back to the limits of their art.
Vigorously as he was occupied with the ideas of
the modern France, he was only a great author
when he was expressing German thoughts in
French words, when he spoke as a German Prince
and General in his political, military, and historical
works. Not in the foreign school, but through his
own strength and an unrivalled experience, Fred-
erick became the first publicist of our eighteenth
century, the only German who approached the
State with creative criticism, and spoke of the
duties of the citizen in lofty style: no one before
of that people without a country had known how
to speak so warmly and deeply as the author of the
Letters of Philopatros about the love of the Father-
land.
The old King no longer considered it worth the
trouble to climb down from the height of his
French Parnassus into the lowlands of the German
Muse, and judge with his own eyes whether the
poetical art of his people was not awakened at
last. In his essays on German Literature, six years
before his death, he repeated the old impeach-
ment of the fastidious Parisian critic against the
undisciplined wildness of the German language,
and dismissed the horrible platitudes of Gotz von
Berlichingen, which he had hardly read, with
words of contempt. And yet this infamous dis-
cussion itself gives an eloquent proof of the passion-
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? 202 The Life of
ate national pride of the hero. He prophesied
for the future of Germany a period of intellectual
fame, which already irradiated the unsuspecting
nation with its dawning glory. As Moses he sees
the Promised Land lying in the distance, and
concludes hopefully: "Perhaps the late-comers
will surpass all their predecessors. " So close and
so distant, so foreign and so familiar, was the
relationship of Germany's greatest King to his
people.
The great period of the old monarchy was set-
ting. Round the King it became more and more
silent; the heroes who had fought his battles, the
friends who had laughed and revelled with him,
sank one after the other into the grave ; loneliness,
the curse of the great, came over him. He was
never accustomed to spare with his irony any
single human emotion ; for all the rapturous dreams
of his own youth had been trampled underfoot by
his pitiless father. In old age inconsiderate auster-
ity became inexorable harshness. The stern old
man, who in his rare leisure hoiH"s paced along the
picture-gallery at Sans Souci with his greyhounds,
or in the round temple of the Park dwelt dejectedly
on his dead sister, saw far beneath his feet a new
generation of tiny human beings growing up
aroimd him : they must fear him and obey him ; he
was indifferent to their love. The preponderance
of one man weighed oppressively on the people.
On the rare occasions when he went to the Opera
House, opera and the singers seemed to the audi-
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? Frederick the Great 203
ence to be swallowed up; everyone gazed towards
that place in the parterre where sat the failing old
man, with the large, hard eyes. When the news
of his death came, a Swabian peasant, from the
hearts of countless Germans, cried: "Who will
rule the world now? "
To his last breath all the will-power of the
Prussian Monarchy emanated from this one man;
the day of his death was the first day of rest of his
life. His will told the nation once more how differ-
ently from the domestic politics of the minor
courts was the HohenzoUerns' idea of kingship:
"My last wishes at the moment of my death will
concern the happiness of this State ; may it be the
happiest of States through the mildness of its
laws, the most justly administered in its internal
affairs, the most valiantly defended by an army
which breathes only honour and noble fame, and
may it last and flourish imtil the end of time. "
A century and a half had elapsed since a Fred-
erick William sought among the fragments of the
old Empire the first materials for the building of
the modern Great Power. Hundreds of thousands
of Prussians had found a hero's death, colossal
labour had been expended on the establishment
of the new German kingdom, and at least one
rich blessing of these terrible struggles was felt
forcibly in the Empire: the nation felt at home
again, mistress on her own soil. A long-missed
feeling of safety beautified life for the Germans in
the Empire; it seemed to them as if this Prussia
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? 204 The Life of
was destined by Nature to protect the peaceftil
industries of the nation with its shield against all
foreign disturbers. Without this strong feeling
of national ease our German poetry woiild never
have found the joyous courage to achieve great
things.
Public opinion began gradually to be reconciled
to the State which had grown up against their will;
one took it up as a necessity of German life, with-
out troubling much about its future. The difficult
question : how such a bold conception of the State
could be maintained without the invigorating
strength of genius? -- was only seriously raised by
one contemporary, by Mirabeau, The old and
new epochs gave each other a friendly greeting
once more, when the tribune of the approaching
revolution stayed at Sans Souci, shortly before
the death of the King. With the glowing colour-
splendour of his rhetoric, Mirabeau portrayed the
greatest man he had ever beheld; he called Fred-
erick's State a truly noble work of art, the one
State of the present which could seriously occupy
a brilliant mind; but it did not escape him that
this daring building unfortunately rested on much
too weak a foundation. The Prussians of those
days could not understand such uncertainty; the
glory of the Frederician epoch seemed so wonderful
that even this most fault-finding of all European
peoples was blinded by it.
For the next generation the fame of Frederick
proved fatal; men lived in delusive security, and
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? Frederick the Great 205
forgot that only renewed hard labour could uphold
the work of unutterable toil. But when the days
of shame and trial came, the Prussian again
experienced the surviving efficacy of Genius; the
memory of Rossbach and Leuthen was the last
moral force which kept the leaking ship of the
German Monarchy above water; and when the
State once more took up arms for the struggle of
despair, a South-German poet saw the figure of
the great King descend from the clouds, and call
to the people: "Up, my Prussians! Under my
flag! and you shall be greater than your ancestors ! "
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?
TREITSCHKE AS A HISTORIAN
Lord Acton says of Treitschke :
"He is the one writer of history who is more bril-
liant and more powerful than Droysen: he writes
with the force and incisiveness of Mommsen. "
Heinrich von Treitschke (1834- 1896) was a
Saxon who in 1863 became Professor at Freiburg, in
Baden, and in 1866 became a Prussian subject and
editor of the Preussische Jahrbiicher. After being a
Professor at Kiel and Heidelberg, in 1874 he became
Professor at Berlin. From 1871 he was a Member of
the Reichstag. At first a Liberal, he became the chief
panegyrist of the House of Hohenzollern. According
to the EncyclopcEdia Britannica: "He did more than
anyone to mould the minds of the rising generation,
and he carried them with him even in his violent
attacks on all opinions and all parties which appeared
in any way to be injurious to the rising power of
Germany. He supported the Government in its
attempts to subdue by legislation the Socialists, Poles,
and Catholics; and he was one of the few men of
eminence who gave the sanction of his name to the
attacks on the Jews which began in 1878. As a
strong advocate of colonial expansion he was also a
bitter enemy of Great Britain, and he was to a large
extent responsible for the anti-British feeling into
207
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? 2o8 Treitschke as a Historian
which so much of German Chauvinism was directed
during the last years of the nineteenth century. "
"As a historian," says the E. B. , "Treitschke holds
a very high place. His work, indeed, lies entirely in
the history of the last two centuries. He approached
history as a politician ; he had none of the passion for
research for its own sake, and confined himself to those
periods and characters in which great political prob-
lems were being worked out; above all, he was a
patriotic historian, and he never wandered far from
Prussia. His great achievement was the History of
Germany in the Nineteenth Century. The first volume
was published in 1879, and during the next sixteen
years four more volumes appeared, but at his death he
had only advanced to the year 1847. It will remain a
fragment, and it is much to be regretted that he did
not live to complete the account of the Revolution, in
which he would have had a subject worthy of his
peculiar powers. The work shows extreme diligence,
scrupulous care in the use of authorities, and in the
years he covered he has left little for future historians
to discover. It is too discursive and is badly arranged,
but it is marked by a power of style, a vigour of
narrative, and a skill in delineation of character which
give life to the most unattractive period of German
history; notwithstanding the extreme spirit of par-
tisanship and some faults of taste, it will remain a
remarkable monument of literary ability. Besides
this he wrote a number of biographical and historical
essays, as well as numerous articles and papers on
questions rising out of contemporary politics, of which
some are valuable contributions to political thought,
while others are political controversy not always of
the best kind. "
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? Jk Selection from the
Catalogue of
C P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Complete Catalogue sent
on application
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? The Great Illusion
By Norman Angell
A Study of the Relation of Military
Power to National Advantage.
Fourth Edition Revised with Additional Material
Crown 8? . $1. 00
"Mr. Angell throws into the dust-bin the worn-out
theories, the axioms of statecraft, the shibboleths of
diplomats, the mouthings of politicasters, as to the
necessity of war. And from this to a brilliant arraign-
ment of standing armies and navies and war establish-
ments of all kinds is but another step in Mr. Angell's
altogether splendid monograph. To use a familiar
phrase, no book of similar trend in recent years has
caused so many thinking men to sit up and take notice. "
St. Louis Globei'Detnocrat.
Arms and Industry
A Study of the Foundations of Inter-
national Polity
By Norman Angell
Author of " The Great Illusion," etc.
12? . $1. 25
In this book the author of " The Great Illusion " shows
systematically and scientifically, though with the same
clearness and simplicity which mark his earlier work, the
nature of those forces which are transforming the re-
lationship of states, and indeed, to some extent, the
mechanism of organized society as a whole.
New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London
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? France Herself Again
By Ernest Dimnet
The well-known historian, Abbe Ernest Dimnet, draws
a comparison between the demoralized France of 1870
and the united France of to-day. Headings: The De-
terioration of France ; Under the Second Empire; Under
the Third Republic ; The Return of the Light ; Immediate
Consequences of the Tangier Incident; Intellectual
Preparation of the New Spirit; Evidences of the New
Spirit; The Political Problems and the Future; France
and the_,War of 19 14.
S2. 50
Japan to America
Edited by Professor Naoichi Masaoka,
of Tokio. A Symposium of Papers by
Statesmen and Other Leaders of Thought
in Japan.
The book is issued under the auspices of the Japanese
Society and contains an introduction by Lindsay Russell,
President of the Society. It gives first-hand information
as to present conditions in Japan, as to the ideals and
policies of Japanese leaders, and on the all-important
matter of the state of public opinion in Japan in regard
to the continuing interest of the Empire in maintaining
peaceful relations with the United States.
$1. 25
New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London
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? Deutschland Uber AUes
Or Germany Speaks
A Collection of the Utterances of Representative
Germans -- Statesmen, Military Leaders, Scholars, and
Poets-- in Defence of the War Policies of the Fatherland.
Compiled and Analyzed by
John Jay Chapman
i6? . 75c
Alsace and Lorraine
From Caesar to Kaiser. 58 B. C. -1871 A. D.
A sketch of the political affiliations of the provinces
before the creation of the Reichsland of Elsass-
Lothringen.
By Ruth Putnam
Author of " A Mediaeval Princess," " Charles the Bold,"
" William the Silent," etc.
mth Eight Maps, 8? . $125
Alsace -- Romans, Gauls, and Others on the Soil of
Alsace -- The Treaties of Verdun and Other Pacts Affect-
ing Alsace -- The Dream of a Middle Kingdom -- The
People of Alsace in the 15th Century and After -- The
Thirty Years of War and the Peace of Westphalia -- Louis
XIV and Strasburg -- Alsace after Annexation to France -- ?
Lorraine in Several Phases of its History -- ^Alsace-Lorraine,
1871-1914.
New York G, P. Putnam*S Sons London
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? Treitschke
I2\ $1. 50
The Writings of Bernhardi's Teacher,
Heinrich von Treitschke, Together
with a Life, by His Close
Friend, Adolf Hausrath
The works of this great German historian
have shaped the present policy of Germany in
its attempt to secure a dominating influence in
Europe and throughout the world. The follow-
ing is a brief summary of the subjects presented
in this distinctive work :
I. Treitschke's Life and Work, by Adolf
Hausrath. 2. TlieArmy. 3. International Law.
4. German Colonization. 5. The Two Emperors.
6. In Memory of the Great War. 7. Germany
and the Neutral States. 8. Austria and the
German Emperor. 9. Russia from the German
Point of View. 10. On Liberty.
Treitschke was a close friend of Bismarck, and
his list of pupils include the political and military
leaders of the present generation, such as the
Emperor William, Bernhardi, and others.
Lord Acton says of Treitschke: "He is the
one writer of history who is more brilliant and
more powerful than Droysen; and he writes
with the force and incisiveness of Mommsen,
but he concerns himself with the problems of
the present day, problems that are still demand-
ing solution. "
New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London
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? The Real
"Truth About Germany *'
From the English Point of View
By Douglas Sladen
Author of " Egypt and the English," etc.
With an Appendix
Great Britain and the War
By A. Maurice Low, M. A.
Author of " The American People," etc.
300 pages, 12? , Cloth $100
Mr. Sladen has taken as his text a pamphlet which, while not
formally published, has been widely circulated in the United Statesj
entitled The Truth About Germany. This pamphlet was prepared
in Germany under the supervision of a Committee of Repre-
sentative Germans, and may fairly be described as the "official
justification of the War. " Care has been taken to prevent copies
from finding their way into England, which has caused Mr. Sladen
to describe the pamphlet as The Secret White Paper. He has taken
up one by one the statements of the German writers, and has
shown how little foundation most of these statements have and
how misleading are others which contain some element of truth.
In answering the German statements, Mr. Sladen has naturally
taken the opportunity to state clearly the case of England. England
claims that it was impossible to avoid going into this struggle if
it was to keep faith with and fulfill its obligations to Belgium
and Luxemburg. Apart from this duty, it is the conviction of
England, that it is fighting not only in fulfillment of obligations
and to prevent France from being crushed for a second time, but
for self-preservation. The German threat has been made openly
" first Paris, then London. "
In order that the case for England may be complete, the pub-
lishers have added an essay by the well-known historian, A. Maurice
Low. As the title. Great Britain and the War, indicates, England's
attitude toward the great conflict is clearly portrayed, and her
reasons for joining therein are ably presented.
New York G. P. PutnaiD^S SonS London
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? The Evidence in
the Case
In the Supreme Court of
Civilization
The Case of The Dual Alliance rs> The Triple Entente
By
James M. Beck
Late Assistant Attorney-General of the U. S.
/2^ $1. 00
In this volume the scholarly author sums up,
speaking as a judge in a world's court of abso-
lute impartiality, the causation of the present
European War and the relative responsibilities
of the nations that are parties to the War. The
author's verdict is based upon the official docu-
ments in the case, and these documents are
presented in the original text as an appendix to
the argument.
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York London
H82 89 rJ
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