If the calamity of the
destruction
of Austria
were to occur, and it would also be a calamity to Germany,
then our Empire must be ready and prepared to brave
the forces of Fate to save Germanism on the Danube
from the d6bris, "To be prepared is everything," saith
the Poet.
were to occur, and it would also be a calamity to Germany,
then our Empire must be ready and prepared to brave
the forces of Fate to save Germanism on the Danube
from the d6bris, "To be prepared is everything," saith
the Poet.
Treitschke - 1914 - Life and Works
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? 256 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
as the improvement of weapons. The introduction of
compulsory military service, which can serve a useful pur-
pose only in a National State, was in Austria a thought-
less precipitation; for the moment it has disorganized
discipline, and it is questionable whether the future will
show better results. German students, Polish noblemen,
fanatical Czechs join the ranks of the volunteers and
are promoted to officer's rank in the militia; but this
new corps of officers does not invariably, as of yore, seek
its home under the black and yellow standard. The
militiaman acquires at home all the prejudices of race-
hatred; the Hungarian "honveds" are certainly brave
soldiers, but equally surely cannot be led against an
enemy. The young noblemen who formerly gladly
gathered round the imperial standard now stay away,
and race-hatred impairs comradeship. The officers of the
German Army at times glance critically at the history
of Austria's military forces, who, with rare exceptions,
have for 130 years always fought bravely and--unsuccess-
fully; and they compare the days of Metz and Sedan
with the hopeless campaign against the Bochese. The
old remedy of hard-pressed Hapsburgs--a state of siege
--promises but scant success for an Army thus con-
stituted.
In addition thereto are public fuctionaries of generally
very inferior education, whose corruption does not admit
of doubt, servile and yet always argumentative; we refer
to the Czech bureaucracy, indescribably hated and
despised by Germans and Hungarians alike. In the
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? AUSTRIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 257
Church there is a strictly Roman party with very well-
meaning but also very vague Old Catholic aspirations,
and there exists widely diffused a shallow frivolity
which derides as Prussian hypocrisy all agitations for
moral seriousness. In the same way the quondam much-
talked-of inexhaustible resources of the Danube Empire
prove to-day a pleasant fairy tale. An Exchequer
which has twice within ninety years covered yearly ex-
penditure by regular receipts, and has now again just
weathered veiled bankruptcy--such incredible financial
mismanagement has not only destroyed the private
fortunes of thousands, it has also largely stimulated the
habit of gambling and of prodigality. In nearly all the
Crown lands of Cisleithania agriculture lacks a body of
educated middle-class farmers; it is the link between
farms and the vast estates of noblemen which is missing.
The development of industry is similarly handicapped.
Whilst in most provinces trade and commerce is in its
infancy, Vienna is agitated by feverishly excited specu-
lation. For ever so long the Vienna Stock Exchange has
drawn the "smart set " into its circle. Pools and syndi-
cates carry on the organized swindle, and the small man
is also dragged into the turmoil by innumerable com-
mission houses. The magnificent capital is of course a
grand centre for every kind of intercourse, but its corrup-
tion reacts detrimentally upon the commonwealth. The
bulk of the citizens is still healthy and capable, but
amongst the always immoral masses of the metropolis
an impudent socialism is to-day at work, which derides
R
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? 258 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
the spirit of the Fatherland as reactionary, and amongst
all the races of Austria most vehemently attacks the
Germans as "bourgeois. " Of the moral conditions of
the upper classes, and particularly of Stock Exchange
circles, the Vienna newspapers, which are closely allied
with the latter, give ample testimony. Vienna journalism,
although highly developed, is, on the whole, the most
immoral press of Europe--Paris by no means excluded.
The German party in Vienna is about to initiate the
Deutsche Zeitung, because an honest party cannot rely
upon the existing big German newspapers. All these
powerful journals are nothing else, and do not pretend
to be anything else, than industrial undertakings, and a
smile of compassion would greet those who were to speak
to those literary speculators about political tendencies. By
the side of the big organs of the Stock Exchange jobbers
there is a huge crowd of dirty halfpenny rags, which
live on extortion and journalistic piracy, for in this
frivolous town there are many with a bad conscience,
and liberal payments are made to stop the slanderous
tongue of the blackmailer. Since the first happy days of
Emperor Francis Joseph, when courts-martial condemned
to death, New Austria has attempted nearly every
imaginable political system; such a sudden change is
bound to unsettle the sense of justice and the people's
opinions respecting their country. The views of the
German-Austrian pessimists are very unpalatable to
Germans in the Empire, as they cross our political
calculations. But let us also be just, and let us try to
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? AUSTRIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 259
place ourselves in the position of a warmhearted, scien-
fically educated young German-Austrian. Why in the
world should this man love his country in its entirety?
Ancient faith, force of habit, fear of the uncertain future
and of radical changes, all these considerations retain
him within Austrian boundaries; but to rejoice his
heart he casts his eyes northwards, where he beholds
his countrymen in a respected, mighty Empire, in a well-
secured national commonwealth, with orderly economic
conditions, and he perceives them in every respect
happier than he is himself. He hates the "rugged
caryatid-heads of the servile classes," as Hebbel, amid
great cheers, once said of the German-Austrians, and
above all he hates the Czechs. To keep this slavedom
in subordination and to shield the best he calls his own,
i. e. , German thought and German sentiment, from the
aggressive waves of barbarism he looks to the Empire
for protection. We seriously point out to him the much-
praised "colonising vocation" of Germanism in Austria.
He, however, borrows from the rich treasure of the
imperial and royal bureaucratic language a beautiful
phrase, and bitterly suggests that this calling has
now gradually become obsolete (in Vcrstoss gekommen).
In Hungary, in Bohemia, in Cracow, in the Tyrol,
everywhere, Germanism is retrograding, and everywhere
it is proved that the atmosphere of the Hapsburg rule
is detrimental to German nationalism. He complains that
"centuries ago the liberty of German faith was wrested
from us, clerical pressure weighs upon the soul of the
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? 260 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
people, and we have not sufficient iron left in our
blood to protect ourselves against the numerical majority
of foreigners. " He tells us of the political leaders
of his race: how they are nearly all done for and worn
out, many of them ill-famed for being deserters, sellers
of titles, or promoters. Then he asks whether it behoves
Germans to be governed by Hungarians after the dicta
of Magyar policy, and confidently finishes up thus:
"Certainly Austria is a European necessity, but the
Austria of the future borders in the West on the Leitha,
and we Germans belong to you. " We give him to reflect
that after all it is an honour to belong to Austria, that
ancient mighty Power, whereupon he shrugs shoulders.
"Times of the past," he says. "When recently Count
Hohenwarte spoke to us of the real Austrian nationality
he was greeted by peals of derisive laughter on the part
of the Germans. We remind him of the Oriental mission
once entrusted by Prince Eugene to the realm on the
Danube. Dryly he replies: 'A State which can hardly
stand on its own legs will still less be able to subdue
foreign people, especially when violently hated by
them. '"
After the first great defeat of New Austria at the battle
of Solferino, Austrian-Germanism began to awake from
its deep slumber. Notably in the Universities a more
active national sentiment developed, and we subse-
quently witnessed the realisation of what we German
patriots always anticipated, i. e. , that Austria's exodus
from the German Alliance would greatly enliven and
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? AUSTRIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 261
strengthen the mental intercourse between us and the
Germans on the Danube. Never before has our political
work met with such friendly reception amongst the
Austrians as amongst the German Nationalists of Graz
and Vienna to-day. We heartily apologise for the severe
injustice done years ago to the German "Gothaern";
nothing is more touching than the youthful and amiable
enthusiasm which these circles harbour for our new
Empire; nowhere has Prussia warmer friends. From
the bottom of our hearts we wish that the noble German
national pride, the healthy political intellect of this
party, may display all its energy in the perfecting of the
Cisleithanian Constitution. The German-Austrian who
greets every shortcoming of his country with a jubilant
"Always livelier and livelier " does not assist Germany
in her great object; she has only use for the active man
who works physically and mentally in order to procure
for the Germans the leadership in Cisleithania. The
German national pride in Austria is a child of woe; it has
invariably been aroused by the defeats of the Monarchy,
and at each fresh awakening it has given proof of greater
power. Up till now only a small portion of the German-
Austrians evinces strong German national sentiment;
the history of the recent war shows to what extent.
The thinking middle classes follow our battles with a
hearty and active interest never to be forgotten, and
the brave German peasants in the Alps likewise recol-
lected their heroic wars against the Wallachs. The
high nobility, however, and the masses in the towns
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? 262 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
persevered in the old hatred against Prussia. The small
gentry of imperial and royal licensed coffee-house
keepers and tobacconists doted on the French Republic.
As always in Austria, the big financial interests gave
proof of their unprincipled meanness, and insufficient
attention has been paid in Germany to the great dispatch
of arms which went from Vienna via Trieste to France.
German national sentiment, however, is visibly in the
ascendant, and it grows daily on beholding the new
German Empire. National pride and hatred permeate,
so to say, the atmosphere of this unlucky State, whose
future entirely depends upon the reconciliation of national
interests. The growing hatred against the Slavs may
by-and-by press the broad masses of German population
into the ranks of the German Nationalists, and unless
fairly well-regulated constitutional life can be estab-
lished in the near future in Cisleithania the Germans
might finally also realise that their nationality is dearer
to them than their Government.
Closer ties attach the greater part of the Slavs to the
Austrian Monarchy. When from the distance we hear
only the uncouth blustering of Czech fanaticism, when
we listen to the assurances of German scientists in Prague,
that a Czech University by the side of a German one is
at any rate more endurable than a University with mixed
languages, which must infallibly lead to the destruction
of Germanism in Bohemia; when we thus behold the
battle of the elements in the territories of the Crown of
Wenceslaus, we are apt to think that such blind national
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? AUSTRIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 263
hatred would not shrink from the destruction of Austria.
On closer examination, however, secret fear and a singular
cowardice is easily detected, which hides behind the uproar
of the Czechs. They are noisy, they bluster and twist
the law, but they do not dare to start war. In the midst
of their roarings they feel that they cannot dispense
with the Monarchy because, unlike the Germans, no home
is open to them outside Austria. Not even the hot-
heads dare count with certainty upon the fulfilment of
Panslavist dreams, and that is why for the time being
the autonomous Crown of Wenceslaus or the division of
Cisleithania into five groups united by Federalism suffices
for them. The tameness of the Czechs is, however,
not due to honest intentions, but to the consciousness
of weakness, which can and will change as soon as Czech-
dom finds support in a great Slav power, and it is
already patent that the Poles regard Galician autonomy
only as the first step towards the re-establishment of
the Empire of the Sarmats.
Amongst all the nations of Austria the Magyars must
to-day display the greatest energy for the maintenance
of the Monarchy. The newly established Crown needs
Cisleithanian support; those people, with their lively an-
cestral recollections, know only too well how often Austria
and Hungary have mutually saved each other. The
convention was in every respect vastly in favour of the
Magyars. Hungary contributes thirty per cent, towards
the general expenditure of the Monarchy and to the
payment of interest on the debt of the country; if closely
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? 264 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
calculated it will be found to be even less. And in spite
of all the Magyars cannot overcome the old mistrust
of the Hofburg; the tribunals of Eperies and Arad
can no more sink into oblivion than the impudence
of the "Bach" Hussars. In Parliament a strong and
growing opposition has aims beyond the convention,
and it appears full of danger that this opposition consists
almost exclusively of pure Magyar blood. The delegate
"Nemeth" recently offered his solemn congratulations
in Parliament to the German-Austrians on the impend-
ing union with their German brothers. Should disorder
continue to reign in Cisleithania less hot-blooded Magyars
will also soon raise the question whether a union with
"Chaos " be really an advantage for Hungary.
Two neighbours of Austria, i. e. , Russia and Italy,
believe with the greatest positiveness in the collapse of
the Monarchy, and truly everything seems possible in
the vicinity of the Orient. The Oriental question extends,
moves westwards, and resembles a stone which, when
thrown into water, draws ever-widening circles. It
already enters into the domain of the far horizon which
has to be considered in the politics of the German
Empire. Very probably the fate of Austria and the
still not definitely solved Polish question will in time to
come be mixed up with the enigmatical future of the
Balkan population. In Russia's leading circles fierce
hatred, only too easily understood, rages against Austria
--a hatred which the prudence of clever statesmen may
temporarily suppress but cannot stifle altogether, the
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? AUSTRIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 265
highest interests of the two neighbours in the East as
well as in Poland being in closest vicinity. Certainly
one needs the happy levity of Count Beust in order
to look with steadfast confidence into the future of
Austria. What follows? The struggle of German-
Austria against the Slavs is at the same time a
struggle of the modern States against feudal and
ultramontane powers. The Constitution of Cisleith-
ania honestly kept and intelligently developed offers
room for all nations of German-Austria. Whoever has
the freedom and peaceful development of Middle Europe
at heart must earnestly wish that the oft-proved vitality
of the old State may once more assert itself, and that
the Germans this side of the Leitha may hold their own.
The perfecting of this Constitution can, however, even
under the most favourable auspices, only take place very
slowly; there is an immeasurable distance between the
wretched indifference which was prevalent in German-
Austria after the battle of Koniggratz and the present
national sentiment. The German tongue and German
morals must not anticipate great results from the
Lothrings; it must suffice to us if Germans maintain
their possessions against Slavs and Magyars. The
complete solution of a great European task is no
more to be expected of this infirm country. Only after
ten years of internal peace will Austria, if ever, gain
power to pursue serious plans in the East. An un-
reservedly sincere friendship we must not expect
of the Hofburg. The policy of silently preserving
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? 266 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
all rights is understood in Vienna as well as in Rome.
And however honestly well-wishing we might be, the
Lothrings know from Italy the mighty attraction of
National States, and know that their Germans cannot
turn their eyes from our Empire. Because of its existence
alone the German Empire is viewed by them with sus-
picion, and prudent circumspection is appropriate.
Every uncalled-for attempt at intervention in Austria's
internal struggle accentuates the mistrust of the Hof-
burg against our countrymen and prejudices the
German cause. This Prince Bismarck magnificently
understood when he abstained at Gastein from all obser-
vations against the Hohenwarte Cabinet. It was very
badly understood by the honest citizens of Breslau,
Dresden, and Munich, when they decided on their heartily
well-meant and heartily stupid declarations of sympathy
for German-Austria. Lucky for German-Austria that,
thanks to our sober-mindedness, such madcap ideas did
not find sympathy; but all our interest in Austria
does not justify us in shutting our eyes to the possibility
of her collapse. The perfection of the Cisleithanian
Constitution presupposes the good intentions of all
parties; at present such intention is, however, found to
exist only amongst part of the German-Austrians. The
Italians are in the habit of saying Austria is not a State
but a family. When the foundation of Hapsburg power
was laid the expression "Tu felix Austria nube" met with
admiration in the whole world, and Emperor Frederick III,
regretfully looking at his amputated foot, said: "Ytzt
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? AUSTRIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 267
ist dem Reich der ain Fuss abgeschniedten" (" Now one
leg has been cut off the Empire "). The times of imperial
self-worship and State-forming marriages of princes are
no more. Will a country which owes its origin to the
senseless family policy of past centuries, which in character
belongs to ancient Europe, be able to satisfy the demands
of a new era? We dare not answer negatively; yet as
brave and vigilant men we must also contemplate that
in years to come Fate may reply to the question in the
negative.
If the calamity of the destruction of Austria
were to occur, and it would also be a calamity to Germany,
then our Empire must be ready and prepared to brave
the forces of Fate to save Germanism on the Danube
from the d6bris, "To be prepared is everything," saith
the Poet.
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? THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN PRUSSIA AND
RUSSIA.
In the summer of 1813, August Wilhelm Schlegel wrote
to Schleiermacher: "Is it to be wondered at that this
nation, on whose shoulders the weight of the balance of
power in Europe has been laid for one and a half centuries,
should go with a bent back? " In these words he indi-
cated both the cause of the long-continued feebleness of
our country and also the ground of the constant mistrust
with which all the Great Powers saw Germany recovering
strength. Even a cautious and unprejudiced German
historian will find it hard to keep from bitterness, and will
easily appear to foreigners as a Chauvinist, when he por-
trays in detail in how much more just and friendly a way
the public opinion of Europe regarded the national move-
ments of the Italians, the Greeks, and the Southern Slavs
than the Germans' struggle for unity. It needs even a
certain degree of self-denial in order to recognise that the
whole formation of the old system of States, the way of
looking at things of the old diplomacy, depended on the
divided state of Germany, and, consequently, in our
revolution we could expect nothing better from the
neighbouring Powers than, at most, neutrality and
silent non-interference.
268
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? RUSSIAN AND PRUSSIAN ALLIANCE 269
A proud German will be glad of the fact that we owe
all that we are really to ourselves; he will willingly for-
get past unfairness in practical politics, and simply
ask what is the attitude of the neighbouring Powers to
the present interests of our Empire. But he who only
sees in history an arsenal from which to draw weapons to
pursue the varying aims of the politics of the day will,
with a moderate amount of learning and some sophistry,
be able to prove, just as it happens to suit him, that
France or Austria, Russia or England, is our hereditary
foe. A book of such a sort, thoroughly partisan in spirit
and unhistorical, is the work "Berlin and Petersburg;
Prussian Contributions to the History of the Relations
between Russia and Germany," which an anonymous
author has lately published with the unconcealed purpose
of arousing attention and of preparing the minds of
credulous readers for a reckoning with Russia. The
book is entitled " Prussian Contributions," and the preface
is dated from Berlin. I am quite willing to believe that
the author, when he wrote his preface, may have happened
to be passing a few days in Berlin. But everyone who
knows our political literature must at once discern that
the author of the work is the same publicist who has issued
the little book, "Russia, Before and After the War,"
"Pictures of Petersburg Society," and a number of other
instructive works dealing with Russo-German relations.
And this publicist is, as is well known, no Prussian, but
an inhabitant of the Baltic provinces; he has hitherto
never claimed to concern himself with Prussian politics,
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? 270 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
but has always, with great talent and restless energy,
represented the interests of his Baltic home as he under-
stood them. Among the political authors of Germany he
takes a position similar to that which Louis Schneider
once occupied on the other side. Just as the latter,
assuredly in his way an honest Prussian patriot, regarded
the alliance with Holy Russia as a dogma, so does our
author view hostility to the Czar's Empire; only, he is
incomparably abler and quite free from that deprecatory
manner which makes Schneider's writings so unpleasant.
The restoration of Poland and the conquest of the Baltic
provinces, these are the visions which, more or less dis-
guised, hover in the background of all his books. In
his view the Prussian Monarchy has really no other raison
d'etre than the suppression of the Slavs; it misses its
vocation till it has engaged in hostilities against the
Muscovites. All the problems of German politics are
gauged by this one measure; no inference is so startling
as to alarm our author. In 1871 he opposed the conquest
of Alsace and Lorraine, for the liberation of our western
territories threatened to postpone the longed-for war with
Russia; nor could a patriot of the Baltic provinces allow
that Alsace with its Gallicised higher classes was a German
province, while on the other hand the German nationality
of Livland and Kurland was rooted exclusively in the
nobility and well-to-do citizen class. Such a steady direc-
tion of sentiment towards one object compels the respect
even of an opponent. So long as our author fought with
an open visor one could pardon his warm local patriotism
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? RUSSIAN AND PRUSSIAN ALLIANCE 271
when he at times spoke somewhat contemptuously of
Prussia, and held up the wonderful political instinct of the
Baltic nobility as a shining example to our native narrow-
mindedness. But when, as at present, he assumes the
mask of a deeply-initiated Prussian statesman, when he
pares and trims our glorious history to suit the aims of
the Baltic malcontents, and wishes to make us believe
that Prussia has been for fifty years the plaything of a
foreign Power, then it is quite permissible to examine
more closely whether the cargo of this little Baltic ship
is worth more than the false flag which it flies at its
mast-head.
The old proverb "Qui a compagnon, a maitre," is
especially true of political alliances. Hardenberg made a
mistake when he once said regarding Austria and Prussia,
"Leurs interets se confondent. " A community of
interests between independent Powers can only be a
conditional one, and limited by time; in every alliance
which lasts long, sometimes one of the contracting
parties and sometimes the other will consider itself over-
reached. Thus our State at the commencement of the
eighteenth century made enormous sacrifices to aid the
objects of the two sea-Powers, but did not finally gain
any further advantage from this long alliance than the
right of her head to use the kingly title, and some barren
laurels. The history also of the seventy-seven year-long
friendship between Prussia and Russia--the longest
alliance which has ever existed between two Great Powers
--presents many such phenomena. There were times
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? 272 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
when German patriots were fully justified in regarding
the friendship of Russia as oppressive--nay, as disgrace-
ful--just as on the other hand in recent years the great
majority of educated Russians firmly believed that
their country was injured by the Prussian alliance. But
when one sums up the results, and compares the relative
position in respect of power of the two States in 1802, when
their alliance was formed, with that in 1879, when it
was dissolved, it cannot be honestly asserted that Prussia
fared badly in this alliance.
The Russo-Prussian alliance was, as is well known,
entirely the personal work of the two Monarchs, and every-
one knows how much it was helped forward by the honest
and frank friendship which the King, Frederick William
III, displayed towards the versatile Czar. But these
personal feelings of the King never overpowered his
sound political intelligence and his strong sense of duty.
Every new advance of historical investigation only re-
confirms the fact that the King was altogether right,
when unseduced by the proposals of so many cleverer
men than himself; he was only willing to venture on the
attempt at rising against Napoleon in alliance with Russia.
Without the help of the Czar Alexander the capture of
Paris and the restoration of the old power of Prussia
would have been impossible. Anyone who doubts
this should peruse the recently published Memoirs of
Metternich regarding the real objects of the Vienna
Court at the time, i. e. , not the Memoirs themselves
with their intolerable self-glorification, but the appended
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? RUSSIAN AND PRUSSIAN ALLIANCE 273
authentic official documents, which, for the most part,
plainly contradict the vain self-eulogy of the author.
At the Congress of Vienna the two Courts still continued
to have a community of interests: the Czar was obliged
to support Prussia's demands for an indemnity, if he
wished to secure for himself the possession of Poland.
At the second Peace of Paris, on the other hand, the
interests of the two Powers came into violent collision.
The Czar had indeed favoured the restoration of the State
of Prussia, so that Russia should be rendered impregnable
through this rampart on its most vulnerable side, but he
as little wished the rise of a completely independent self-
sufficing German Power, as the Courts of Paris, Vienna, and
London did. Therefore the restoration of our old western
frontier, which Prussia demanded, was defeated by the
united opposition of all the Great Powers. All the Courts
without exception observed with anxiety what an unsus-
pected wealth of military power little Prussia had
developed during the War of Liberation; therefore they
all eagerly vied with each other in burying Prussia's
merits in oblivion. Whether one reads the military
dispatches of Wellington and his officers, the letters of
Schwarzenburg, Metternich, and Gentz, the semi-official
writings of the Russian military authors of that period,
it is difficult to say which of the three allies had most
quickly and completely forgotten the deeds of their
Prussian comrades-in-arms. Nevertheless, the alliance
with Russia and Austria was a necessity for Prussia,
for it still remained the most important task of our
s
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? 274 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
European policy to prevent another declaration of war
on the part of France, and the Great Alliance actually
achieved this, its first purpose. When Austria, in 1817,
rendered anxious by Alexander's grandiose schemes,
proposed to the King of Prussia a secret offensive and
defensive alliance, which in case of need might be also
directed against Russia, Hardenberg, who in those days
was thoroughly Austrian in his sympathies, was eager to
accept the proposal. But the King acted as a Prussian,
and absolutely refused, for only the union of all three
Eastern Powers could secure to his State the safety which
he especially needed after the immense sacrifices of the
war. Yet our Baltic anonymous author is quite wrong in
so representing things as though, in Frederick William
III's view, the alliance with Russia had been the only
possible one. The King knew, more thoroughly than his
present-day critic, the incalculable vicissitudes of inter-
national relations, and always kept cautiously in view
the possibility of a war against Russia. In 1818 he
surprised the Vienna Court by the declaration that he
wished also to include Posen, East and West Prussia, in
the German Confederation, because in case of a Russian
attack he wanted to be absolutely sure of the help of
Germany. Frederick William held obstinately to this
idea, although Hardenberg and Humboldt spoke against
it, and he did not give it up till Austria opposed it, and
thus every prospect of carrying the proposal through in
the Diet of the Confederation disappeared.
It is equally untrue that the King, as our anonymous
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? RUSSIAN AND PRUSSIAN ALLIANCE 275
author condescendingly expresses it, had modestly
renounced all wishes of bringing about a union of the
German States. His policy was peaceful, as it was obliged
to be; it shunned a decisive contest for which at that
time all the preliminary conditions were lacking, but as
soon as affairs in the new provinces were, to some extent,
settled, he began at once to work for the commercial and
political unifying of Germany. In this difficult task,
which in very truth laid the foundation for the new
German Empire, Prussia encountered at every step the
opposition of Austria, England, and France. Russia
alone among all the Great Powers preserved a friendly
neutrality. This one fact is sufficient to justify the
King in attaching great importance to Russia's friend-
ship.
This partiality of his, however, was by no means blind,
for nothing is more absurd than the author's assertion
that Prussia, by the mediation which brought about the
Peace of Adrianople, had merely done the Russian Court
an unselfish service. When the war of 1828 broke out
the King had openly told the Czar that he disapproved
of his declaration of war. The next year, at the com-
mencement of the second campaign, the European
situation assumed a very threatening aspect. The Vienna
Cabinet, alarmed in the highest degree by the progress
of the Russian arms, exerted itself in conjunction with
England to bring about a great alliance against Russia;
on the other hand, the King knew from his son-in-law's
mouth (the Czar's autograph note is still preserved in
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? 276 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
the Berlin State Archives) that there was a secret under-
standing between Nicholas and Charles X of France.
If matters were allowed to go their course there was
danger of a European war, which might oblige Prussia
to fight simultaneously against Russia and France, and
that about a question remote from our interests. In
order to avert this danger, and thus acting for the best
for his own country, the King resolved to act as a
mediator, and brought about a peace which, as matters
then were, was acceptable to both contending parties.
Prince Metternich was certainly alarmed at this success
of Prussian policy, and the reactionary party in Berlin,
Duke Karl of Mecklenburg, Ancillon, Schuckmann,
Knesebeck, who were all staunch adherents of the Vienna
diplomat, were alarmed; but the ablest men at the Court,
Bernstoff, Witzleven, Eichhorn, and above all the younger
Prince William, approved the King's well-considered pro-
ceeding. The resolve of the King was obviously connected
with the brilliant successes which his finance minister,
Motz, had won at the same time in the struggles of German
commercial policy. To a calm historical judgment the
years 1828 and 1829 appear as a fortunate turning-point
in the history of that uneventful period; it was the time
when Prussia again began to take up a completely
independent position in relation to the Austrian Court.
Among the Liberals, indeed, who had lately been admiring
the Greeks, and now were suddenly enthusiastic for the
Turks, there arose a supplementary party-legend, that
Prussia had only undertaken the office of mediator in
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? RUSSIAN AND PRUSSIAN ALLIANCE 277
order to save the Russian Army from certain destruction.
This discovery, however, is already contradicted by the
calendar. On August 19th Diebitch's army appeared
before Adrianople; and it was here that the victor's
embarrassments first began, and here, first, it was evident
how much his fighting power had been reduced by
sickness and the wear and tear of the campaign. But
Prussia had commenced acting as mediator as early as
July; when General Muffling received his instructions
the Russian Army was victorious everywhere.
Later on, also, the sober-mindedness of King Frederick
William never favoured the Czar's designs against the
Porte; he rather did his best to strengthen the resisting
power of the Ottoman Empire. The only partly effective
reform which the decaying Turkish State succeeded in
carrying through--the reconstitution of its Army--was,
as is well known, the work of Prussian officers. All the
reports which the embittered scandal-seeking opposition
party of that time circulated, regarding the influence of
Russia in the domestic concerns of Prussia, are mere
inventions. The King alone deserves blame or praise
for the course of domestic policy; his son-in-law never
refused to pay him filial reverence. Even the eccen-
tricities of the Berlin Court at that period, the love for
parades, the bestowing of military decorations, which
were stigmatized by the Liberals as " Russian manners,"
were simply due to the personal predilection of the King,
and it is difficult to decide whether Russia has learnt
more in this respect from Germany, or vice versu. During
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? 278 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
the anxious days of the July revolution the King ex-
hibited again, with all his modesty, an independent and
genuinely Prussian attitude. Frederick William resisted
the legitimist outbursts of his son-in-law, and hindered the
crusade against France which had been planned in
St. Petersburg. The next year he resisted with equal
common sense the foolish enthusiasm of the Liberals for
the Poles, and, by occupying the eastern frontier, assisted
in the suppression of that Polish insurrection, which was
as dangerous for our Posen as for Russian Poland. The
Baltic anonymous author conceals his vexation at this
intelligent policy of self-assertion behind the thoughtful
remark that we had, as is well known, "paid for ren-
dering this assistance with the valuable life of Gneisenau. "
Should we, then, perhaps enter in our ledger, on the
Russian debit side, the cholera which swept away our
heroes?
During the whole period from 1815 to 1840 I know only
of a single fact which can be alleged to give real occasion
to the reproach that the King, for the sake of Russia's
friendship, neglected an important interest of his State.
In constrast to the ruthless commercial policy of Russia,
Prussia showed a moderation which bordered on weak-
ness. But this matter, also, is not so simple as our
anonymous author thinks. He reproaches Russia with
the non-fulfilment of the Vienna Treaty of May 3rd, 1815,
and overlooks the fact that Prussia herself hardly wished
in earnest the carrying out of this agreement. It was soon
enough proved that Hardenberg had been over-reached
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? RUSSIAN AND PRUSSIAN ALLIANCE 279
at Vienna by Prince Czartoryski. The apparently
harmless agreements regarding free transit and free
trade with the products of all formerly Polish territories
imposed upon our State, through which the transit took
place, only duties, without conferring any corresponding
advantages. In order to carry out the treaty literally
Prussia would have had to divide its Polish provinces from
its other territories by a line of custom-houses. But the
Poles saw in the treaty a welcome means of carrying their
national propaganda into our Polish territories by settle-
ments of commercial agents. Thus it happened that
Prussia, after futile negotiations, proceeded on her own
account; and by the customs-law of 1818 placed her Polish
territories on precisely the same footing as her other
eastern provinces. After this necessary step Prussia
was no more in the position to appeal successfully to the
Vienna Treaty. And what means did we, in fact, possess
to compel the neighbouring State to give up a foolish
commercial policy, which was injurious for his own
country? Only the two-edged weapon of retaliatory
duties. The relation of the two countries assumed quite
a different aspect under Frederick William IV. It will
always be one of the most bitter memories of our history
how lacking in counsel and wavering in purpose the
clever new King proved, in contrast to the strong-willed
Czar, how cruelly he knew, by countless failures, the fact
that in the stern struggles for power of national life
character is always superior to talent, and how at last,
for truth will out, he actually feared those narrow minds.
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? 280 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
Here our author has good reason for sharp judgments,
and here also he gives us, along with some questionable
anecdotes, some reliable matter-of-fact information
regarding the history of the confusions of 1848-50. It is
quite true that the Czar Nicholas in the autumn of 1848
asked General Count Friedrich Dohna whether he would
not be the Prussian General Monk, and march with the
first army-corps on Berlin, to restore order there; the
whole Russian army would act as his reserve in case of
need. The memories of the count, printed in autograph,
confirm the correctness of this story, with the exception
of some trifling details. But even here the author cannot
rise to an unprejudiced historical estimate of the events
in question. He conceals the fact that not only Russia but
all the Great Powers were against the rise of a Prussian-
German Empire.
? 256 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
as the improvement of weapons. The introduction of
compulsory military service, which can serve a useful pur-
pose only in a National State, was in Austria a thought-
less precipitation; for the moment it has disorganized
discipline, and it is questionable whether the future will
show better results. German students, Polish noblemen,
fanatical Czechs join the ranks of the volunteers and
are promoted to officer's rank in the militia; but this
new corps of officers does not invariably, as of yore, seek
its home under the black and yellow standard. The
militiaman acquires at home all the prejudices of race-
hatred; the Hungarian "honveds" are certainly brave
soldiers, but equally surely cannot be led against an
enemy. The young noblemen who formerly gladly
gathered round the imperial standard now stay away,
and race-hatred impairs comradeship. The officers of the
German Army at times glance critically at the history
of Austria's military forces, who, with rare exceptions,
have for 130 years always fought bravely and--unsuccess-
fully; and they compare the days of Metz and Sedan
with the hopeless campaign against the Bochese. The
old remedy of hard-pressed Hapsburgs--a state of siege
--promises but scant success for an Army thus con-
stituted.
In addition thereto are public fuctionaries of generally
very inferior education, whose corruption does not admit
of doubt, servile and yet always argumentative; we refer
to the Czech bureaucracy, indescribably hated and
despised by Germans and Hungarians alike. In the
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? AUSTRIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 257
Church there is a strictly Roman party with very well-
meaning but also very vague Old Catholic aspirations,
and there exists widely diffused a shallow frivolity
which derides as Prussian hypocrisy all agitations for
moral seriousness. In the same way the quondam much-
talked-of inexhaustible resources of the Danube Empire
prove to-day a pleasant fairy tale. An Exchequer
which has twice within ninety years covered yearly ex-
penditure by regular receipts, and has now again just
weathered veiled bankruptcy--such incredible financial
mismanagement has not only destroyed the private
fortunes of thousands, it has also largely stimulated the
habit of gambling and of prodigality. In nearly all the
Crown lands of Cisleithania agriculture lacks a body of
educated middle-class farmers; it is the link between
farms and the vast estates of noblemen which is missing.
The development of industry is similarly handicapped.
Whilst in most provinces trade and commerce is in its
infancy, Vienna is agitated by feverishly excited specu-
lation. For ever so long the Vienna Stock Exchange has
drawn the "smart set " into its circle. Pools and syndi-
cates carry on the organized swindle, and the small man
is also dragged into the turmoil by innumerable com-
mission houses. The magnificent capital is of course a
grand centre for every kind of intercourse, but its corrup-
tion reacts detrimentally upon the commonwealth. The
bulk of the citizens is still healthy and capable, but
amongst the always immoral masses of the metropolis
an impudent socialism is to-day at work, which derides
R
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? 258 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
the spirit of the Fatherland as reactionary, and amongst
all the races of Austria most vehemently attacks the
Germans as "bourgeois. " Of the moral conditions of
the upper classes, and particularly of Stock Exchange
circles, the Vienna newspapers, which are closely allied
with the latter, give ample testimony. Vienna journalism,
although highly developed, is, on the whole, the most
immoral press of Europe--Paris by no means excluded.
The German party in Vienna is about to initiate the
Deutsche Zeitung, because an honest party cannot rely
upon the existing big German newspapers. All these
powerful journals are nothing else, and do not pretend
to be anything else, than industrial undertakings, and a
smile of compassion would greet those who were to speak
to those literary speculators about political tendencies. By
the side of the big organs of the Stock Exchange jobbers
there is a huge crowd of dirty halfpenny rags, which
live on extortion and journalistic piracy, for in this
frivolous town there are many with a bad conscience,
and liberal payments are made to stop the slanderous
tongue of the blackmailer. Since the first happy days of
Emperor Francis Joseph, when courts-martial condemned
to death, New Austria has attempted nearly every
imaginable political system; such a sudden change is
bound to unsettle the sense of justice and the people's
opinions respecting their country. The views of the
German-Austrian pessimists are very unpalatable to
Germans in the Empire, as they cross our political
calculations. But let us also be just, and let us try to
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? AUSTRIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 259
place ourselves in the position of a warmhearted, scien-
fically educated young German-Austrian. Why in the
world should this man love his country in its entirety?
Ancient faith, force of habit, fear of the uncertain future
and of radical changes, all these considerations retain
him within Austrian boundaries; but to rejoice his
heart he casts his eyes northwards, where he beholds
his countrymen in a respected, mighty Empire, in a well-
secured national commonwealth, with orderly economic
conditions, and he perceives them in every respect
happier than he is himself. He hates the "rugged
caryatid-heads of the servile classes," as Hebbel, amid
great cheers, once said of the German-Austrians, and
above all he hates the Czechs. To keep this slavedom
in subordination and to shield the best he calls his own,
i. e. , German thought and German sentiment, from the
aggressive waves of barbarism he looks to the Empire
for protection. We seriously point out to him the much-
praised "colonising vocation" of Germanism in Austria.
He, however, borrows from the rich treasure of the
imperial and royal bureaucratic language a beautiful
phrase, and bitterly suggests that this calling has
now gradually become obsolete (in Vcrstoss gekommen).
In Hungary, in Bohemia, in Cracow, in the Tyrol,
everywhere, Germanism is retrograding, and everywhere
it is proved that the atmosphere of the Hapsburg rule
is detrimental to German nationalism. He complains that
"centuries ago the liberty of German faith was wrested
from us, clerical pressure weighs upon the soul of the
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? 260 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
people, and we have not sufficient iron left in our
blood to protect ourselves against the numerical majority
of foreigners. " He tells us of the political leaders
of his race: how they are nearly all done for and worn
out, many of them ill-famed for being deserters, sellers
of titles, or promoters. Then he asks whether it behoves
Germans to be governed by Hungarians after the dicta
of Magyar policy, and confidently finishes up thus:
"Certainly Austria is a European necessity, but the
Austria of the future borders in the West on the Leitha,
and we Germans belong to you. " We give him to reflect
that after all it is an honour to belong to Austria, that
ancient mighty Power, whereupon he shrugs shoulders.
"Times of the past," he says. "When recently Count
Hohenwarte spoke to us of the real Austrian nationality
he was greeted by peals of derisive laughter on the part
of the Germans. We remind him of the Oriental mission
once entrusted by Prince Eugene to the realm on the
Danube. Dryly he replies: 'A State which can hardly
stand on its own legs will still less be able to subdue
foreign people, especially when violently hated by
them. '"
After the first great defeat of New Austria at the battle
of Solferino, Austrian-Germanism began to awake from
its deep slumber. Notably in the Universities a more
active national sentiment developed, and we subse-
quently witnessed the realisation of what we German
patriots always anticipated, i. e. , that Austria's exodus
from the German Alliance would greatly enliven and
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? AUSTRIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 261
strengthen the mental intercourse between us and the
Germans on the Danube. Never before has our political
work met with such friendly reception amongst the
Austrians as amongst the German Nationalists of Graz
and Vienna to-day. We heartily apologise for the severe
injustice done years ago to the German "Gothaern";
nothing is more touching than the youthful and amiable
enthusiasm which these circles harbour for our new
Empire; nowhere has Prussia warmer friends. From
the bottom of our hearts we wish that the noble German
national pride, the healthy political intellect of this
party, may display all its energy in the perfecting of the
Cisleithanian Constitution. The German-Austrian who
greets every shortcoming of his country with a jubilant
"Always livelier and livelier " does not assist Germany
in her great object; she has only use for the active man
who works physically and mentally in order to procure
for the Germans the leadership in Cisleithania. The
German national pride in Austria is a child of woe; it has
invariably been aroused by the defeats of the Monarchy,
and at each fresh awakening it has given proof of greater
power. Up till now only a small portion of the German-
Austrians evinces strong German national sentiment;
the history of the recent war shows to what extent.
The thinking middle classes follow our battles with a
hearty and active interest never to be forgotten, and
the brave German peasants in the Alps likewise recol-
lected their heroic wars against the Wallachs. The
high nobility, however, and the masses in the towns
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? 262 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
persevered in the old hatred against Prussia. The small
gentry of imperial and royal licensed coffee-house
keepers and tobacconists doted on the French Republic.
As always in Austria, the big financial interests gave
proof of their unprincipled meanness, and insufficient
attention has been paid in Germany to the great dispatch
of arms which went from Vienna via Trieste to France.
German national sentiment, however, is visibly in the
ascendant, and it grows daily on beholding the new
German Empire. National pride and hatred permeate,
so to say, the atmosphere of this unlucky State, whose
future entirely depends upon the reconciliation of national
interests. The growing hatred against the Slavs may
by-and-by press the broad masses of German population
into the ranks of the German Nationalists, and unless
fairly well-regulated constitutional life can be estab-
lished in the near future in Cisleithania the Germans
might finally also realise that their nationality is dearer
to them than their Government.
Closer ties attach the greater part of the Slavs to the
Austrian Monarchy. When from the distance we hear
only the uncouth blustering of Czech fanaticism, when
we listen to the assurances of German scientists in Prague,
that a Czech University by the side of a German one is
at any rate more endurable than a University with mixed
languages, which must infallibly lead to the destruction
of Germanism in Bohemia; when we thus behold the
battle of the elements in the territories of the Crown of
Wenceslaus, we are apt to think that such blind national
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? AUSTRIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 263
hatred would not shrink from the destruction of Austria.
On closer examination, however, secret fear and a singular
cowardice is easily detected, which hides behind the uproar
of the Czechs. They are noisy, they bluster and twist
the law, but they do not dare to start war. In the midst
of their roarings they feel that they cannot dispense
with the Monarchy because, unlike the Germans, no home
is open to them outside Austria. Not even the hot-
heads dare count with certainty upon the fulfilment of
Panslavist dreams, and that is why for the time being
the autonomous Crown of Wenceslaus or the division of
Cisleithania into five groups united by Federalism suffices
for them. The tameness of the Czechs is, however,
not due to honest intentions, but to the consciousness
of weakness, which can and will change as soon as Czech-
dom finds support in a great Slav power, and it is
already patent that the Poles regard Galician autonomy
only as the first step towards the re-establishment of
the Empire of the Sarmats.
Amongst all the nations of Austria the Magyars must
to-day display the greatest energy for the maintenance
of the Monarchy. The newly established Crown needs
Cisleithanian support; those people, with their lively an-
cestral recollections, know only too well how often Austria
and Hungary have mutually saved each other. The
convention was in every respect vastly in favour of the
Magyars. Hungary contributes thirty per cent, towards
the general expenditure of the Monarchy and to the
payment of interest on the debt of the country; if closely
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? 264 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
calculated it will be found to be even less. And in spite
of all the Magyars cannot overcome the old mistrust
of the Hofburg; the tribunals of Eperies and Arad
can no more sink into oblivion than the impudence
of the "Bach" Hussars. In Parliament a strong and
growing opposition has aims beyond the convention,
and it appears full of danger that this opposition consists
almost exclusively of pure Magyar blood. The delegate
"Nemeth" recently offered his solemn congratulations
in Parliament to the German-Austrians on the impend-
ing union with their German brothers. Should disorder
continue to reign in Cisleithania less hot-blooded Magyars
will also soon raise the question whether a union with
"Chaos " be really an advantage for Hungary.
Two neighbours of Austria, i. e. , Russia and Italy,
believe with the greatest positiveness in the collapse of
the Monarchy, and truly everything seems possible in
the vicinity of the Orient. The Oriental question extends,
moves westwards, and resembles a stone which, when
thrown into water, draws ever-widening circles. It
already enters into the domain of the far horizon which
has to be considered in the politics of the German
Empire. Very probably the fate of Austria and the
still not definitely solved Polish question will in time to
come be mixed up with the enigmatical future of the
Balkan population. In Russia's leading circles fierce
hatred, only too easily understood, rages against Austria
--a hatred which the prudence of clever statesmen may
temporarily suppress but cannot stifle altogether, the
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? AUSTRIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 265
highest interests of the two neighbours in the East as
well as in Poland being in closest vicinity. Certainly
one needs the happy levity of Count Beust in order
to look with steadfast confidence into the future of
Austria. What follows? The struggle of German-
Austria against the Slavs is at the same time a
struggle of the modern States against feudal and
ultramontane powers. The Constitution of Cisleith-
ania honestly kept and intelligently developed offers
room for all nations of German-Austria. Whoever has
the freedom and peaceful development of Middle Europe
at heart must earnestly wish that the oft-proved vitality
of the old State may once more assert itself, and that
the Germans this side of the Leitha may hold their own.
The perfecting of this Constitution can, however, even
under the most favourable auspices, only take place very
slowly; there is an immeasurable distance between the
wretched indifference which was prevalent in German-
Austria after the battle of Koniggratz and the present
national sentiment. The German tongue and German
morals must not anticipate great results from the
Lothrings; it must suffice to us if Germans maintain
their possessions against Slavs and Magyars. The
complete solution of a great European task is no
more to be expected of this infirm country. Only after
ten years of internal peace will Austria, if ever, gain
power to pursue serious plans in the East. An un-
reservedly sincere friendship we must not expect
of the Hofburg. The policy of silently preserving
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? 266 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
all rights is understood in Vienna as well as in Rome.
And however honestly well-wishing we might be, the
Lothrings know from Italy the mighty attraction of
National States, and know that their Germans cannot
turn their eyes from our Empire. Because of its existence
alone the German Empire is viewed by them with sus-
picion, and prudent circumspection is appropriate.
Every uncalled-for attempt at intervention in Austria's
internal struggle accentuates the mistrust of the Hof-
burg against our countrymen and prejudices the
German cause. This Prince Bismarck magnificently
understood when he abstained at Gastein from all obser-
vations against the Hohenwarte Cabinet. It was very
badly understood by the honest citizens of Breslau,
Dresden, and Munich, when they decided on their heartily
well-meant and heartily stupid declarations of sympathy
for German-Austria. Lucky for German-Austria that,
thanks to our sober-mindedness, such madcap ideas did
not find sympathy; but all our interest in Austria
does not justify us in shutting our eyes to the possibility
of her collapse. The perfection of the Cisleithanian
Constitution presupposes the good intentions of all
parties; at present such intention is, however, found to
exist only amongst part of the German-Austrians. The
Italians are in the habit of saying Austria is not a State
but a family. When the foundation of Hapsburg power
was laid the expression "Tu felix Austria nube" met with
admiration in the whole world, and Emperor Frederick III,
regretfully looking at his amputated foot, said: "Ytzt
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? AUSTRIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE 267
ist dem Reich der ain Fuss abgeschniedten" (" Now one
leg has been cut off the Empire "). The times of imperial
self-worship and State-forming marriages of princes are
no more. Will a country which owes its origin to the
senseless family policy of past centuries, which in character
belongs to ancient Europe, be able to satisfy the demands
of a new era? We dare not answer negatively; yet as
brave and vigilant men we must also contemplate that
in years to come Fate may reply to the question in the
negative.
If the calamity of the destruction of Austria
were to occur, and it would also be a calamity to Germany,
then our Empire must be ready and prepared to brave
the forces of Fate to save Germanism on the Danube
from the d6bris, "To be prepared is everything," saith
the Poet.
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? THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN PRUSSIA AND
RUSSIA.
In the summer of 1813, August Wilhelm Schlegel wrote
to Schleiermacher: "Is it to be wondered at that this
nation, on whose shoulders the weight of the balance of
power in Europe has been laid for one and a half centuries,
should go with a bent back? " In these words he indi-
cated both the cause of the long-continued feebleness of
our country and also the ground of the constant mistrust
with which all the Great Powers saw Germany recovering
strength. Even a cautious and unprejudiced German
historian will find it hard to keep from bitterness, and will
easily appear to foreigners as a Chauvinist, when he por-
trays in detail in how much more just and friendly a way
the public opinion of Europe regarded the national move-
ments of the Italians, the Greeks, and the Southern Slavs
than the Germans' struggle for unity. It needs even a
certain degree of self-denial in order to recognise that the
whole formation of the old system of States, the way of
looking at things of the old diplomacy, depended on the
divided state of Germany, and, consequently, in our
revolution we could expect nothing better from the
neighbouring Powers than, at most, neutrality and
silent non-interference.
268
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? RUSSIAN AND PRUSSIAN ALLIANCE 269
A proud German will be glad of the fact that we owe
all that we are really to ourselves; he will willingly for-
get past unfairness in practical politics, and simply
ask what is the attitude of the neighbouring Powers to
the present interests of our Empire. But he who only
sees in history an arsenal from which to draw weapons to
pursue the varying aims of the politics of the day will,
with a moderate amount of learning and some sophistry,
be able to prove, just as it happens to suit him, that
France or Austria, Russia or England, is our hereditary
foe. A book of such a sort, thoroughly partisan in spirit
and unhistorical, is the work "Berlin and Petersburg;
Prussian Contributions to the History of the Relations
between Russia and Germany," which an anonymous
author has lately published with the unconcealed purpose
of arousing attention and of preparing the minds of
credulous readers for a reckoning with Russia. The
book is entitled " Prussian Contributions," and the preface
is dated from Berlin. I am quite willing to believe that
the author, when he wrote his preface, may have happened
to be passing a few days in Berlin. But everyone who
knows our political literature must at once discern that
the author of the work is the same publicist who has issued
the little book, "Russia, Before and After the War,"
"Pictures of Petersburg Society," and a number of other
instructive works dealing with Russo-German relations.
And this publicist is, as is well known, no Prussian, but
an inhabitant of the Baltic provinces; he has hitherto
never claimed to concern himself with Prussian politics,
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? 270 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
but has always, with great talent and restless energy,
represented the interests of his Baltic home as he under-
stood them. Among the political authors of Germany he
takes a position similar to that which Louis Schneider
once occupied on the other side. Just as the latter,
assuredly in his way an honest Prussian patriot, regarded
the alliance with Holy Russia as a dogma, so does our
author view hostility to the Czar's Empire; only, he is
incomparably abler and quite free from that deprecatory
manner which makes Schneider's writings so unpleasant.
The restoration of Poland and the conquest of the Baltic
provinces, these are the visions which, more or less dis-
guised, hover in the background of all his books. In
his view the Prussian Monarchy has really no other raison
d'etre than the suppression of the Slavs; it misses its
vocation till it has engaged in hostilities against the
Muscovites. All the problems of German politics are
gauged by this one measure; no inference is so startling
as to alarm our author. In 1871 he opposed the conquest
of Alsace and Lorraine, for the liberation of our western
territories threatened to postpone the longed-for war with
Russia; nor could a patriot of the Baltic provinces allow
that Alsace with its Gallicised higher classes was a German
province, while on the other hand the German nationality
of Livland and Kurland was rooted exclusively in the
nobility and well-to-do citizen class. Such a steady direc-
tion of sentiment towards one object compels the respect
even of an opponent. So long as our author fought with
an open visor one could pardon his warm local patriotism
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? RUSSIAN AND PRUSSIAN ALLIANCE 271
when he at times spoke somewhat contemptuously of
Prussia, and held up the wonderful political instinct of the
Baltic nobility as a shining example to our native narrow-
mindedness. But when, as at present, he assumes the
mask of a deeply-initiated Prussian statesman, when he
pares and trims our glorious history to suit the aims of
the Baltic malcontents, and wishes to make us believe
that Prussia has been for fifty years the plaything of a
foreign Power, then it is quite permissible to examine
more closely whether the cargo of this little Baltic ship
is worth more than the false flag which it flies at its
mast-head.
The old proverb "Qui a compagnon, a maitre," is
especially true of political alliances. Hardenberg made a
mistake when he once said regarding Austria and Prussia,
"Leurs interets se confondent. " A community of
interests between independent Powers can only be a
conditional one, and limited by time; in every alliance
which lasts long, sometimes one of the contracting
parties and sometimes the other will consider itself over-
reached. Thus our State at the commencement of the
eighteenth century made enormous sacrifices to aid the
objects of the two sea-Powers, but did not finally gain
any further advantage from this long alliance than the
right of her head to use the kingly title, and some barren
laurels. The history also of the seventy-seven year-long
friendship between Prussia and Russia--the longest
alliance which has ever existed between two Great Powers
--presents many such phenomena. There were times
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? 272 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
when German patriots were fully justified in regarding
the friendship of Russia as oppressive--nay, as disgrace-
ful--just as on the other hand in recent years the great
majority of educated Russians firmly believed that
their country was injured by the Prussian alliance. But
when one sums up the results, and compares the relative
position in respect of power of the two States in 1802, when
their alliance was formed, with that in 1879, when it
was dissolved, it cannot be honestly asserted that Prussia
fared badly in this alliance.
The Russo-Prussian alliance was, as is well known,
entirely the personal work of the two Monarchs, and every-
one knows how much it was helped forward by the honest
and frank friendship which the King, Frederick William
III, displayed towards the versatile Czar. But these
personal feelings of the King never overpowered his
sound political intelligence and his strong sense of duty.
Every new advance of historical investigation only re-
confirms the fact that the King was altogether right,
when unseduced by the proposals of so many cleverer
men than himself; he was only willing to venture on the
attempt at rising against Napoleon in alliance with Russia.
Without the help of the Czar Alexander the capture of
Paris and the restoration of the old power of Prussia
would have been impossible. Anyone who doubts
this should peruse the recently published Memoirs of
Metternich regarding the real objects of the Vienna
Court at the time, i. e. , not the Memoirs themselves
with their intolerable self-glorification, but the appended
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? RUSSIAN AND PRUSSIAN ALLIANCE 273
authentic official documents, which, for the most part,
plainly contradict the vain self-eulogy of the author.
At the Congress of Vienna the two Courts still continued
to have a community of interests: the Czar was obliged
to support Prussia's demands for an indemnity, if he
wished to secure for himself the possession of Poland.
At the second Peace of Paris, on the other hand, the
interests of the two Powers came into violent collision.
The Czar had indeed favoured the restoration of the State
of Prussia, so that Russia should be rendered impregnable
through this rampart on its most vulnerable side, but he
as little wished the rise of a completely independent self-
sufficing German Power, as the Courts of Paris, Vienna, and
London did. Therefore the restoration of our old western
frontier, which Prussia demanded, was defeated by the
united opposition of all the Great Powers. All the Courts
without exception observed with anxiety what an unsus-
pected wealth of military power little Prussia had
developed during the War of Liberation; therefore they
all eagerly vied with each other in burying Prussia's
merits in oblivion. Whether one reads the military
dispatches of Wellington and his officers, the letters of
Schwarzenburg, Metternich, and Gentz, the semi-official
writings of the Russian military authors of that period,
it is difficult to say which of the three allies had most
quickly and completely forgotten the deeds of their
Prussian comrades-in-arms. Nevertheless, the alliance
with Russia and Austria was a necessity for Prussia,
for it still remained the most important task of our
s
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? 274 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
European policy to prevent another declaration of war
on the part of France, and the Great Alliance actually
achieved this, its first purpose. When Austria, in 1817,
rendered anxious by Alexander's grandiose schemes,
proposed to the King of Prussia a secret offensive and
defensive alliance, which in case of need might be also
directed against Russia, Hardenberg, who in those days
was thoroughly Austrian in his sympathies, was eager to
accept the proposal. But the King acted as a Prussian,
and absolutely refused, for only the union of all three
Eastern Powers could secure to his State the safety which
he especially needed after the immense sacrifices of the
war. Yet our Baltic anonymous author is quite wrong in
so representing things as though, in Frederick William
III's view, the alliance with Russia had been the only
possible one. The King knew, more thoroughly than his
present-day critic, the incalculable vicissitudes of inter-
national relations, and always kept cautiously in view
the possibility of a war against Russia. In 1818 he
surprised the Vienna Court by the declaration that he
wished also to include Posen, East and West Prussia, in
the German Confederation, because in case of a Russian
attack he wanted to be absolutely sure of the help of
Germany. Frederick William held obstinately to this
idea, although Hardenberg and Humboldt spoke against
it, and he did not give it up till Austria opposed it, and
thus every prospect of carrying the proposal through in
the Diet of the Confederation disappeared.
It is equally untrue that the King, as our anonymous
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? RUSSIAN AND PRUSSIAN ALLIANCE 275
author condescendingly expresses it, had modestly
renounced all wishes of bringing about a union of the
German States. His policy was peaceful, as it was obliged
to be; it shunned a decisive contest for which at that
time all the preliminary conditions were lacking, but as
soon as affairs in the new provinces were, to some extent,
settled, he began at once to work for the commercial and
political unifying of Germany. In this difficult task,
which in very truth laid the foundation for the new
German Empire, Prussia encountered at every step the
opposition of Austria, England, and France. Russia
alone among all the Great Powers preserved a friendly
neutrality. This one fact is sufficient to justify the
King in attaching great importance to Russia's friend-
ship.
This partiality of his, however, was by no means blind,
for nothing is more absurd than the author's assertion
that Prussia, by the mediation which brought about the
Peace of Adrianople, had merely done the Russian Court
an unselfish service. When the war of 1828 broke out
the King had openly told the Czar that he disapproved
of his declaration of war. The next year, at the com-
mencement of the second campaign, the European
situation assumed a very threatening aspect. The Vienna
Cabinet, alarmed in the highest degree by the progress
of the Russian arms, exerted itself in conjunction with
England to bring about a great alliance against Russia;
on the other hand, the King knew from his son-in-law's
mouth (the Czar's autograph note is still preserved in
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? 276 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
the Berlin State Archives) that there was a secret under-
standing between Nicholas and Charles X of France.
If matters were allowed to go their course there was
danger of a European war, which might oblige Prussia
to fight simultaneously against Russia and France, and
that about a question remote from our interests. In
order to avert this danger, and thus acting for the best
for his own country, the King resolved to act as a
mediator, and brought about a peace which, as matters
then were, was acceptable to both contending parties.
Prince Metternich was certainly alarmed at this success
of Prussian policy, and the reactionary party in Berlin,
Duke Karl of Mecklenburg, Ancillon, Schuckmann,
Knesebeck, who were all staunch adherents of the Vienna
diplomat, were alarmed; but the ablest men at the Court,
Bernstoff, Witzleven, Eichhorn, and above all the younger
Prince William, approved the King's well-considered pro-
ceeding. The resolve of the King was obviously connected
with the brilliant successes which his finance minister,
Motz, had won at the same time in the struggles of German
commercial policy. To a calm historical judgment the
years 1828 and 1829 appear as a fortunate turning-point
in the history of that uneventful period; it was the time
when Prussia again began to take up a completely
independent position in relation to the Austrian Court.
Among the Liberals, indeed, who had lately been admiring
the Greeks, and now were suddenly enthusiastic for the
Turks, there arose a supplementary party-legend, that
Prussia had only undertaken the office of mediator in
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? RUSSIAN AND PRUSSIAN ALLIANCE 277
order to save the Russian Army from certain destruction.
This discovery, however, is already contradicted by the
calendar. On August 19th Diebitch's army appeared
before Adrianople; and it was here that the victor's
embarrassments first began, and here, first, it was evident
how much his fighting power had been reduced by
sickness and the wear and tear of the campaign. But
Prussia had commenced acting as mediator as early as
July; when General Muffling received his instructions
the Russian Army was victorious everywhere.
Later on, also, the sober-mindedness of King Frederick
William never favoured the Czar's designs against the
Porte; he rather did his best to strengthen the resisting
power of the Ottoman Empire. The only partly effective
reform which the decaying Turkish State succeeded in
carrying through--the reconstitution of its Army--was,
as is well known, the work of Prussian officers. All the
reports which the embittered scandal-seeking opposition
party of that time circulated, regarding the influence of
Russia in the domestic concerns of Prussia, are mere
inventions. The King alone deserves blame or praise
for the course of domestic policy; his son-in-law never
refused to pay him filial reverence. Even the eccen-
tricities of the Berlin Court at that period, the love for
parades, the bestowing of military decorations, which
were stigmatized by the Liberals as " Russian manners,"
were simply due to the personal predilection of the King,
and it is difficult to decide whether Russia has learnt
more in this respect from Germany, or vice versu. During
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? 278 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
the anxious days of the July revolution the King ex-
hibited again, with all his modesty, an independent and
genuinely Prussian attitude. Frederick William resisted
the legitimist outbursts of his son-in-law, and hindered the
crusade against France which had been planned in
St. Petersburg. The next year he resisted with equal
common sense the foolish enthusiasm of the Liberals for
the Poles, and, by occupying the eastern frontier, assisted
in the suppression of that Polish insurrection, which was
as dangerous for our Posen as for Russian Poland. The
Baltic anonymous author conceals his vexation at this
intelligent policy of self-assertion behind the thoughtful
remark that we had, as is well known, "paid for ren-
dering this assistance with the valuable life of Gneisenau. "
Should we, then, perhaps enter in our ledger, on the
Russian debit side, the cholera which swept away our
heroes?
During the whole period from 1815 to 1840 I know only
of a single fact which can be alleged to give real occasion
to the reproach that the King, for the sake of Russia's
friendship, neglected an important interest of his State.
In constrast to the ruthless commercial policy of Russia,
Prussia showed a moderation which bordered on weak-
ness. But this matter, also, is not so simple as our
anonymous author thinks. He reproaches Russia with
the non-fulfilment of the Vienna Treaty of May 3rd, 1815,
and overlooks the fact that Prussia herself hardly wished
in earnest the carrying out of this agreement. It was soon
enough proved that Hardenberg had been over-reached
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? RUSSIAN AND PRUSSIAN ALLIANCE 279
at Vienna by Prince Czartoryski. The apparently
harmless agreements regarding free transit and free
trade with the products of all formerly Polish territories
imposed upon our State, through which the transit took
place, only duties, without conferring any corresponding
advantages. In order to carry out the treaty literally
Prussia would have had to divide its Polish provinces from
its other territories by a line of custom-houses. But the
Poles saw in the treaty a welcome means of carrying their
national propaganda into our Polish territories by settle-
ments of commercial agents. Thus it happened that
Prussia, after futile negotiations, proceeded on her own
account; and by the customs-law of 1818 placed her Polish
territories on precisely the same footing as her other
eastern provinces. After this necessary step Prussia
was no more in the position to appeal successfully to the
Vienna Treaty. And what means did we, in fact, possess
to compel the neighbouring State to give up a foolish
commercial policy, which was injurious for his own
country? Only the two-edged weapon of retaliatory
duties. The relation of the two countries assumed quite
a different aspect under Frederick William IV. It will
always be one of the most bitter memories of our history
how lacking in counsel and wavering in purpose the
clever new King proved, in contrast to the strong-willed
Czar, how cruelly he knew, by countless failures, the fact
that in the stern struggles for power of national life
character is always superior to talent, and how at last,
for truth will out, he actually feared those narrow minds.
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? 280 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
Here our author has good reason for sharp judgments,
and here also he gives us, along with some questionable
anecdotes, some reliable matter-of-fact information
regarding the history of the confusions of 1848-50. It is
quite true that the Czar Nicholas in the autumn of 1848
asked General Count Friedrich Dohna whether he would
not be the Prussian General Monk, and march with the
first army-corps on Berlin, to restore order there; the
whole Russian army would act as his reserve in case of
need. The memories of the count, printed in autograph,
confirm the correctness of this story, with the exception
of some trifling details. But even here the author cannot
rise to an unprejudiced historical estimate of the events
in question. He conceals the fact that not only Russia but
all the Great Powers were against the rise of a Prussian-
German Empire.
