No More Learning

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? Germany, France
Russia, and Islam
By
Heinrich von Treitschke
Translated into English
for the First Time
With a Foreword by
Geo. Haven Putnam
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
Zbc IknlcKerbocl^er ipress
1915
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? \5\>5oi
Copyright, 1915
BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
^/*f-
Ube finfcfterbocfter ipres0, "Mew l^orft
MAR 16 1915
(C)CI,A39? 147
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? FOREWORD
THE following essays were brought into print be-
tween the dates of 187 1 and 1 895. They cover
a varied group of subjects, but they are alike char-
acteristic of the method of thought of the author
and of the assured conclusiveness of his opinions.
Treitschke does not make space for historic doubts
or probabilities. He has the satisfaction of having
arrived at final opinions in regard to actual con-
ditions, while his predictions for the future are
almost as assured as his descriptions of the present.
The first essay in point of date was written in 1871
while the provisions of the settlement with France
were being put into shape by the authorities. It
would hardly be accurate to say that these provi-
sions were imder consideration with the people of
Germany for, under the conditions existing, the
people had very little to say in regard to the
terms of the treaty. It is possible, however,
that the views of Bismarck and Moltke (views
which were accepted with little question by the
old Emperor) may have been influenced, or at
least have been strengthened, by the counsel of
so good an advocate of Imperialism as Treitschke.
In any case, the adjustment finally arrived at was
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? iv Foreword
in substantial accord with Treitschke*s recom-
mendations. Treitschke phrases the German
claim as follows:
The sense of justice to Germany demands the
lessening of France. Every intelligent man sees that
that military nation cannot be forgiven, even for the
economic sacrifices of the war, on the payment of the
heaviest indemnity in money. Why was it that,
before the declaration of the war, and before a single
German newspaper had demanded the restitution of
the plunder, the anxious cry rang through Alsace
and Lorraine, "The dice are to be thrown to settle
the destiny of our provinces' ' ? Because the awakened
conscience of the people felt what penalty would have
to be paid in the interests of justice by the disturber
of the peace of nations.
The term ''disturber of the peace" is one that
might properly be recalled in 1914.
Says Treitschke, again indulging in this case in
prophecy which we may at this time feel not to
have been well founded :
The statesmen of the present day, whenever they
have realized the altered equilibrium of the Powers,
will feel that the strengthening of the boundaries of
Germany contributes to the security of the peace of
the world. We are a peaceful nation. The traditions
of the Hohenzollerns, the constitution of our Army,
the long and difficult work before us in the upbuilding
of our united German State, forbid the abuse of our
warlike power.
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? Foreword v
Europe might well wish that this counsel of the
Imperial historian had been more thoroughly
followed in the twentieth century.
In regard to the rightfulness of securing control
of the provinces, Treitschke writes as follows:
In view of our obligation to secure the peace of the
world, who will venture to object that the people of
Alsace and Lorraine do not want to belong to us? . . .
These territories are ours by the right of the sword,
and we shall dispose of them in virtue of a higher
right -- the right of the German nation, which will not
permit its lost children to remain strangers to the
German Empire. We Germans, who know Germany
and France, know better than these unfortunates them-
selves what is good for the people of Alsace, who have
remained under the misleading influence of their
French connection outside the sympathies of new
Germany. Against their will, we shall restore them
to their true selves.
There is a naivete in the admission that the
people of the "lost provinces" have no desire
to come into the family fold of Germany. The
higher German wisdom knew forty-four years
ago what was best for these people just as it knows
to-day what is best for the people of Belgium who
are, in like manner, being taken into the "kindly"
fold of the German Empire.
The following reference to France indicates
that the assumption of a superiority of German
civilization is not a discovery of the twentieth
century :
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? vi Foreword
They [the French] have felt the weight of our
sword, and we challenge the whole world to say
which of the two combatants bore himself with the
greater manliness, uprightness, and modesty. At all
times the subjection of a German race to France has
been an unhealthy thing; to-day it is an offence
against the reason of History -- a vassalship of free
men to half -educated barbarians.
With reference to Treitschke's claim, which was
confirmed as the claim of Germany, that the
appropriation of Alsace and Lorraine constituted
a "restitution " of territory and of peoples that had
been stolen from Germany, it may be in order to
ask whether there does not apply, or whether there
ought not to apply, to issues betw^een nations as to
those between individuals, some statute of limita-
tions? A period of one hundred years, for in-
stance, in which time three generations of men have
come into activity, might properly be accepted,
under a common-sense code of international rela-
tions, as sufficiently long to bar out grievances
or appropriations that were back of the birth of
the great-grandfathers of living men. If in the
civilized relations of states, for which the world is
now hoping, some such principle is accepted, an
important portion of the texts, or the pretexts,
for aggressive wars, will have been removed. It is
in any case a dangerous doctrine for a Prussian to
propagate that there is no time in the future in
which the status of territory can be considered as
fixed. If there was good foundation for the claim
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? Foreword vii
made by Prussia in 1871 that France must be held
responsible for making restitution for the "rob-
beries" of Louis XIV, question might well be
raised as to the propriety of the restitution by
Prussia of the Silesian provinces appropriated
by Frederick the Great, and of the territories
of Schleswig-Holstein and Hanover "annexed"
under King William I. It would have been wiser
if the Prussian historian and the Prussian diplomat
of the time had left the word "restitution" out
of their documents and had let the annexation of
Alsace and Lorraine rest on the simple fact of
desire and of conquest.
Treitschke makes frank admission of the fact
now known to history when he says:
We owe it to the clear-sighted audacity of Count
Bismarck that this war was begun at the right time
-- that the Court of the Tuileries was not allowed
the welcome respite which would have permitted it to
complete the web of its treacherous devices. . . .
The war began as a work of clear and statesmanlike
calculation.
Treitschke was clearsighted enough to under-
stand that this war had not been forced upon
Germany by France, but was the result of the
definite scheme of Bismarck.
Treitschke emphasizes, and with good historic
grounds, the terrible and stupid barbarities com-
mitted by the armies of Louis XIV in certain
towns and provinces of Germany. It would be
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? viii Foreword
difficult to reprobate too severely the futile wicked-
ness of the devastation of the Palatinate. During
the two centuries that have passed since that bar-
barous campaign of Louis XIV, the nations were
believed to have made progress towards more
civilized standards; but to-day the world stands
aghast by the ruthless devastation of Belgium.
The destruction of Heidelberg in 1688 is paralleled
by the ruin of Lou vain in 19 14.
The following admission as to the relations of
Alsace to France and of the indebtedness of the
people to French organization is interesting.
Treitschke says:
But, alas! when we praise the Indestructible German
nature of the man of Alsace, the subject of our praise
declines to receive it. He adheres to his conviction
that he is no Suabian, and that all Suabians are
yellow-footed. He was introduced by France sooner
than we Germans have been into the grand activity of
the modern economical world. To France he owes a
most admirable organization of the means of com-
mercial intercourse, a wide market, the influx of
capital on a great scale, and a high rate of wages,
which, to this day, draws daily labourers in crowds
at harvest-time from the fields of Baden across the
Rhine. From the French he has learned a certain
savoir-faire; his industrial activity, upon the whole,
stands higher than that of his German neighbour.
This paragraph may be compared with the earlier
citation in which he refers to the ' ' semi-barbarity of
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? Foreword ix
the France that has been conquered by Germany. "
He adds:
The war against Germany appeared in the eyes of
the Alsatian peasantry to be a war for the liberty of
their persons and for their bit of soil.
The question of ** liberty of person" was doubt-
less still in the minds of certain Alsatians at the
time of the incident of Zabern.
Treitschke speaks of the accounts given in the
Erckmann and Chatrian novels as presenting a
"clear picture" of conditions in the provinces,
and summarizing, without contradicting, the con-
clusions of the two novelists, he writes of the
Pf alzburgers :
In language and sentiment they are Germans, but
they have lost the last trace of a remembrance of their
ancient connection with the Empire. They are
enthusiastic for the tricolore; they bitterly hate the
Prussian; and the noveHsts themselves write in
French !
Lorraine is, as Treitschke mourns, "more French
in its sympathies than Alsace. It is in German
Lorraine that we are threatened by the most em-
bittered hostility. " "In both provinces, ' ' he says,
"capital and culture . . . are our opponents. "
It will be interesting when the present war
comes to an end, and the question arises, as it
probably must arise, of the readjustment of the
political relations of these provinces, to compare
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? X Foreword
the statements made forty odd years back by the
German historian in regard to the national sym-
pathies and the interests of the people. It is
those sympathies and interests which will find
expression if opportunity be given for a plebis-
cite in which Alsace and Lorraine will decide be-
tween the Republic on the west and the Empire to
the east.
An essay, written a few years later, bears the
title The Claims of Prussia, It is an eloquent and
forcible argument to show that the power of
Germany can be consolidated and the place of
Germany in the world can be safely secured only
by giving to Prussia not merely a primacy and a
leadership, but a substantially absolute control of
the men and resources of the new Empire.
A further essay gives an informing analysis of
the organization of the Empire. In this paper the
historian develops his theory for the overlordship
of Prussia, which, as he contends, can be exercised
under forms that carefully safeguard the legiti-
mate self-respect of the princes and the people.
He points out that ''the German state has been
reconducted into the channels of the old Imperial
law ; -- all that was just and wise in the institutions
of the Holy Empire is revived in the new forms. '*
Treitschke makes the interesting suggestion
that "in the great crisis of national life, war is
always a milder remedy than revolution, for it
safeguards fidelity, and its issues appear as a
judgment of God. "
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? Foreword xi
The constitution of the Empire does not fully
meet his desire for a concentrated control.
He
writes :
The Bundesrath (primarily destined to safeguard
the territorial interests) gives a firm and single-handed
control to the Imperial policy; the Reichstag, on the
other hand, which represents the united nation, has
almost invariably exercised an obstructive and dis-
turbing influence.
The Bundesrath is an Imperial Council made up
of representatives of the States, and corresponds
roughly to the American Senate; while the Reich-
stag, elected by the people (voting under certain
restrictions), may be compared (although the
comparison would in many ways not be precise)
w^th our House of Representatives.
Treitschke takes the ground that
Prussia alone has remained a true state. . . . The
entire Imperial policy reposes upon that tacit assump-
tion that there cannot possibly exist a permanent
conflict between the will of the Empire and the will of
the Prussian State. . . . In all matters of decisive
importance, Prussia has the determining voice.
In his analysis of the Constitution of the new
Federal Empire, Treitschke finds occasion for
references to Switzerland and to the United
States. He points out that
like the States of the American Union and like the
Swiss Cantons, the individual German States have lost
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? xii Foreword
their sovereignty, and from the strictly scientific
standpoint can no longer be regarded as States, for
they lack the two rights upon which the idea of sov-
ereignty has been grounded -- the right to take up
arms and the power to determine the extent of their
own prerogative. . . . The language of the Constitu-
tion as well as the language of common life speaks of
the States of the German Confederation and of the
States of the American Republic, but the name is
nominal.
If the term "States" is at all applicable, they
must be called ''non-sovereign States," but
Treitschke believes there is properly no such thing.
He makes the distinction, therefore, between a
Federal State, in which the sovereignty of the
individual States disappears, and a Confederation
of States, in which the individual sovereignty
has been retained.
A biographical study of Gustavus Adolphus
belongs to the same period. Treitschke admits
the great indebtedness of Protestant Germany
to the "Lion of the North-Land. " "Gustavus
Adolphus," he says, "does not belong to a single
nation, but to the whole of Protestant Christen-
dom. "
In the essay on Turkey and the Great Nations^
which bears date 1876 (the time of the Russo-
Turkish War), Treitschke takes the ground that
"Turkey is not needed in Europe. " He is in-
dignant with the "EngHsh stock speeches against
Muscovite selfishness. " He approves of the
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? Foreword xiii
pressure of the Russian power to the south-east,
and points out that in territories that have been
overcome, "the Russians are not meeting, Hke the
Britons, in the East Indies, a very ancient civiHza-
tion, equal in birth, but naked barbarism. " They
appear as the heralds of a superior civilization,
and yet, notwithstanding the fact, they are not
unapproachably alien to the conquered by descent
and morality.
Treitschke prophesies that
no European State, least of all Germany, can tolerate
a permanent Russian settlement in Stamboul, if
only because of the feverish excitement which v/ould
be bound to flame through all Slav races at such a
movement; and how is it thinkable that they could
maintain themselves on the Bosphorus if a German
army entered Poland, the troops of Austria marched
through the Balkans, and an English fleet lay before
Seraglio Point? [He goes on to say, however, that]
it is impossible to forbid a mighty Empire to sail
with its warships the sea that is before its coast and
it [the closing of the Black Sea] is as immoral as was
formerly the treaty for the closing of the Scheldt. . . .
Even the collapse of Osman rule in Stamboul cannot
fill us with blind fright if we calmly weigh the rela-
tions of the Powers to-day. . . . But there is no reason
that the destruction of the Osman State must needs
level the path for the world-Empire of Russia. . . .
English statesmen wobble between obsolete prejudices
and anxious cares ; self-interest and a feeling of inward
elective affinity make them seem to the Turks their
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? xiv Foreword
only true friends. . . . We seek in vain for a creative
idea in the Tory Government of Great Britain.
He dreads lest trouble in the Balkans *' might
endanger the existence of Austria and that would
be a blow at our own Empire. " He closes with
the words :
In the Eastern Question, Russia needs us more than
we her; and therefore an astute, strong German policy
has nothing to fear from Russian alliance.
Treitschke writes as one speaking with au-
thority. It seems evident from the present de-
velopment of German policy and from the course
of her history that Treitschke 's ideas have had a
larger influence upon German thought and in
shaping the work of German statesmen than had
been fully realized during the lifetime of the
historian. No student of the history of Germany
during the second half of the nineteenth century
and the opening years of the twentieth century
can afford to neglect the writings of this original
and forcible historian.
G. H. P.
New York, January, 191 5.
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? CONTENTS
TURKEY AND THE GREAT NATIONS
GERMANY AND THE ORIENTAL QUEST
ON
WHAT WE DEMAND FROM FRANCE
I. WHAT WE DEMAND
II. ALSACE AND LORRAINE PAST AND
PRESENT
III. THE CLAIMS OF PRUSSIA
THE INCORPORATION OF ALSACE-LORRAINE
AS AN IMPERIAL PROVINCE IN THE
GERMAN EMPIRE . . . . .
IN MEMORY OF THE GREAT WAR .
LUTHER AND THE GERMAN NATION
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS AND GERMANY'S
FREEDOM
OUR EMPIRE
INDEX . . . .
75
96
98
114
158
180
200
227
261
287
329
XV
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? Germany, France, Russia,
and Islam
TURKEY AND THE GREAT NATIONS
BERLIN,
20th June, 1876.
WHEN our posterity shall, sometime or other,
cast their thoughts back to the present age,
perhaps they may enviously inquire how we old
people had deserved to live in this wonderfully
fertile period. The sixteenth century has always
up till now been regarded as the most intellectual
and fruitful epoch of the Christian era; but the
century beginning with the year 1789 is hardly
inferior in creative power, and certainly far more
fortunate in the moulding and completion of
things. All the great ideas, which could be fore-
seen but not realized in Martin Luther's age, the
freedom of faith, of thought, and of economic
production, have become Europe's assured posses-
sion during the latest three generations. It is
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? 2 Turkey and the Great Nations
the present time which is fulfilling Columbus*s
work, and may seriously speak of a world-history.
The dreams of the Huttens and Machiavellis,
the unity of Germany and Italy, are actually
embodied before our eyes. And scarcely has
Luther's Antichrist lost the hegemony of the
world than doom begins to impend over his
Turkish Antichrist. There are almost too many
historical changes for one single generation, and
who can blame us Germans if the disorders on the
Bosphorus appear to us thoroughly unwelcome?
We need assured peace, like bread, in order that
our decayed economical conditions may recover.
We do not lose sight of the way in which these
Eastern affairs may be used as a lever to help us in
our next task in the perfecting of German unity.
And although we think Turkey's riile more than
ripe for destruction, the Rayahs are by no means
yet ripe for independence, and we should wel-
come it as a piece of luck if this most difficult of
all European questions, which innumerable half-
successful wars and rebellions and a deluge of
dispatches and books have only rendered more
obscure and enigmatic, remained unsolved for
yet a few decades.
But fate cares not for our wishes. Whether
we like it or not, we must finally admit that the idea
of nationality, which has already newly moulded
the centre of this hemisphere, has also awakened
vividly in the Graeco-Slav world. It would be
contrary to history if this impelling force of the
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? Turkey and the Great Nations 3
century were reverentially to spare Europe's
most miserable State. The new explosion of
the Eastern crisis luckily finds us in a tolerably
favourable diplomatic position. The alliance of
the three Eastern Powers has already proved itself
a power for peace and moderation. That alliance
alone makes possible what would have been
unthinkable a decade ago: that the rights of the
fortunate Rayahs can be to some degree assured
by agreement between the Great Powers, and
the inevitable fall of Turkey very considerably
hastened, perhaps without a European war. The
alliance of the three Emperors affords us at any
rate the certainty that Germany's word shall weigh
heavily in the scale when matters come to be
decided in the East. The German Empire's
friendship is altogether invaluable to the Peters-
burg Court at the present moment. The path
to the vulnerable points of the Czar's Empire
passes solely through German territory; the
Russian Power, allied with Germany, can be
beaten but not seriously injured, as the Crimean
War indubitably showed. Is it probable that the
strong hands which guide German politics do not
appreciate so advantageous a situation, or that
the clever statesmen on the Neva should wilfully
fling away by foolish schemes of conquest the al-
liance of a tried friend, who has no selfish aims
whatever to pursue in the Orient?
And as our State is entering more resolutely
and powerfully than formerly into the fresh
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? 4 Turkey and the Great Nations
Eastern crisis, public opinion has become quieter
and soberer. The Turkish scimitar has long lost
its terrors; no longer do the Turkish bells ring
which used to warn even our grandfathers of
the unexpiated guilt of Christianity. We smile at
the phil-Hellenic enthusiasm of the twenties, and
no Emperor Joseph to-day will wish "to avenge
insulted humanity on these barbarians. " We
also hear no more of those ardent eulogies of the
freedom and culture of the noble Osmanic nation,
with which the Press of the Western Powers
enriched astonished Europe, and the not less
astonished Turks at the time of the Crimean War.
Since the Salonica massacres, since the Sultan's
wonderful suicide, and the not less wonderful
revenge on the Circassians, even the most good-
natured German bourgeois considers the conditions
in David Urquhart's model State "remarkable
but disgusting," to use the Schleswig-Holstein
phrase.
Even in bygone years there has never been an
entire lack of thoughtful critics of Oriental things
in Germany; Moltke's two standard books, which
are far too little known, together with the writings
of Roepell and Eichmann, are indeed the best and
most profound things that have been written
anywhere about modem Turkey. But the major-
ity of our people are now, for the first time,
in a position to consider these remote affairs
impartially; because during each of the previous
crises in the Turkish Empire our attention was
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? Turkey and the Great Nations 5
taken up by anxieties which touched us more
nearly. The Crimean War was waged not merely
for the Turk's sake, but also in order to abolish the
unnatural domination maintained by the Emperor
Nicholas in Europe. The Czar's arrogance and
domineeringness lay on no country so heavily as
on Germany; he was the mighty support of the
Diet, of reaction, and of provincialism. German
Liberals were at that period driven into the camp
of the Western Powers by the anger of insulted
national pride. Owing to passionate hatred of
the Czar, which, as things stood, was thoroughly
justified, the question could hardly arise whether
the wise doctors in Paris and London had any
practical cure for their "Sick Man. " Bunsen,
obsessed by such feelings, actually devised the
scheme of tearing the whole northern coast of the
Black Sea from Russia, and giving it to Austria.
A statesman even of the insight and sobriety of
Freiherr von Stockmar toyed with the fantastic
notion of the restoration of Poland. All the old
Polish-French fairy tales about Russia found
ready belief among the public; Peter the Great's
notorious will, one of the most barefaced forgeries
ever attempted, circulated again through Europe ;
and again, just as at the time of the July Revolu-
tion, Liberal Society poured forth laudation of
the enlightened Western Powers. How different
is our attitude to-day! Nobody is any longer
deceived about France's European policy, and a
profound change has also occurred in current
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? 6 Turkey and the Great Nations
criticisms of England, which redounds to the
honour of the developing capacity of German
Liberalism.
What German Liberal has not in his young days
dreamt the glorious dream of the natural alliance
of free England with free Germany? We needed
a long series of painful experiences before we at
last learnt that the foreign politics of States
are not determined solely, or even mainly, by the
inner relations of their constitutions. However
highly you may think of British liberty, modern
England is undoubtedly a reactionary force in the
society of nations. Her position as a Power is an
obvious anachronism. It was created in those good
old times when wars were still decided by sea-fights
and hired mercenaries, and it was thought politic
in all dominating countries to seize piratical hold
of well-situated sea-fortresses and fleet-stations,
without any regard to nature and history. In a
century of national States and big national armies
such a cosmopolitan commercial Power can no
longer continue to endure ; the time will and must
come when Gibraltar will belong to the Spaniards,
Malta to the Italians, Heligoland to the Germans,
and the Mediterranean to the peoples of the
Mediterranean countries.
It is saying too much to compare modern
England with eighteenth century Holland; the
nation still exhibits powerful energy in the splendid
achievement of its social life, and it might easily
happen again that, should she believe herself
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-08-05 01:02 GMT / http://hdl. handle.