No More Learning

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? 200 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
sluggish peace. She left it to the Dutch to break the
naval power of the Spaniards, and afterwards to the
English to subdue the Dutch conquerors. Everyone
knows how terribly the sins of those years of peace were
punished by the dire ruin of our ancient civilisation.
During the two centuries of struggle which followed,
when we had painfully to recover the rule in our own
country, every attempt at German colonisation was
naturally impossible. The ingenious African schemes
of the Great Elector were far in advance of their time;
they were doomed to failure: a feudal agricultural
country, without a sea-board, could not possibly main-
tain control over a remote colonial possession for any
length of time.
But even during this long period of inland quietude
our nation has shown that she is, according to her capacity
and position in the world, the most cosmopolitan of all
peoples; she lost neither the old impulse to seek the
distant, nor the power to assert herself valiantly among
foreign nations. On all the battle-fields of the world
German blood flowed in streams; most of the crowns of
Europe fell into the hands of German royal houses;
and it was really through the power of Germany that
Russia was enrolled among the nations of Europe. It
is true that this vast expenditure of overflowing national
forces only ratified anew the lament of Goethe that the
Germans were respectable as individuals, but despicable
as a whole. Again and again the voice of Fate called
to us "sic vos non vobis. " And when in recent times
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? GERMAN COLONISATION 201
the peoples of the Anglo-Saxon stock began to divide
the transatlantic world between them, the Germans
were again their unwearied associates. German traders
rivalled the leading firms of the world from Singapore
to Philadelphia. Millions of Germans helped the North
Americans to conquer their part of the world for
civilisation.
But the Germans at home had, so long as the Federal
Diet ruled over them, too heavy domestic cares to think
seriously about the lot of their emigrants. They made
a virtue of necessity, and in their philosophic way evolved
the doctrine that it was the historic destiny of the German
spirit to blend far out there in the West with the genius
of other nations. It is true that the Americans found a
less obscure description for this mysterious " blending,"
though they now vainly seek to disavow it; they said,
"The Germans form an excellent fertiliser for our
people! " When, just twenty years ago--though I had
then no anticipation of the near fulfilment of German
destinies, I ventured, in my treatise "Federal State
and Unified State," to make the heretical remark that
only those States which possessed naval power and
ruled territories across the sea could rank in future as
Great Powers, I was severely taken to task by various
critics. With the immeasurable superiority which, as
is well-known, the judge possesses over the culprit, they
told me that these were old-fashioned ideas, and that
since the times of the American War of Independence
and the founding of the Spanish colonies the period of
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? 202 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
colonisation has come to an end. Such was the general
opinion in Germany in the days of the Federal Diet.
Meanwhile, England, not troubling herself about the
wisdom of our philosophical historians, continued to
extend her colonial empire over half the world.
Since then how strangely public sentiment has changed!
We now look out into the world with other claims than
formerly. Especially is this the case with those Germans
who live abroad, who have a far livelier appreciation of
the blessings of the new empire than we at home. The
uneasy ferment of the last five years, although accom-
panied by the disintegration of ancient parties and an
abundance of wild animosity and ungrateful fault-
finding, has also given rise to some wholesome self-
criticism; we have had our attention drawn to our
weaknesses, and begin to perceive in how many respects
we come short of worthily occupying the position of a
great nation. During these last years, without any
pressure from authority, there has risen from the people
themselves a spontaneous demand for German colonies
with as much emphasis and confidence in the future
as formerly accompanied the demand for a German
Fleet. Since F. Fabri first discussed the subject, a
whole literature on the colonial question has come into
existence. In the course of these discussions the Germans
discovered with joyful surprise that, outside official
circles, we possessed a considerable number of practical
political writers, which can console us for the increasing
dreariness and impoverishment of our parliamentary
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? GERMAN COLONISATION 203
life. By the persistent endeavours of our brave travellers,
missionaries, and merchants, the first attempt at German
colonisation has had the way prepared for it, and has
been rendered possible. Germany's modest gains on the
African coast only aroused attention in the world at
large because everyone knew that they were not due,
as in the case of the colonising experiments of the Elec-
torate of Brandenburg to the bold idea of a great mind,
but because a whole nation greeted them with a joyful
cry, " At last! At last! "
For a nation that suffers from continual over-produc-
tion, and sends yearly 200,000 of her children abroad, the
question of colonisation is vital. During the first years
which followed the restoration of the German Empire
well-meaning people began to hope that the constant
draining away of German forces into foreign countries
would gradually cease, together with the political persecu-
tions, the discontent, and the petty domestic coercive
laws of the good old times. This hope was disappointed,
and was doomed to be so, for those political grievances
were not the only nor even the most important causes
of German emigration. In the short time since the
establishment of the empire the population has increased
by a full eighth, and this rapid growth, in spite of all the
misery which it involves, is nevertheless the characteristic
of a healthy national life, which, in its careless conscious-
ness of power, does not trouble itself with the warnings
of the "two-child system. " It is true that Germany
is as yet by no means over-populated, least of all in those
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? 204 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
north-eastern districts from which the stream of emigra-
tion flows most strongly. Many of our emigrants, if
they exercised here the same untiring diligence which
inexorable necessity enforces on them in America, could
also prosper in their old fatherland. But there are
periods of domiciliation, and again periods in which
the impulse to wander works like a dark, elementary
power on the national spirit. Just as the song, "East-
wards! Eastwards! " once rang seductively through the
villages of Flanders, so countless numbers dream now
of the land of marvels across the sea. And just as little
as prudential counsel could restrain the crusaders from
their sacred enterprise, so little can considerations of
reason prevail against the vague longing for the West.
It is also easy to calculate that our population, provided
its growth continues as before, must in no distant future
rise to a hundred millions and more; then their father-
land would be too narrow for the Germans, even if
Prussia resumed the colonisation of its eastern border-
lands in the old Frederician style, and found room in
the estates there for thousands of peasants and long-
lease tenants. According to all appearance German
emigration will still for a long while remain an unavoid-
able necessity, and it becomes a new duty for the mother-
land to take care that her wandering children remain
true to their nationality, and open new channels for her
commerce. This is in the first place more important
than our political control of the lands we colonise. A
State whose frontiers march with those of three great
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? GERMAN COLONISATION 205
Powers, and whose seaboard lies open towards a fourth,
will generally only be able to carry on great national
wars and must keep its chief military forces carefully
collected in Europe. The protection of a remote, easily
threatened colonial empire would involve it in em-
barrassments and not strengthen it.
And just now, after our good nature has striven all
too long not to be forced into the humiliating confession,
we are at last obliged to admit that the German emi-
grants in North America are completely lost to our State
and our nationality. Set in the midst of a certainly
less intellectual but commercially more energetic people,
the nationality of the German minority must inevitably
be suppressed by that of the majority, just as formerly
the French refugees were absorbed in Germany. And
as the expulsion of the Huguenots was for France a huge
misfortune, the effects of which are still operative, so
the German emigration to North America is an absolute
loss for our nation--a present given to a foreign country
without any equivalent compensation.
Moreover, for the general cause of civilisation, the
anglicizing of the German-Americans is a heavy loss.
Even the Frenchman Leroy-Beaulieu confesses this with
praiseworthy impartiality; among Germans there can
be no question at all but that human civilisation suffers
loss every time a German is turned into a Yankee.
All the touching proofs of faithful recollection which the
motherland has received from the German-Americans
since the year 1870 does not alter the fact that all German
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? 206 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
emigrants, at latest in the third generation, become
Americans. Although in certain districts of Pennsyl-
vania a corrupt German dialect may survive side by
side with English, although some cultured families may
now, when German national consciousness is everywhere
stronger, perhaps be able to postpone being completely
anglicized till the fourth generation, yet the political
views of the emigrants are inevitably coloured by the
ideas prevalent in their new home; in commerce they
even become our enemies, and, voluntarily or involun-
tarily, help to injure German agriculture by a depressing
rivalry. The overpowering force of their new circum-
stances compels them to divest themselves of their
nationality, until perhaps at last nothing is left them
but a platonic regard for German literature.
Therefore it is quite justifiable on the ground of national
self-preservation that the new German Colonial Union
should seek for ways and means to divert the stream of
German emigrants into lands where they run no danger of
losing their nationality. Such a territory has been
already found in the south of Brazil. There, unassisted,
and sometimes even suspected, by the motherland
German nationality remains quite intact for three genera-
tions, and our rapidly increasing export trade with Porto
Alegre shows that the commerce of the old home profits
greatly by the loyalty of her emigrant children. Other
such territories will also be discovered if our nation enters
with prudence and boldness on the new era now opening
to the colonising energy of Europeans.
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? GERMAN COLONISATION 207
With the crossing of Africa begins the last epoch of
great discoveries. When once the centre of the Dark
Continent lies open, the whole globe, with the exception
of a few regions which will be always inaccessible to civili-
sation is also opened before European eyes. The common
interest of all nations--with the exception of England
--demands that these new acquisitions of modern times
should be dealt with in a more liberal, just, and humane
way than the former ones, which only profited the nations
of the Iberian Peninsula in order finally to ruin them.
The summoning of the Congo Conference and our under-
standing with France show that our Government knows
how to estimate properly the importance of this crisis.
As a sea-power of the second rank, Germany is in colonial
politics the natural representative of a humane law of
nations, and since England, now fully occupied with
Egyptian affairs, will hardly oppose the united will of all
the other Powers, there is ground for hope that the con-
ference will have a happy issue and open the interior of
Africa to the free rivalry of all nations. Then it will be
our turn to show what we can do; in those remote regions
the power of the State can only follow the free action of
the nation and not precede it. In this new world it must
be seen whether the trivial pedantry of an unfortunate
past, after just now celebrating its orgies in the struggle of
the Hansa towns against the national Customs Union, has
at last been overcome for ever, and whether the German
trader has enough self-confidence to venture on rivalry
with the predominant financial strength of England.
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? 208 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
The future will show whether the founding of German
agricultural colonies is possible in the interior of Africa;
there will certainly be an opportunity for founding mer-
cantile colonies which will yield a rich return. After
destiny has treated us badly for so many centuries we
may well count for once on the favour of fortune. In
South Africa also circumstances are decidedly favourable
for us. English colonial policy, which has been successful
everywhere else, has not been fortunate at the Cape. The
civilisation which flourishes there is Teutonic and Dutch.
The attitude of England, wavering between weakness and
violence, has evoked among the brave Dutch Boers a
deadly ineradicable hatred. Moreover, since the Dutch
have in the Indo-Chinese islands abundant scope for their
colonising energy, it would only be a natural turn of
events if their German kindred should hereafter, in some
form or other, undertake the protectorate of the Teutonic
population of South Africa, and succeed as heirs of the
English in a neglected colony which since the opening of
the Suez Canal has little more value for England.
If our nation dares decidedly to follow the new path of
an independent colonial policy it will inevitably become
involved in a conflict of interests with England. It lies
in the nature of things that the new Great Power of Central
Europe must come to an understanding with all the other
Great Powers. We have already made our reckoning with
Austria, with France, and with Russia; our last reckoning,
that with England, will probably be the most tedious and
the most difficult; for here we are confronted by a
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? GERMAN COLONISATION 209
line of policy which for centuries, almost unhindered
by the other Powers, aims directly at maritime supremacy.
How long has Germany in all seriousness believed this
insular race, which among all the nations of Europe
is undoubtedly imbued with the most marked national
selfishness, whose greatness consists precisely in its hard,
inaccessible one-sidedness, to be the magnanimous pro-
tector of the freedom of all nations! Now at last our
eyes begin to be opened, and we recognise, what clear-
headed political thinkers have never doubted, that
England's State-policy since the days of William III
has never been anything else than a remarkably shrewd
and remarkably conscienceless commercial policy. The
extraordinary successes of this State-policy have been
purchased at a high price, consisting in the first place of a
number of sins and enormities. The history of the English
East India Company is the most defiled page in the annals
of modern European nations, for as the shocking vam-
pirism of this merchant-rule sprang solely from greed,
it cannot be excused, as perhaps the acts of Philip II or
Robespierre may be, by the fanaticism of a political
conviction.
A still more serious factor in the situation is, that owing
to her transatlantic successes England has lost her position
as a European Great Power; in negotiations on the
Continent her voice counts no longer, and all the great
changes which have recently occurred in Central Europe
took place without England's participation, though for
the most part accompanied by impotent cries of rage
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? 210 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
from the London Press. The worst consequence, however,
of British commercial policy is the immense and well-
justified hatred which all nations have gradually been
conceiving towards England. From the point of view
of international law England is to-day the place where
barbarism reigns; it is England's fault alone that naval
war is to-day only an organized piracy, and a humane
maritime international law cannot be established in the
world till a balance of power exists at sea as it long has
on land, and no State can dare any longer to permit itself
everything. English politicians were never at a loss for
philanthropic phrases with which to cloak their commer-
cial calculations; at one time they alleged the necessity
of maintaining the balance of power in Europe, at another
the abolition of slavery, at another constitutional freedom;
and yet their national policy, like every policy which
aims at the unreasonable goal of world supremacy, always
reckoned, as its foundation principle, on the misfortunes
of all other nations.
England's commercial supremacy had its origin in
the discords on the Continent, and owing to her brilliant
successes, which were often gained without a struggle,
there has grown up in the English people a spirit of
arrogance for which "Chauvinism" is too mild an
expression. Sir Charles Dilke, the well-known Radical
member of Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet, in his book, "Greater
Britain," which is often mentioned, but, alas 1 too little
read here, claims, as necessary acquisitions for " Greater
Britain," China, Japan, Chili, Peru, the La Plata States,
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? GERMAN COLONISATION 211
the tablelands of Africa--in short, the whole world.
In spite of the outrageous ill-usage of Ireland, and the
bestial coarseness of the London mob, he calls Great
Britain the land which from the earliest time exhibits
the greatest amount of culture and insight, together
with the least intermixture of ignorance and crime. He
looks confidently forward to the time when Russia and
France will only be pygmies by the side of England. In
only three passages does he deign to make a cursory
mention of the Germans. One of them is when he asks
indignantly whether we really wish to be so selfish as to
decline to support with German money the Euphrates
Railway, which is indispensable to Greater Britain?
Thus, then, the manifold glories of the world's history,
which commenced with the empire of the monosyllabic
Chinese, are to conclude their melancholy cycle with
the empire of the monosyllabic British!
In opposition to such claims--and the impetuous
politician only gives incautious utterance to what all
England thinks--all the nations of Europe are united
together by a common interest. Since the growing
industries of the Continent have outgrown the possibility
of being exploited by England, and the mutual under-
standing of the three Emperors has ensured peace on
the Continent, and even France has begun to accustom
herself to the new and more sustainable balance of
power, the foundations of English maritime supremacy
have begun to be shaken. It is neither necessary nor
probable that the further development of these tendencies
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? 212 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
should lead to a European war; Holland, for example,
lost her commercial supremacy not through war, but
through the tender embraces of her English ally. The
Power which is strongest on land cannot cherish the wish
to attain maritime supremacy also. German policy is
national and cosmopolitan at the same time; it counts,
otherwise than British policy does, on the peaceful
prosperity of her neighbours. We can rejoice without
reserve at each advance of the Russians in Central Asia
and each French success in Tongking. Our ambition only
reaches thus far, that in the still uncolonised quarters of
the earth, wind and sun should be fairly divided between
the civilised nations. If the Congo Conference succeeds
in checking the high-handed arbitrariness of England in
Central Africa, the first united repulse of English en-
croachments will not be the last, since, outside Europe,
there is no need for the interests of the continental Powers
to collide. The great German seaport towns, at present
imbued with a half-mutinous spirit toward the Govern-
ment, have the prospect of a new period of revival; it is
from the Hansa towns that the bold pioneers of our
nation in Africa come.
What Schiller at the com-
mencement of the nineteenth century wrote about the
greedy polyp-like arms of England is not out of date
to-day ; but we hope that when the twentieth century
dawns the transatlantic world will have already learnt
that the Germans to-day no longer, as in Schiller's day,
escape from the stress of life into the still and holy places
of the heart.
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? TWO EMPERORS.
15/A June, 1888.
For the second time within a hundred days the nation
stands at the bier of its Emperor. After the most for-
tunate of all her rulers, she laments the most unfortunate.
It seems as if in the course of the history of our Emperors,
not only imperial splendour was to have a new birth but
the tremendous tragic vicissitudes of fate were also to
be renewed. It was in very truth under the guidance
of God, as he so often said in simple humility, that the
Emperor Wilhelm I reached the pinnacle of universal
fame, against all human calculation and reckoning, and
far beyond his own hope. In his steady ascent, however,
he proved fully competent to each new and greater task,
till, arrived at the last limit of life, he ended his days in a
halo of glory. In death also he was the effective uniter
of the Germans, who, to the accompaniment of the cannon-
thunder of his battles, had, for the first time after centuries,
known the happiness of joy at complete victories, and now
gathered round his funeral vault in the unanimity of
hallowed grief. During the years when the character
of a growing man usually takes its decisive bent, Prince
Wilhelm could only cherish the ambition some day, as
213
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? 214 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
his father's or brother's commander-in-chief, to lead the
Armies of Prussia to new victories. Himself almost the
youngest among the champions of the War of Liberation,
he shared with Gneisenau, with Clausewitz, and all the
political thinkers of the Prussian Army the conviction that
Germany's new western frontier was as untenable as its
loose confederation of States, and that only a third Punic
War could finally decide the old struggle for power between
Gauls and Germans, and secure the independence of the
German State. All through the quiet period of peace he
held fast by this hope. As early as the year 1840 he copied
out in his own hand-writing Becker's song, "Our Rhine,
free German river, they ne'er shall take away," and
finished the last words," Till the last brave German warrior
beneath its stream is laid," with that bold flourish of
the pen which afterwards in the Emperor's signature
became familiar to the whole world. Hatred to the French
was entirely absent from his generous disposition, but
more sagacious than all the Prussian statesmen, with the
possible exception of Motz, he early grasped the European
situation as it regarded Prussia, and recognised that the
latter must grow in order to escape the intolerable pres-
sure of so many superior military powers. Thoroughly
imbued with such thoughts, and being every inch a soldier,
he became in a few years the favourite and the ideal of
the Army, beloved for his friendly courtesy, and feared
for an official severity, which showed even the lowest
camp-follower that a careful and judicial eye was watch-
ing him. He looked upon his people in arms and their
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? TWO EMPERORS 215
awakened intelligence with the undiminished enthusiasm
of the War of Liberation, but also with the more sober
resolve to develop singly the ideas of Scharnhorst and
adapt them to the changed times, so that this Army
might always remain the foremost. Outside, in the
smaller States, what was here undertaken in deep political
seriousness was regarded as idle parade display. The
leaders of public opinion indulged in radical dreams,
expressed enthusiastic admiration for Poles and French-
men, and hoped for perpetual peace. In the conceit of
their superfine culture they could not comprehend what
the Prince's simple martial thoroughness and devotion
to duty signified for the future of the Fatherland.
It was not till the reign of his brother, when the " Prince
of Prussia " had already to reckon with the possibility of
his own accession, that he engaged in affairs of State.
Like his father, he wished to preserve the foundations of
the ancient monarchical constitution unaltered. "Prussia
shall not cease to be Prussia. " Word for word he fore-
told to his brother * what he was hereafter destined to
experience when the controversy regarding the reorgan-
ization of the Army arose. The Diet, he said, would mis-
use its right to control taxes in order to weaken the power
of the Army by shortening the period of military service,
and could, under the plea of ecomony, easily deceive even
the loyal. His warning was disregarded, and, just as
he had once for the sake of the State sacrificed his youth-
ful love, so now he ceased to protest, as soon as the King
? Frederick William IV.
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? 216 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
had made his decision on the subject. He chivalrously
stepped into the breach in the United Diet, in order to
divert towards himself all the grudges which had collected
against the throne during that time of ferment.
Then came the storms of the Revolution period. A
mad hatred and huge misunderstanding were discharged
upon his head; only the Army which knew him under-
stood him. Round the bivouac fires of the Prussian
Guard in Schleswig-Holstein they sang:
"Prince of Prussia, bold and true.
Come back to thy troops anew.
Much beloved General! "
And when he returned from the exile which he had under-
gone for his brother's sake he accepted in obedience to
the King the new constitutional regime. He gladly
acknowledged what was right and vital in the measures
of the Frankfort Parliament; but he would not sacrifice
the privileges of the German Princes and the strict
monarchical constitution of the Army to doctrinaire
attempts at innovation. The movement, which had no
leaders, ended in a terrible disappointment. The Prince
found himself compelled to put down the disturbance
in Baden. During the long years of exhaustion which
followed he had plenty of time to reflect on the causes
of the failure, and to ponder his brother's remark that
an Imperial crown could only be won on the battle-
field.
Then the illness of King Frederick Wilhelm IV set
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? TWO EMPERORS 217
him at the head of the State. After a year of patient
waiting he assumed the regency in virtue of his own
right, firmly tearing asunder the finely-spun webs of
conspiracy, and two years afterwards he succeeded to
the throne. But once more, after some short days of
jubilation and vague expectancy, he had again to ex-
perience the fickleness of popular favour, and commence
the struggle which he had foreseen when heir to the
throne--the struggle which concerned his own peculiar
task--the re-constitution of the Army. Party hatred
increased to an incredible degree, such as was only
possible in the nation which had waged the Thirty Years'
War. Matters came to such a pitch that the German
comic papers caricatured the honest, manly soldier's
face, which still reflected the smile of Queen Louisa,
under the likeness of a tiger. The struggle about the
constitution of the Army became so hopelessly com-
plicated that only the decisive force of military successes
could cut the tangled knot and establish the King's
right.
And these successes came in those seven great years,
when all at once the results of two hundred years of
Prussian history were summed up, when, one after the
other, all the problems at which the Hohenzollern states-
men had laboured through so many generations were
solved. The last of the North German marches was
wrested from Scandinavian rule, and thereby the work
of the Great Elector was completed; the battle of
Koniggratz realised the hope which had been shattered
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? 218 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
on the field of Kollin--the hope of the liberation of Ger-
many from the dominion of Austria; finally, a succession
of incomparable victories, and the coronation of the
Emperor in the hall of the Bourbons at Versailles, sur-
passed all that the combatants of 1813 had expected
from the third Punic War, to which they looked forward.
The Prussians thankfully recognised that their Constitu-
tion was more secure than ever under this strong rule;
for immediately after the Bohemian War the King, who
had been so completely successful in the affair, volun-
tarily made legal reparation for the infringement of
constitutional forms, and when the strife was over not
a word of bitterness to recall it came from his lips.
But the German Confederates had, through the victories
of this war--the first they had really waged in common--
at last attained to a healthy national pride, and in their
joy at the new Empire had forgotten the rivalries of many
centuries.
In all these strange courses of events, which might
have turned even a sober brain, King William appeared
always and equally firm and sure, kindly and modest.
During the constitutional struggle he made, according
to his own confession, the severest sacrifice which could
have been demanded from his heart, which always craved
for affection, in bearing the estrangement from his
beloved people. In the same spirit of self-conquest he
formed the difficult resolve to go to war with Austria,
with whom he had been so long on friendly terms. Yet
after his victory he demanded without any hesitation
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? TWO EMPERORS 219
the acquisitions which he would never have taken from
the hands of the revolutionaries as the price of a righteous
war. During the sittings of the first North German
Reichstag, he said, smilingly, with his sublime naive
frankness, to the deputies for Leipzig, "Yes, I would
gladly have kept Leipzig. "
In these difficult years he only wavered when, with
his soldierly directness, he could not bring himself
at once to believe in the Jesuitry of cunning opponents
It was thus at Baden, in 1863, when the German Diet
invited him in so apparently friendly and frank a way
to the Frankfort Conference, and again in Ems during
the negotiations with Benedetti. But to regard the
great crisis of history in too petty and minute a way is
to falsify it; it is enough for posterity to know that
after a short hesitation, which did honour to his character,
King William made the right resolve in both cases.
After his return home the new Emperor said : "This
result had been for a long time in our thoughts as a
possibility. Now it has been brought to the light.
Let us take care that it remains day. " It is true that
he himself believed that in a " short span of time," as
he said, he would only be able to witness the first begin-
nings of the new order in Germany. But the event
proved otherwise and better. He was not only destined
to complete the fundamental laws of the kingdom, but
by the force of his personality to give inward support
to its growth. At first many of the Confederate Princes
only saw in the Constitution of the Empire a fetter, but
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? 220 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
they soon all recognised in it a security for their own
rights, because the indisputable leader of the high German
nobility wore the imperial crown and his fidelity assured
absolute security to each. So it came to pass, really
through the merit of the Emperor, and contrary to the
frankly uttered expectation of the Chancellor, that the
Federal Council, which at one time was universally
suspected as the representative of particularism, became
the reliable support of national unity, while the Reichstag
soon again fell a prey to the incalculable caprices of
party-spirit.
The Emperor William never possessed a confidant
who advised him in everything. With a sure knowledge
of men he found out capable ministers for his Council,
and with the magnanimity of a great man he allowed
those, whom he had tested, a very free hand; but each,
even the Chancellor, only within his own department.
He always remained the Emperor, and held all the
threads of government together in his own hand.
He first tasted the greatest happiness of life when,
after escaping by a miracle an attempt at assassination,
he answered the enemies of society with that magnani-
mous imperial manifesto, in which he undertook to
eradicate the social evils of the time. Then it was that
the nation first understood completely what they pos-
sessed in their Emperor; and a stream of affectionate
loyalty, such as only springs from the depths of the
German spirit, carried and supported him through his
last years. Europe became accustomed to revere in the
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? TWO EMPERORS 221
grey-headed victor of so many battles the preserver of
the world's peace; and it was for the sake of peace that
he overcame his old preference for Russia, and concluded
the Central-European Alliance. In domestic matters
the strong monarchical character of his rule grew more
defined as the years went on; the individual will of the
Emperor maintained his right in the Parliaments, and
was now supported by the cordial concurrence of a now
thoroughly informed public opinion. The Germans knew
that their Emperor always did what was necessary, and
in his simple, artless, distinct way, always "said what
was to be said," as Goethe expressed it. Even in provinces
which lay remote from the lines on which his own mental
development had proceeded, he soon found himself at
home with his inborn gift of kingly penetration; however
much the nation owed him in the sphere of artistic
production, he never distinguished with his favour
anyone who was unworthy among the artists and the
literati. Some features in his character recall his an-
cestors, the Great Elector and the Great King Frederick
William I, and Frederick William III; that which was
peculiar to him was the quiet and happy harmony of
his character. In his simple greatness there was nothing
dazzling or mysterious, except the almost superhuman
vitality of his body and soul. All could understand him,
except those who were blinded by the pride of half-
culture; the immense strength of his character and his
unswerving devotion to duty served as an example to
all, the simple and the intellectual alike. Thus he
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? 222 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
became the most beloved of all the Hohenzollern rulers.
With splendid unanimity the Reichstag voted him the
amount necessary for strengthening the Army, and up
to the last his honest eyes looked out hopefully from
the venerable storm-beaten countenance on all the vital
elements of the new time. Only shortly before his
death he spoke with confidence of the patriotic spirit
of the younger generation in Germany. When he
departed there was a universal feeling as though Ger-
many could not live without him, although for years we
had been obliged to expect the end.
What a contrast between the continually ascending
course of life of the great father and the gloomy destiny
of the noble son! Born as heir to the throne, and joy-
fully hailed at his birth on the propitious anniversary
of the battle of Leipzig by all Prussian hearts, carefully
educated for his princely position by excellent teachers.
Prince Frederick William, as soon as he attained to
manhood, appeared to excel all in manly strength and
beauty. When he married the English Princess Royal
all the circles of Liberalism expected from his rule a time
of prosperity for the nations, for England was still
reckoned to be the model land of freedom, and the halo
of political legend still encircled the heads of Leopold
of Belgium and of the House of Coburg, who were delighted
at the marriage. It was soon evident that the Crown
Prince could neither reconcile himself to those infringe-
ments of formal rights which were caused by the struggle
about the Constitution, nor to the plan for incorporating
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? TWO EMPERORS 223
Schleswig-Holstein with Prussia. But he never con-
sented, like most English heirs to the throne, to place
himself at the head of the Opposition; and he rejected
as un-Prussian the thought that there could ever be a
party of the Crown Prince. In the Danish War he
accomplished his first great service for the State; his
powerful co-operation helped the still unexperienced
and often hesitating commanders to decide on a bolder
procedure.
Then came the brilliant days of his fame as Com-
mander-in-Chief, which have secured for him for ever
his place in German history. He helped towards winning
the victory of Koniggratz by the bold attacking skir-
mishes of his Silesian Army and made it decisive by his
attack on Chulm. He delivered the first crushing blows
in the war against France; his fair Germanic giant
figure was the first announcement to the Alsatians that
their old Fatherland was demanding them back; through
his martial deeds and the heart-moving power of his
cheerful popular kindness the Bavarian and Suabian
warriors were for the first time quite won over to the
cause of German unity. Never in the German Army
will the day be forgotten when, after fresh and glorious
victories, "Our Fritz" distributed the iron crosses to
his Prussians and Bavarians before the statue of Louis
XIV, in the courtyard of the Palace of Versailles.
After peace was concluded the position of the famous
Commander-in-Chief was not an easy one. As a Field-
Marshal he was already too high in military rank and had
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? 224 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
too little interest in the daily duties of a time of peace
for it to be easy to find him a suitable command. Only
the most important of the German military inspections,
the oversight of the South German troops, was assigned to
him, and every year he performed this duty for some weeks
with so much insight, firmness, and friendliness that
he won almost more affection in the South than in his
Northern home. The South Germans saw him fully occu-
pied and exerting all his energies; at home he only seldom
appeared in public life. He was the victim of his father's
extraordinary greatness, and it was that which con-
stituted his tragic destiny. He passed in a life of retire-
ment long years of manly vigour, which according to all
human computation he would have had to pass upon the
throne. This long period indeed brought him a fulness
of paternal happiness and gave him frequent opportunities
for displaying his fine natural eloquence and for pursuing
benevolent projects that were fraught with blessing for
the common weal; but it did not provide adequate scope
for his virile energy. Already, when a young Prince, the
Emperor William cherished strict and well-weighed prin-
ciples regarding the unavoidable limits which the heir to
the throne must impose upon himself; he knew that the
first subject in the kingdom must not join in discussion,
if he is not to be tempted to join in rule. Like all the
great monarchs of history, and all the Hohenzollerns with
the solitary exception of King Frederick William III,
he allowed the heir to the throne no participation in
affairs of State.
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