The
movement
which had no
?
?
Treitschke - 1914 - His Doctrine of German Destiny
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 em-
phasis 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 im-
poverishment of our parliamentary life. By the
persistent endeavours of our brave travellers,
missionaries, and merchants, the first attempt at
German colonization has had the way prepared for
it, and 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 colonizing
experiments of the Electorate 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-
production, and sends yearly 200,000 of her chil-
dren abroad, the question of colonization is vital.
During the first years which followed the restora-
tion of the German Empire, well-meaning people
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? 206 Treitschke
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 emigra-
tion. 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 consciousness 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 north-eastern
districts from which the stream of emigration
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 "Eastwards! 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 pru-
dential counsel could restrain the crusaders from
their sacred enterprise, so little can considerations
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? German Colonization 207
of reason prevail against the vague longing for the
West. It is also easy to calculate that our popula-
tion, provided its growth continues as before, must,
in no distant future, rise to a hundred millions and
more; then their fatherland would be too narrow
for the Germans, even if Prussia resumed the
colonization of its eastern borderlands 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
unavoidable necessity, and it becomes a new duty
for the motherland 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 con-
trol of the lands we colonize. A State, whose
frontiers march with those of three great Powers,
and whose seaboard lies open towards a fourth,
will generally only be able to carry on great na-
tional 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 embarrassments 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 emigrants in North America are
completely lost to our State, and our nationality.
Set in the midst of a certainly less intellectual but
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? 208 Treitschke
commercially more energetic people, the nation-
ality 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 civilization,
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 civilization suffers loss every
time that 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 emigrants, at latest
in the third generation, become Americans. Al-
though in certain districts of Pennsylvania, 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 genera-
tion, yet the political views of the emigrants are
inevitably coloured by the ideas prevalent in their
new home; in commerce, they even become our
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? German Colonization 209
enemies, and, voluntarily or involuntarily, help
to injure German agriculture by a depressing
rivalry. The overpowering force of their new cir-
cumstances compels them to divest themselves of
their nationality, until perhaps at last nothing is
left them but a platonic regard for German litera-
ture.
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 nation-
ality. Such a territory has been already found in
the south of Brazil. There, unassisted and some-
times not even suspected by the motherland, German
nationality remains quite intact for three genera-
tions, and our rapidly increasing export trade with
Porto Allegre shows that the commerce of the old
home profits greatly by the loyalty of her emigrant
children. Other such territories will also be dis-
covered if our nation enters with prudence and
boldness on the new era now opening to the colo-
nizing energy of Europeans.
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 civilization, 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
14
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? 210 Treitschke
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 con-
ference and our understanding 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 conference 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.
The future will show whether the founding of
German agricultural colonies is possible in the
interior of Africa ; there will certainly be an oppor-
tunity for founding mercantile colonies which will
yield a rich return. After destiny has treated us
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? German Colonization 211
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 civilization 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 colonizing 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 inter-
ests 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 line of policy which
for centuries, almost unhindered by the other
Powers, aims directly at maritime supremacy.
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? Treitschke
[ow long has Germany in all seriousness believed
iis insular race, which among all the nations of
Europe is undoubtedly imbued with the most
marked national selfishness, whose greatness con-
sists precisely in its hard inaccessible one-sided-
ness, to be the magnanimous protector of the
freedom of all nationsTl Now at last our eyes
begin to be opened, aneHve recognize, 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 the modern European nations, for
the shocking vampirism 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
from the London press. The worst consequence,
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? German Colonization 213
however, of British commercial policy is the im-
mense and well- justified hatred which all nations
have gradually been conceiving towards England.
From the point of view of international law Eng-
land 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 commercial calculations;
at one time they alleged the necessity of maintain-
ing 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 founda-
tion 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 "Chau-
vinism" 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, too little read
here, claims as necessary acquisitions for " Greater
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? 216 Treitschke
atlantic world will have already learned 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.
I5th June, 1888.
FOR the second time within a hundred days the
nation stands at the bier of its Emperor.
After the most fortunate of all her rulers, she la-
ments the most unfortunate. It seems as if in the
course of the history of our Emperors, not only im-
perial 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
humanity, that the Emperor William 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
217
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? 218 Treitschke
takes its decisive bent, Prince Wilhelm could only
cherish the ambition, some day as 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 Clause-
witz, 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
handwriting Becker's song, "Our Rhine, free
German river, they ne'er shall take away," and
finished the last words, "Till the last brave Ger-
man 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 recognized
that the latter must grow in order to escape the
intolerable pressure 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,
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? Two Emperors 219
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
watching him. He looked upon his people in arms
and their awakened intelligence with the undi-
minished 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 admira-
tion for Poles and Frenchmen and hoped for per-
petual peace. In the conceit of their superfine
culture they could not comprehend what the
Prince's simple martial thoroughness and devo-
tion to duty signified for the future of the Father-
land.
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 monar-
chical constitution unaltered. "Prussia shall not
cease to be Prussia. " Word for word he foretold
to his brother 1 what he was hereafter destined to
experience when the controversy regarding the re-
organization of the Army arose. The Diet, he said,
1 Frederick William IV.
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? 22O Treitschke
would misuse 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 economy, 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 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 understood 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
undergone 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 measure, of the Frankfort Parlia-
ment; 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
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? Two Emperors 221
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
be won only on the battle-field.
Then the illness of King Frederick William IV
set 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 after-
wards, he succeeded to the throne. But once
again after some short days of jubilation and
vague expectancy he had again to experience 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 reconstitution 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 cari-
catured 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
complicated, that only the decisive force of mili-
tary successes could cut the tangled knot, and
establish the King's right.
And these successes came in those seven great
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? 222 Treitschke
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 statesmen had laboured through so
many generations, were solved. The last of the
North German marches was wrested from Scandi-
navian rule, and thereby the work of the Great
Elector was completed; the Battle of Koniggratz
realized the hope which had been shattered 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 Bour-
bons, at Versailles, surpassed all that the comba-
tants of 1813 had expected from the third Punic
War to which they looked forward. The Prussians
thankfully recognized that their constitution
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, voluntarily 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 forgotten the rivalries
of many centuries.
In all these strange courses of events, which
might have turned even a sober brain, King Wil-
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? Two Emperors 223
Ham 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 de-
manded without any hesitation 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 Ger-
man 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 at
once bring himself 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 Frank-
fort 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:
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? 224 Treitschke
"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
be able to witness only the first beginnings 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 con-
federate princes saw in the constitution of the
Empire only a fetter, but they soon all recognized
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 repre-
sentative 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 con-
fidant who advised him in everything. With a
sure knowledge of men he found out capable
ministers for his Council, and with the magna-
nimity of a great man he allowed those, whom he
had tested, a very free hand; but each, even the
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? Two Emperors
Chancellor, only within his own department.
He always remained the Emperor, and held all
the threads of government together in his own
hand.
j'^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 magnanimous 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 possessed 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. J Europe became accus-
tomed to revere in the 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 pro-
vinces which lay remote from the lines on which
his own mental development had proceeded, he
is
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? 226 Treitschke
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 ancestors
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 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 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 Germany could
not live without him, although for years we had
been obliged to expect the end.
What a contrast between the continually ascend-
ing course of life of the great father and the gloomy
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? Two Emperors 227
destiny of the noble son! Born as heir to the
throne, and joyfully 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 man-
hood, 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
infringements of formal rights which were caused
by the struggle about the constitution, nor to the
plan for incorporating Schleswig-Holstein with
Prussia. But he never consented, 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
Commander-in-Chief, which have secured for
him for ever his place in German history. He
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? 228 Treitschke
helped towards winning the victory of Koniggratz
by the bold attacking skirmishes of his Silesian
Army and made it decisive by his attack on
Chlum. 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 Swabian 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 victo-
ries, "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 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, firm-
ness, and friendliness, that he won almost more
affection in the South than in his Northern home.
The South Germans saw him fully occupied and
exerting all his energies; at home he only seldom
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? Two Emperors 229
appeared in public life. He was the victim of his
father's extraordinary greatness, and it was that
which constituted his tragic destiny. He passed in
a life of retirement 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 pater-
nal 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 mon-
archs of history, and all the Hohenzollerns with
the solitary exception of King Frederick William
III, he allowed the heir to the throne no partici-
pation in affairs of State.
Only once, after the last attempt on the Em-
peror's life, was the Crown Prince commissioned
to represent his father. It was an eventful time;
the Berlin Congress had just assembled, the nego-
tiations with the Roman Curia had hardly begun,
and the law regarding Socialists was on the point
of being passed. The Crown Prince carried out
all his difficult tasks with masterly discretion,
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? 230 Treitschke
and Germany should never forget how he, con-
trary doubtless to the dictates of his own mild
heart, caused the executioner's axe to fall on the
neck of the Emperor's assailant. By this brave
act he re-enforced the half -obsolete death-punish-
ment and gave it the weight which it should have
in every properly ordered State.
On the Emperor's recovery the Crown Prince
withdrew to the quiet life of his home, and the
spirit of criticism which pervades the Courts of
all heirs-apparent could not fail to find expression
now and then, but it did so always in a modest
and respectful way. His exertions on behalf of
art were many and fruitful; without him the
Hermes of Praxiteles would not have been awak-
ened to new life, and the Berlin Technological
Museum would not have been completed in such
classical purity of form. He was the first in the
succession of the Prussian heirs to the throne who
had received a University education and he was
proud to wear the purple mantle of the Rector
of the old Albertina University. In his long life
of retirement, however, the Crown Prince some-
times lost touch with the powerful progressive
movements of the time and could not fully follow
the new ideas which were in vogue. He thought
to arrest with a few words of angry censure the
anti-semitic movements, the sole cause of which
was the over-weening presumption of the Jews,
and he warned the students of Konigsberg against
the dangers of Chauvinism, a sentiment which
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? Two Emperors 231
after two hundred years of cosmopolitanism, is
as unfamiliar to the Germans as its foreign
name.
But the course of human things looks different
from a throne than when viewed from below. The
nation, knowing the well-beloved Prince as they
did, hoped that, as in the case of his father, his
character would develop with his life-tasks and
that he would show as much energy as a sovereign
as he had displayed when representing his father.
Then the catastrophe overtook him. Three Ger-
man physicians Professors Gerhardt, von Berg-
mann, and Tobold recognized at once the char-
acter of the disease, and spoke the truth fearlessly
as we are accustomed to expect from German men
of science. A cure was still possible and even
probable. But the resolve which would have
saved the patient was lacking, and who can
venture to utter a word of blame, since al-
most every layman in similar circumstances
would have made a similar choice. Then the
patient was handed over to an English physi-
cian, who at once, by the unparalleled false-
hood of his reports, cast a stain on the good
name of our ancient and honourable Prussia.
With growing anxiety the Germans began to
surmise that this precious life was in bad hands.
The result was more tragic than their worst fears.
When the Emperor William closed his eyes, a
dying Emperor came up to succeed to the lofty
inheritance.
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? 232 Treitschke
The greatness of the monarchy, and its superi-
ority to all republican forms of government rests
essentially on the well-assured and long duration
of the princely office. Its power is crippled when
this assurance is lacking. The reign of the dying
Emperor could only be a sad episode in the history
of the Fatherland, sad on account of the inex-
pressible sufferings of the noble patient, sad on
account of the deceitful proceedings of the English
doctor and his dirty journalistic accomplices, and
sad on account of the impudence of the German
Liberal party who obtruded themselves eagerly
on the Emperor as though he belonged to them,
and certainly gained one success, the fall of the
Minister von Puttkamer. The monarchical par-
ties on the other hand both by a feeling of loyalty
and the prospect of the approaching end were
compelled to preserve comparative silence. At
such times of testing, all the heart-secrets of parties
are revealed. Those who did not know it before
were now obliged to recognize what sycophancy
lurks beneath the banner of free thought, and
how everyone who thought for himself would be
tyrannized over if this party ever came into power.
Fortunately for us, in the whole Empire they have
behind them only the majority of Berlin people,
some learned men who have gone astray in politics,
the mercantile communities of some discontented
trading towns, and the certainly considerable
power of international Judaism. But let us banish
these dark pictures which history has long left
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? Two Emperors 233
behind. Let us hold fast in reverent recollection
that which lends moral consecration to the tragic
reign of the Emperor Frederick. With a religious
patience, whose greatness only a few of the initi-
ated can thoroughly understand, with an heroic
strength which outshines all the glories of his
victories on the battlefield, he bore the tortures
of his disease, and bereft of speech he still pre-
served in the face of death the old fidelity to duty
of the Hohenzollerns and his warm enthusiasm
for all the unchanging ideals of humanity. In a
way worthy of his father he departed to ever-
lasting peace, and so long as German hearts beat,
they will remember the royal sufferer who once
appeared to us the happiest and most joyful of
the Germans and now was doomed to end his life
in so much suffering.
In those happy days when the picture of the
"Four Kings" 1 hung in all German shop-windows,
many a one said to himself in sorrowful foreboding
that "it was too great good-fortune. " Now the
equalizing justice of Providence has caused the
abundance of joy to be followed by such an excess
of grief as seems too hard for a monarchic people.
Of the four Kings two are no more.
years, without any pressure from authority, there
has risen from the people themselves a spontaneous
demand for German colonies with as much em-
phasis 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 im-
poverishment of our parliamentary life. By the
persistent endeavours of our brave travellers,
missionaries, and merchants, the first attempt at
German colonization has had the way prepared for
it, and 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 colonizing
experiments of the Electorate 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-
production, and sends yearly 200,000 of her chil-
dren abroad, the question of colonization is vital.
During the first years which followed the restora-
tion of the German Empire, well-meaning people
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? 206 Treitschke
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 emigra-
tion. 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 consciousness 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 north-eastern
districts from which the stream of emigration
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 "Eastwards! 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 pru-
dential counsel could restrain the crusaders from
their sacred enterprise, so little can considerations
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? German Colonization 207
of reason prevail against the vague longing for the
West. It is also easy to calculate that our popula-
tion, provided its growth continues as before, must,
in no distant future, rise to a hundred millions and
more; then their fatherland would be too narrow
for the Germans, even if Prussia resumed the
colonization of its eastern borderlands 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
unavoidable necessity, and it becomes a new duty
for the motherland 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 con-
trol of the lands we colonize. A State, whose
frontiers march with those of three great Powers,
and whose seaboard lies open towards a fourth,
will generally only be able to carry on great na-
tional 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 embarrassments 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 emigrants in North America are
completely lost to our State, and our nationality.
Set in the midst of a certainly less intellectual but
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? 208 Treitschke
commercially more energetic people, the nation-
ality 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 civilization,
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 civilization suffers loss every
time that 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 emigrants, at latest
in the third generation, become Americans. Al-
though in certain districts of Pennsylvania, 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 genera-
tion, yet the political views of the emigrants are
inevitably coloured by the ideas prevalent in their
new home; in commerce, they even become our
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? German Colonization 209
enemies, and, voluntarily or involuntarily, help
to injure German agriculture by a depressing
rivalry. The overpowering force of their new cir-
cumstances compels them to divest themselves of
their nationality, until perhaps at last nothing is
left them but a platonic regard for German litera-
ture.
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 nation-
ality. Such a territory has been already found in
the south of Brazil. There, unassisted and some-
times not even suspected by the motherland, German
nationality remains quite intact for three genera-
tions, and our rapidly increasing export trade with
Porto Allegre shows that the commerce of the old
home profits greatly by the loyalty of her emigrant
children. Other such territories will also be dis-
covered if our nation enters with prudence and
boldness on the new era now opening to the colo-
nizing energy of Europeans.
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 civilization, 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
14
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? 210 Treitschke
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 con-
ference and our understanding 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 conference 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.
The future will show whether the founding of
German agricultural colonies is possible in the
interior of Africa ; there will certainly be an oppor-
tunity for founding mercantile colonies which will
yield a rich return. After destiny has treated us
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? German Colonization 211
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 civilization 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 colonizing 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 inter-
ests 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 line of policy which
for centuries, almost unhindered by the other
Powers, aims directly at maritime supremacy.
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? Treitschke
[ow long has Germany in all seriousness believed
iis insular race, which among all the nations of
Europe is undoubtedly imbued with the most
marked national selfishness, whose greatness con-
sists precisely in its hard inaccessible one-sided-
ness, to be the magnanimous protector of the
freedom of all nationsTl Now at last our eyes
begin to be opened, aneHve recognize, 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 the modern European nations, for
the shocking vampirism 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
from the London press. The worst consequence,
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? German Colonization 213
however, of British commercial policy is the im-
mense and well- justified hatred which all nations
have gradually been conceiving towards England.
From the point of view of international law Eng-
land 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 commercial calculations;
at one time they alleged the necessity of maintain-
ing 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 founda-
tion 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 "Chau-
vinism" 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, too little read
here, claims as necessary acquisitions for " Greater
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? 216 Treitschke
atlantic world will have already learned 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.
I5th June, 1888.
FOR the second time within a hundred days the
nation stands at the bier of its Emperor.
After the most fortunate of all her rulers, she la-
ments the most unfortunate. It seems as if in the
course of the history of our Emperors, not only im-
perial 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
humanity, that the Emperor William 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
217
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? 218 Treitschke
takes its decisive bent, Prince Wilhelm could only
cherish the ambition, some day as 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 Clause-
witz, 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
handwriting Becker's song, "Our Rhine, free
German river, they ne'er shall take away," and
finished the last words, "Till the last brave Ger-
man 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 recognized
that the latter must grow in order to escape the
intolerable pressure 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,
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? Two Emperors 219
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
watching him. He looked upon his people in arms
and their awakened intelligence with the undi-
minished 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 admira-
tion for Poles and Frenchmen and hoped for per-
petual peace. In the conceit of their superfine
culture they could not comprehend what the
Prince's simple martial thoroughness and devo-
tion to duty signified for the future of the Father-
land.
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 monar-
chical constitution unaltered. "Prussia shall not
cease to be Prussia. " Word for word he foretold
to his brother 1 what he was hereafter destined to
experience when the controversy regarding the re-
organization of the Army arose. The Diet, he said,
1 Frederick William IV.
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? 22O Treitschke
would misuse 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 economy, 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 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 understood 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
undergone 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 measure, of the Frankfort Parlia-
ment; 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
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? Two Emperors 221
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
be won only on the battle-field.
Then the illness of King Frederick William IV
set 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 after-
wards, he succeeded to the throne. But once
again after some short days of jubilation and
vague expectancy he had again to experience 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 reconstitution 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 cari-
catured 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
complicated, that only the decisive force of mili-
tary successes could cut the tangled knot, and
establish the King's right.
And these successes came in those seven great
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? 222 Treitschke
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 statesmen had laboured through so
many generations, were solved. The last of the
North German marches was wrested from Scandi-
navian rule, and thereby the work of the Great
Elector was completed; the Battle of Koniggratz
realized the hope which had been shattered 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 Bour-
bons, at Versailles, surpassed all that the comba-
tants of 1813 had expected from the third Punic
War to which they looked forward. The Prussians
thankfully recognized that their constitution
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, voluntarily 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 forgotten the rivalries
of many centuries.
In all these strange courses of events, which
might have turned even a sober brain, King Wil-
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? Two Emperors 223
Ham 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 de-
manded without any hesitation 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 Ger-
man 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 at
once bring himself 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 Frank-
fort 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:
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? 224 Treitschke
"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
be able to witness only the first beginnings 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 con-
federate princes saw in the constitution of the
Empire only a fetter, but they soon all recognized
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 repre-
sentative 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 con-
fidant who advised him in everything. With a
sure knowledge of men he found out capable
ministers for his Council, and with the magna-
nimity of a great man he allowed those, whom he
had tested, a very free hand; but each, even the
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? Two Emperors
Chancellor, only within his own department.
He always remained the Emperor, and held all
the threads of government together in his own
hand.
j'^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 magnanimous 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 possessed 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. J Europe became accus-
tomed to revere in the 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 pro-
vinces which lay remote from the lines on which
his own mental development had proceeded, he
is
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? 226 Treitschke
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 ancestors
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 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 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 Germany could
not live without him, although for years we had
been obliged to expect the end.
What a contrast between the continually ascend-
ing course of life of the great father and the gloomy
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? Two Emperors 227
destiny of the noble son! Born as heir to the
throne, and joyfully 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 man-
hood, 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
infringements of formal rights which were caused
by the struggle about the constitution, nor to the
plan for incorporating Schleswig-Holstein with
Prussia. But he never consented, 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
Commander-in-Chief, which have secured for
him for ever his place in German history. He
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? 228 Treitschke
helped towards winning the victory of Koniggratz
by the bold attacking skirmishes of his Silesian
Army and made it decisive by his attack on
Chlum. 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 Swabian 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 victo-
ries, "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 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, firm-
ness, and friendliness, that he won almost more
affection in the South than in his Northern home.
The South Germans saw him fully occupied and
exerting all his energies; at home he only seldom
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? Two Emperors 229
appeared in public life. He was the victim of his
father's extraordinary greatness, and it was that
which constituted his tragic destiny. He passed in
a life of retirement 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 pater-
nal 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 mon-
archs of history, and all the Hohenzollerns with
the solitary exception of King Frederick William
III, he allowed the heir to the throne no partici-
pation in affairs of State.
Only once, after the last attempt on the Em-
peror's life, was the Crown Prince commissioned
to represent his father. It was an eventful time;
the Berlin Congress had just assembled, the nego-
tiations with the Roman Curia had hardly begun,
and the law regarding Socialists was on the point
of being passed. The Crown Prince carried out
all his difficult tasks with masterly discretion,
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? 230 Treitschke
and Germany should never forget how he, con-
trary doubtless to the dictates of his own mild
heart, caused the executioner's axe to fall on the
neck of the Emperor's assailant. By this brave
act he re-enforced the half -obsolete death-punish-
ment and gave it the weight which it should have
in every properly ordered State.
On the Emperor's recovery the Crown Prince
withdrew to the quiet life of his home, and the
spirit of criticism which pervades the Courts of
all heirs-apparent could not fail to find expression
now and then, but it did so always in a modest
and respectful way. His exertions on behalf of
art were many and fruitful; without him the
Hermes of Praxiteles would not have been awak-
ened to new life, and the Berlin Technological
Museum would not have been completed in such
classical purity of form. He was the first in the
succession of the Prussian heirs to the throne who
had received a University education and he was
proud to wear the purple mantle of the Rector
of the old Albertina University. In his long life
of retirement, however, the Crown Prince some-
times lost touch with the powerful progressive
movements of the time and could not fully follow
the new ideas which were in vogue. He thought
to arrest with a few words of angry censure the
anti-semitic movements, the sole cause of which
was the over-weening presumption of the Jews,
and he warned the students of Konigsberg against
the dangers of Chauvinism, a sentiment which
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? Two Emperors 231
after two hundred years of cosmopolitanism, is
as unfamiliar to the Germans as its foreign
name.
But the course of human things looks different
from a throne than when viewed from below. The
nation, knowing the well-beloved Prince as they
did, hoped that, as in the case of his father, his
character would develop with his life-tasks and
that he would show as much energy as a sovereign
as he had displayed when representing his father.
Then the catastrophe overtook him. Three Ger-
man physicians Professors Gerhardt, von Berg-
mann, and Tobold recognized at once the char-
acter of the disease, and spoke the truth fearlessly
as we are accustomed to expect from German men
of science. A cure was still possible and even
probable. But the resolve which would have
saved the patient was lacking, and who can
venture to utter a word of blame, since al-
most every layman in similar circumstances
would have made a similar choice. Then the
patient was handed over to an English physi-
cian, who at once, by the unparalleled false-
hood of his reports, cast a stain on the good
name of our ancient and honourable Prussia.
With growing anxiety the Germans began to
surmise that this precious life was in bad hands.
The result was more tragic than their worst fears.
When the Emperor William closed his eyes, a
dying Emperor came up to succeed to the lofty
inheritance.
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? 232 Treitschke
The greatness of the monarchy, and its superi-
ority to all republican forms of government rests
essentially on the well-assured and long duration
of the princely office. Its power is crippled when
this assurance is lacking. The reign of the dying
Emperor could only be a sad episode in the history
of the Fatherland, sad on account of the inex-
pressible sufferings of the noble patient, sad on
account of the deceitful proceedings of the English
doctor and his dirty journalistic accomplices, and
sad on account of the impudence of the German
Liberal party who obtruded themselves eagerly
on the Emperor as though he belonged to them,
and certainly gained one success, the fall of the
Minister von Puttkamer. The monarchical par-
ties on the other hand both by a feeling of loyalty
and the prospect of the approaching end were
compelled to preserve comparative silence. At
such times of testing, all the heart-secrets of parties
are revealed. Those who did not know it before
were now obliged to recognize what sycophancy
lurks beneath the banner of free thought, and
how everyone who thought for himself would be
tyrannized over if this party ever came into power.
Fortunately for us, in the whole Empire they have
behind them only the majority of Berlin people,
some learned men who have gone astray in politics,
the mercantile communities of some discontented
trading towns, and the certainly considerable
power of international Judaism. But let us banish
these dark pictures which history has long left
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? Two Emperors 233
behind. Let us hold fast in reverent recollection
that which lends moral consecration to the tragic
reign of the Emperor Frederick. With a religious
patience, whose greatness only a few of the initi-
ated can thoroughly understand, with an heroic
strength which outshines all the glories of his
victories on the battlefield, he bore the tortures
of his disease, and bereft of speech he still pre-
served in the face of death the old fidelity to duty
of the Hohenzollerns and his warm enthusiasm
for all the unchanging ideals of humanity. In a
way worthy of his father he departed to ever-
lasting peace, and so long as German hearts beat,
they will remember the royal sufferer who once
appeared to us the happiest and most joyful of
the Germans and now was doomed to end his life
in so much suffering.
In those happy days when the picture of the
"Four Kings" 1 hung in all German shop-windows,
many a one said to himself in sorrowful foreboding
that "it was too great good-fortune. " Now the
equalizing justice of Providence has caused the
abundance of joy to be followed by such an excess
of grief as seems too hard for a monarchic people.
Of the four Kings two are no more.
