All
Professors
of
Theology are clerks in holy orders, and so utterly depen-
dent upon their superiors that only recently the arch-
bishop asked the brave old Senator Maier to produce the
books of his pupils.
Theology are clerks in holy orders, and so utterly depen-
dent upon their superiors that only recently the arch-
bishop asked the brave old Senator Maier to produce the
books of his pupils.
Treitschke - 1914 - Life and Works
net/2027/mdp.
39015030043338 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www.
hathitrust.
org/access_use#pd-us-google
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? . . . ? ? .
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? iTSCHKE
AND WORKS
. :into F. nglhh
'he first ttme
t
. n-f *
>? i . ? . . t? MAM WICK LANK, L. C
- . <! ? . MUSEUM STRttT. W C.
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? TREITSCHKE
HIS LIFE AND WORKS
Translated into English
for the first time
LONDON
JARROLD * SONS. WARWICK LANE, E. C.
ALLEN fr UNWIN, LTD. , MUSEUM STREET, W. C.
19M.
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? CONTENTS.
'man
76781
PAGE
9
THE LIFE OF TREITSCHKE -
THE ARMY ------ 139
INTERNATIONAL LAW - 158
FIRST ATTEMPTS AT GERMAN COLONISATION - I93
TWO EMPERORS ----- 213
GERMANY AND THE NEUTRAL STATES - - 230
AUSTRIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE - - 242
THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN RUSSIA AND PRUSSIA - 268
FREEDOM - ----- 292
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? THE LIFE OF TREITSCHKE.
By Adolf Hausrath.
I.
There are some names which we instinctively connect
with eternal youth. Those of Achilles and Young
Siegfreid we cannot conceive otherwise than as belonging
to youth itself. If amongst the more recent ones we
count Hoelty, Theodore Koerner, and Novalis the
divine youth, this is due to death having overtaken them
while yet young in years. But if involuntarily we also
include Heinrich von Treitschke, the reason for it lies
not in the age attained by him but in his unfading fresh-
ness. Treitschke died at the age of sixty-two, older or
nearly of the same age as his teachers--Hausser, Mathy,
and Gervinus, all of whom we invariably regard as
venerable old men. And yet he seemed to us like Young
Siegfreid with his never-ageing, gay temperament, his
apparently inexhaustible virility. To his students he
seemed new at every half term, and living amongst young
people he remained young with them. Hopeful of the
future and possessed of a fighting spirit, he retained within
him the joy and sunshine of eternal youth. Thus Death,
when he came, appeared not as an inexorable gleaner
9
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? io TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
gathering the withered blades in the barn of his Lord,
but rather as a negligent servant destroying in senseless
fashion a rare plant which might yet have yielded much
delicious fruit.
We cannot, therefore, call it a happy inspiration which
prompted the representation of Treitschke as a robed
figure in the statue about to be erected in the University
in Berlin.
It is, of course, not the figure of a Privy Councillor,
who has assumed some resemblance with Gambetta, but
that of a tall, distinguished-looking, strong youth, with
elastic muscles, whose every movement attests health
and virility, a figure such as students and citizens were
wont to see in Leipzig and Heidelberg, and which would
have served an artist as the happiest design for monu-
mental glorification. But to represent the opponent of
all academic red-tapeism in robe is analagous with
Hermann Grimm's proposal to portray the first Chan-
cellor of the German Empire as Napoleon in the Court
of the Brera, that is to say, in the full nude. Neverthe-
less, we greet with joy the high-spirited decision to
honour Treitschke by a statue. In the same way as
the name of Hutten will be connected with the revolt
against the Pope, and the name of Koerner with that *&
against Napoleon, so the name of Treitschke will always
be connected with the redemption of our people from
the disgrace of the times of Confederation to the mag-
nificence of 1870.
It was in August, 1863, that I heard the name of
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? THE LIFE OF TREITSCHKE n
Treitschke for the first time, when, before an innumerable
audience, he spoke at the Gymnastic Tournament in
Leipzig in commemoration of the Battle of Leipzig. A
youth of twenty-nine, a private University lecturer, and
the son of a highly-placed officer related to Saxon nobility,
he proclaimed with resounding force what in his family
circle was considered demagogical machination and
enmity against illustrious personages, and as such was
generally tabooed. But the principal idea underlying
his argument--that what a people aspires to it will
infallibly attain--found a respondent chord in many
a breast; and I, like many another who read the verbatim
report of the speech in the South German Journal Braters,
resolved to read in future everything put into print by
this man.
We were overjoyed when, in the autumn of 1863, the
Government of Baden appointed Treitschke as Uni-
versity Deputy Professor for Political Science. It was
so certain that at the same time he would give historic
lectures that, on hearing of Treitschke's appointment,
Wegele of WMrzburg--who had already accepted the
position of Professor of History at Freiburg--immediately
asked to be released from his engagement, as henceforth
he could no longer rely on securing pupils. The new
arrival was pleased with his first impressions of Baden.
From his room he overlooked green gardens stretching
towards the River Munster. In the University he
gave lectures on politics and on the Encyclopaedia of
Political Science; but before a much larger audience
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? 12 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
he spoke in the Auditory of Anatomy, and later on in
the Aula on German History, the History of Reforma-
tion, and similar subjects, creating a sensation not only
at the University but also in Society. It was his phe-
nomenal eloquence--not North-German verbosity, but
fertility of thought surging with genius and flowing like
an inexhaustible fountain--which drew his audience at
public lectures and festivities. His success with students
gave him less cause for gratification. Possibly Science,
on which he lectured for practically the first time, offered
inadequate facilities for the development of his best
faculties, but the principal fault seems to have rested
with his audience. "The students," he wrote to Freytag,
"are very childish, and, as usual in Universities, suffer
from drowsy drunkenness. " It can be imagined how
this failure affected and depressed the eager young
professor, for whose subsistence the Leipzig students
had sent a deputation to Dresden, and whom they had
honoured on his departure with a torchlight procession.
To me he said: "The Freiburg students are lazy--
abominably lazy. " More than once he had been com-
pelled to write to truant-playing pupils asking whether
they intended hearing lectures at all in future, since he
could well employ his time to better advantage. It was
only natural that these experiences biassed his opinion
of the whole population, and he judged the fathers'
qualities by those of their dissolute sons. Society also
left him discontented, and to his father he wrote, "I do
not find it easy to adjust myself to the social conditions
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? THE LIFE OF TREITSCHKE 13
of this small hole; anybody with as little talent for
gossiping as I possess suffers from an ignorance of
individual peculiarities, and stumbles at every moment. "
The Freiburg nobility being not only strictly Catholic,
but also thoroughly Austrian, he, with his outspoken
Prussian tendencies and attacks against the priests,
stirred up a good deal of unrest. Among his colleagues,
he associated principally with Mangold, the private
lecturer von Weech, the lawyer Schmidt, and the
University steward Frey, all of whom were of Prussian
descent. The letter in which he informs his godfather,
Gutschmid, that he had again been asked to act as god-
father is, from the point of view of phraseology, truly
"Treitschkean ": "A few weeks ago I again acted as
godfather, to a daughter of M. , and on this occasion
silently implored the immortals that the child might
turn out better than her uncommonly good-for-nothing
brothers. For my godchild in Kiel this prayer was
superfluous; in my presence at least, your Crown Prince
always behaved as an educated child of educated parents. "
Through his Bonn relatives, the two Nokk, he became
acquainted with Freiherr von Bodman, the father-in-law
of Wilhelm Nokk. Especially welcome was he at the
house of von Woringen, the Doctor of Law, where he
saw a good deal of Emma von Bodman, who subsequently
became his wife, and at that of von Hillern, the Superior
Court Judge, whose wife, the daughter of Charlotte
Birchpfeiffer, consulted him in regard to her poetical
creations. Already, after the first half term, the deaf
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? 14 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
young professor was the most discussed person in local
Society, and he himself boasted to my wife that for his
benefit several Freiburg ladies learned the deaf and
dumb language. They waxed enthusiastic over the
young and handsome scholar, and in their admiration
for him sent for his poems, only to be subsequently
shocked, like Psyche before Cupid. Yet it is charac-
teristic that he started his literary career with historic
ballads which he called " Patriotic Poems" (1856), and
"Studies " (1857).
The political life of the Badenese, which at that time
principally turned upon the educational question, was
not to his taste. The Ultramontanes he simply found
coarse and stupid, and he writes: "It is empty talk to
speak of doctrinal freedom and freedom to learn in a
University with a Catholic faculty.
All Professors of
Theology are clerks in holy orders, and so utterly depen-
dent upon their superiors that only recently the arch-
bishop asked the brave old Senator Maier to produce the
books of his pupils. Furthermore, the students of
Theology are locked in a convent, and true to old Jesuitic
tradition are watched step by step by mutual secret
control. That is what is called academic liberty. " But
here, also, is his opinion regarding others: "The grand-
ducal Badenese liberalism is nothing but cheap char-
latanism without real vigour "; nay, he calls " particularist
liberalism" the most contemptible of all parties which,
however, unfortunately, would play an important part
in the near future. "Look for instance at this National
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? THE LIFE OF TREITSCHKE 15
Coalition. Has ever a great nation seen such a monster? "
In his opinion it sides with the Imperial Constitution of
1849, although the leaders themselves are convinced of
their inability to carry through the programme, and at
the same time the future political configuration of Ger-
many is declared to be an open question, consequently
it has on the whole no programme at all.
Soon I was destined to make the personal acquaint-
ance of the much-admired and much-criticized one. It
was at an "At Home" at Mathy's. Scarcely had I
entered the vestibule when I heard a very loud voice
in the drawing-room slowly emphasizing every syllable
in the style of a State Councillor. "This is Treitschke, of
Freiburg," I said immediately, and it was really he. The
Freiburg ladies had by no means exaggerated his hand-
some appearance. A tall, broad-shouldered figure, dark
hair and dark complexion, dark, pensive eyes, now dreamy,
now vividly glistening--unmistakably Slav. With his
black hair, the heavy moustache, which he still wore at
that time, and his vivid gesticulations, he could not
conceal his Slav origin. He looked like a Polish noble-
man, and his knightly frame reminded one of a Hussite,
a Ziska for instance. Later, he told me of his exiled
ancestors--Czech Protestants of the name of Trschky,
referred to by Schiller in "Wallenstein," although the
editions mostly spoke of Terzky's Regiments. At about
midnight, when wending our way through the silent
town, a policeman approached us, intending to warn
the loud, strange gentleman to moderate his voice.
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? 16 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
The arm of the law, however, quickly retired when, in
company of the disturber of the peace, he recognised
Herr von Roggenbach and several Ministerial Secretaries.
As Treitschke at that time made use of the Karlsruhe
Archives, he from time to time came to Karlsruhe,
where he sought the society of Mathy, Nokk, von Weech,
and Baumgarten. Under Mathy's influence a gradual
change took place in him, which transmitted itself to all
of us. At first he was an eager adherent of Augusten-
burg, and the first money received for his lectures in
Freiburg he invested in the Ducal Loan. Through
Freytag he had likewise recommended his friend, von
Weech, to the Duke of Augustenburg with a view to his
securing an appointment in Kiel for publicistic pur-
poses. After that his attitude totally changed. When
he realised that Bismarck earnestly aspired gaining for
Prussia the dominating power in the East and North
Sea, he frankly declared the strengthening of Prussia
to be the supreme national duty. Hausser intended to
pin him down with his former views by citing Treitschke's
first Augustenburg dissertations in the "Review of the
Prussian Annuals" of 1864. Treitschke, however, by
way of reply, in an essay on the solution of the Schleswig-
Holstein question, proved that the compliance of the
Augustenburg demands was detrimental to Germany's
welfare. Again he had spoken the decisive word, and
all writers of our circle now advocated annexation. We
were nicknamed "Mamalukes and Renegades" by our
Heidelberg colleague Pickford, then editor of the
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? THE LIFE OF TREITSCHKE 17
Konstanzer Zeitung. Treitschke was now as violently
against as formerly for the Duke. Now he sees the latter
as "the miserable pretender, whom he despises from the
bottom of his heart. Not only has he not come to the
noble decision which Germany is entitled to expect from
him, but by his unscrupulous demagogical agitations he
has utterly unsettled his country. " In Karlsruhe, the
quiet town of officials, such a political point of view was
perhaps admissible; not so, however, in the high country
filled with animosity against Prussia. Every child was
convinced that Prussia now, as formerly, intended hand-
ing over the dukedoms to the King of the Danes. Junker
Voland, who had persuaded the King to break with
the Constitution, was, of course, bribed long ago by
England and Russia to again restore the dukedoms to
Danish supremacy.
Everything that had happened after the short, hopeful
glimpse of Prussia's new era was an object of sarcasm
for the South German population. When a boy talked
very stupidly, his comrades would call out: "Go to
Konigsberg and have yourself crowned "; and at Mass
the beggar-women, pointing with their sticks to the
Prince's image, shrieked out mocking insults.
This coarseness of the street and the tone of the
Freiburg democratic journals against Prussia filled the
politician, so inconsiderate against his own Saxony,
with immense indignation. In a letter to Freytag he
finds the Badenese "quite steeped in the quagmire of
phrases and foul language. Examining these parties,
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? 18 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
the moral value of both sides seems identical; the mean-
ingless mendacity of our average liberalism fills me with
deep disgust. How long shall we labour ere we again
are able to speak of German faith? If I am now to
choose between the two parties, I select that of Bismarck,
since he struggles for Prussian power for our legitimate
position on the North and East Sea. " He considered
as impossible the peaceful conversion of the Badenese
to Prussia. "Amid this abominable South German
particularism it has become perfectly evident to me that
our fate will clearly be decided by conquest. Six years
of my life I have spent in the South, and here I have
gained the sad conviction that even with a Cabinet com-
posed of men of the type of Stein and Humboldt, the
hatred and jealousy of the South Germans against
Prussia would not diminish. I am longing for the North,
to which I belong with all my heart, and where also our
fate will be decided. " His public lectures were very
largely frequented. "But," he says, "the Philistines
are prejudiced when entering the Aula, and are firmly
determined to consider as untrue every word I say about
Prussia. The opinion is prevalent that the South Ger-
mans are the most modest of our people. I say they are
the most arrogant; to a man they consider themselves
the real Germans, and the North a country half of which
is still steeped in barbarity, this quite apart from a
dissolute braggadocio the mere thought of which fills me
with disgust. Believe me, only the trusty sword of the
conqueror can weld together these countries with the
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? THE LIFE OF TREITSCHKE 19
North. " Later on, when I conversed with him every
evening at a round table in the Heidelberg Museum, I
realised the reasons for his lack of understanding of our
people. We seemed to him lukewarm, because we did
not strike the national chord with the power which he
expected of a good German. But why should we do
that? In the Saxony of Heir von Beust, and in Prussia's
time of reaction, national ideas were tabooed, and that
is why the patriots felt compelled to bear witness in
season and out of season. But we lived in a free country,
under a Prince harbouring German sentiments, and
where it would have been an easy matter to feign pat-
riotism quite apart from the fact that we South Germans
do not care discussing our sentiments. I told him that
in the same way as I, despite my warmest feelings for
my family, could not bring myself to proclaim pompously
the excellence of my wife and child, so was I reluctant
to publicly praise my Fatherland; and subsequently I
reminded him of the Yankee who declared that im-
mediately a man spoke to him of patriotism he knew him
to be a rascal. In regard to our sympathy for France,
which he reviled as the Rhine Confederation sentimen-
tality, it would be difficult for him to place himself in
our position. During the last century we had received
nothing but kindness from France, namely, deliverance
from the Palatine Bavarian regime, from Jesuits and
Lazarists, from episcopal and Junker rule, from guild
restrictions and compulsory service: all this and the
very existence of the country which we enjoyed we
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? 20 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
owed directly or indirectly to Napoleon and the Code
Napoleon, from which the hatred of the French arose.
This, it is true, I found quite natural, considering Napoleon
weakened Prussia and abused Saxony. He was in-
dignant when he noticed in corridors of inns and even in
parlours the small lithographs which, under the First
Empire, were poured out in thousands from Paris even
across the States of the Rhine Convention, representing
the Victor of Marengo, the sun of Austerlitz, Napoleon's
Battle at the Pyramids, etc. , and which, owing to the
conservative spirit of the peasantry, decorated the walls
until moths, rust, and wood-worms gradually brought
about their destruction. He even took offence at the
attitude displayed by Frenchmen in the Black Forest
watering places, and in Baden-Baden. When, finally, a
Heidelberg lawyer declared in the Reichstag that for
him the cultured Frenchman is still the most amiable
of all European beings, Treitschke stigmatized us as
incorrigible partisans of the Rhine Confederation. But
a glance at the letters of Frau Rat Goethe, in Frankfort,
who prayed God that French and not Prussian soldiers
should be quartered in her house, might have taught
him that the expressions of a long historical epoch find
expression in these remarks, which could not be effaced
by proud words. Furthermore, when the Prussian
Ministry trampled on the Budget rights of Parliament,
and by a sophistical theory about a defect in the Con-
stitution exasperated the sense of justice of every honest
thinking German, when the most extraordinary verdicts
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? THE LIFE OF TREITSCHKE 21
of the Supreme Court, accompanied by the removal
from office of the most capable officials, provoked the
population, it was really not the time to stimulate among
South Germans the desire to become incorporated with
Prussia. The moment was, therefore, most unpro-
pitious for his propaganda. In those days even such
old admirers of a Union with Prussia as Brater became
converts to the triad-idea, and Treitschke's friend,
Freytag, commented on it in merely the following manner:
"It is always very sad and unpleasant when intelligent
people so easily become asses. " Why, therefore, should
the unintelligent masses be judged as harshly as was
done by Treitschke? In regard to our clerical-political
struggles--and this was the second reason for his lack
of understanding of our population--he found himself
in the position of a guest who enters a room in which
a heated discussion has been going on for hours past and,
not having been present from the beginning, is unable
to appreciate the intensity of the contending parties.
Even at that time I was annoyed at the haughty tone
with which he and his non-Badenese friends--Baum-
garten in particular--discussed the Badenese struggles.
They considered the educational problem trivial compared
with the mighty national question at stake; and over-
looked the fact that to get rid of the clerical party was
to be the primary condition for joining hands with
Protestant Prussia. They knew less of the situation
as far as the population was concerned than of events
in the Ministry and at Court. Thus they constantly
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? 22 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
looked behind the scenes, and thereby missed the
part which was being played on the stage. That is
why none of the North German politicians achieved
a really cordial understanding with their citizens,
while Bluntschli of the South, in spite of his suspicious
political past, could boast of great respect among the
Liberals.
In the autumn of 1868 Treitschke made a long stay
at Karlsruhe; he spent his days mostly in the Archives,
and the evenings found him either in the family circle of
his friends or hard at work. He had not become more
favourably impressed with the "townlet of clericals,"
and expressed the desire more and more frequently
to be nearer a town where there was controversy and
quarrelling, and where the mind was exercised, and
deeds were done. Nevertheless, few towns in Germany
could have been found at that time where he could
express so freely his political opinions without inter-
ference from head-quarters, as is proved by the publica-
tion of his famous dissertation on " Union of States and
Single State. " In regard to this, he himself thought
it "extraordinary" that it could have been published
in Freiburg. That the German Confederation is not a
Coalition of States, but a Coalition of Rulers, that Austria
cannot be called a German State, and that the Minor
Powers are no States at all, lacking as they do power of
self-determination : all these axioms to-day have become
commonplace, but at that time the particularist press
raised a fierce outcry against them. Although an official
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? THE LIFE OF TREITSCHKE 23
of a Small State himself, he nevertheless put into print
that a ship a span in length is no ship at all, and that,
should the Small States of Prussia be annexed, what
would happen to them was only what they themselves
in times gone by had done to smaller territories; for
they owed their existence to annexations. Of the German
Princes he said: "The majority of the illustrious heads
show an alarming family resemblance; well-meaning
mediocrity predominates almost everywhere. And this
generation, not very lavishly endowed by nature, has
from early youth had its mind imbued with the doctrines
of monarchy, and with the traditions of particularism.
From childhood it is surrounded by that Court nobility
which is Germany's curse, for it has no fatherland, and
if it does not completely disappear in stupid selfishness,
it rises at its highest to chivalrous attachment of the
Prince's personality and the princely family. Should
that Coalition State, which the princes prefer to the
Centralised State, come about, their fate would not be
an enviable one. If, even at this day, the pretentious
title of King of the Middle States bears no proportion
to its importance, we shall in a Coalition State be unable
to contemplate without a smile the position of a King of
Saxony or Wiirtemberg. Monarchs in such position
would be quite superfluous beings, and the nation sooner
or later would ask the question whether it would not
be advisable to discard such costly and useless organiza-
tions. " This essay he sent to the Grand Duke, who
graciously thanked him for the valuable gift. In few
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? 24 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
German States would a similar reception have been given
to such a treasonable publication. "The Karlsruhe
official world"--so he informed Freytag on December
27th, 1864--"has recovered from the first absurd shock
which my book occasioned"; he himself, therefore, did
not deny its startling character. Nevertheless, he was
often commanded by the Court to give lectures, and
in spite of his political heresy he was still a much sought
after and distinguished personality, and already regarded
as possible successor to Hausser.
When the crisis, anticipated by him long before, really
broke out he decided to relinquish his thankless duties
in Freiburg, in spite of the fact that he was too far
away from the theatre of events to take an active part
in the press campaign. Roggenbach's resignation had
not endeared Baden to him. As regards Stabel, Lamey,
Ludwig, etc. , he thought they did not even bestow a
thought upon Germany. "Edelsheim is no good at
all. Mathy, ironically smiling, keeps aloof; he is above
the question of Small States; he was the first to predict
that nowadays a Small State cannot be governed by
Parliament. The downfall of our friend is only a ques-
tion of time, and presumably it will be accelerated by
the extraordinary ineptitude of the Chamber. Naturally,
at the next Session ministers will be harassed by flippant
interpellations until the Liberals resign and the strong
bureaucrats take office. That will then be called a
triumph of parliamentary principles. " Still more drastic
are his views on June 12th, 1866: "Lamey's views on
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? THE LIFE OF TREITSCHKE 25
politics are on a level with the beer garden; and then
this fool of an Edelsheim! Roggenbach's resignation
was a fatal mistake. " Treitschke's friends were infallible,
but not the later "Ministry of Emperor Frederick. "
After the Battle of Koniggratz, even Freytag spoke
in his letter of "Bismaerckchen" (Little Bismarck), and
of the waggish tricks of this "hare-brain," of which in
reality he was afraid. Comparing the clear, self-con-
fident letters of Bismarck with the excited correspon-
dence of these spirited political amateurs, no doubt can
be entertained as to where was the superiority of mind -*
and character. But to know better was then the order of
the day, and the mischievous attempts of Oscar Becker
and Blind Cohen, which aimed at removing King Wilhelm
and Bismarck because they were not the right people
to frame Germany's Constitution, were only a crude
expression of the self-same desire to know better. At
the same time these gentlemen were no more agreed
among themselves than they were in agreement with
the Government, and when Baumgarten warned the
Prussians to think more of the threatening war than of
the constitutional contest, he received in the journal
Der Grenzbote, from Freytag, a very impolite answer
for his "craziness. " The Prussians had no wish to be
taught their duties by the Braunschweigers. Meanwhile
Bismarck's attention had been directed to Treitschke,
and through the medium of Count Fleming, the Prussian
Ambassador at Karlsruhe, he was invited to a personal
interview to Berlin. The Count, a very musical and
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? . . . ? ? .
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? iTSCHKE
AND WORKS
. :into F. nglhh
'he first ttme
t
. n-f *
>? i . ? . . t? MAM WICK LANK, L. C
- . <! ? . MUSEUM STRttT. W C.
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? TREITSCHKE
HIS LIFE AND WORKS
Translated into English
for the first time
LONDON
JARROLD * SONS. WARWICK LANE, E. C.
ALLEN fr UNWIN, LTD. , MUSEUM STREET, W. C.
19M.
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? CONTENTS.
'man
76781
PAGE
9
THE LIFE OF TREITSCHKE -
THE ARMY ------ 139
INTERNATIONAL LAW - 158
FIRST ATTEMPTS AT GERMAN COLONISATION - I93
TWO EMPERORS ----- 213
GERMANY AND THE NEUTRAL STATES - - 230
AUSTRIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE - - 242
THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN RUSSIA AND PRUSSIA - 268
FREEDOM - ----- 292
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? THE LIFE OF TREITSCHKE.
By Adolf Hausrath.
I.
There are some names which we instinctively connect
with eternal youth. Those of Achilles and Young
Siegfreid we cannot conceive otherwise than as belonging
to youth itself. If amongst the more recent ones we
count Hoelty, Theodore Koerner, and Novalis the
divine youth, this is due to death having overtaken them
while yet young in years. But if involuntarily we also
include Heinrich von Treitschke, the reason for it lies
not in the age attained by him but in his unfading fresh-
ness. Treitschke died at the age of sixty-two, older or
nearly of the same age as his teachers--Hausser, Mathy,
and Gervinus, all of whom we invariably regard as
venerable old men. And yet he seemed to us like Young
Siegfreid with his never-ageing, gay temperament, his
apparently inexhaustible virility. To his students he
seemed new at every half term, and living amongst young
people he remained young with them. Hopeful of the
future and possessed of a fighting spirit, he retained within
him the joy and sunshine of eternal youth. Thus Death,
when he came, appeared not as an inexorable gleaner
9
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? io TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
gathering the withered blades in the barn of his Lord,
but rather as a negligent servant destroying in senseless
fashion a rare plant which might yet have yielded much
delicious fruit.
We cannot, therefore, call it a happy inspiration which
prompted the representation of Treitschke as a robed
figure in the statue about to be erected in the University
in Berlin.
It is, of course, not the figure of a Privy Councillor,
who has assumed some resemblance with Gambetta, but
that of a tall, distinguished-looking, strong youth, with
elastic muscles, whose every movement attests health
and virility, a figure such as students and citizens were
wont to see in Leipzig and Heidelberg, and which would
have served an artist as the happiest design for monu-
mental glorification. But to represent the opponent of
all academic red-tapeism in robe is analagous with
Hermann Grimm's proposal to portray the first Chan-
cellor of the German Empire as Napoleon in the Court
of the Brera, that is to say, in the full nude. Neverthe-
less, we greet with joy the high-spirited decision to
honour Treitschke by a statue. In the same way as
the name of Hutten will be connected with the revolt
against the Pope, and the name of Koerner with that *&
against Napoleon, so the name of Treitschke will always
be connected with the redemption of our people from
the disgrace of the times of Confederation to the mag-
nificence of 1870.
It was in August, 1863, that I heard the name of
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? THE LIFE OF TREITSCHKE n
Treitschke for the first time, when, before an innumerable
audience, he spoke at the Gymnastic Tournament in
Leipzig in commemoration of the Battle of Leipzig. A
youth of twenty-nine, a private University lecturer, and
the son of a highly-placed officer related to Saxon nobility,
he proclaimed with resounding force what in his family
circle was considered demagogical machination and
enmity against illustrious personages, and as such was
generally tabooed. But the principal idea underlying
his argument--that what a people aspires to it will
infallibly attain--found a respondent chord in many
a breast; and I, like many another who read the verbatim
report of the speech in the South German Journal Braters,
resolved to read in future everything put into print by
this man.
We were overjoyed when, in the autumn of 1863, the
Government of Baden appointed Treitschke as Uni-
versity Deputy Professor for Political Science. It was
so certain that at the same time he would give historic
lectures that, on hearing of Treitschke's appointment,
Wegele of WMrzburg--who had already accepted the
position of Professor of History at Freiburg--immediately
asked to be released from his engagement, as henceforth
he could no longer rely on securing pupils. The new
arrival was pleased with his first impressions of Baden.
From his room he overlooked green gardens stretching
towards the River Munster. In the University he
gave lectures on politics and on the Encyclopaedia of
Political Science; but before a much larger audience
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? 12 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
he spoke in the Auditory of Anatomy, and later on in
the Aula on German History, the History of Reforma-
tion, and similar subjects, creating a sensation not only
at the University but also in Society. It was his phe-
nomenal eloquence--not North-German verbosity, but
fertility of thought surging with genius and flowing like
an inexhaustible fountain--which drew his audience at
public lectures and festivities. His success with students
gave him less cause for gratification. Possibly Science,
on which he lectured for practically the first time, offered
inadequate facilities for the development of his best
faculties, but the principal fault seems to have rested
with his audience. "The students," he wrote to Freytag,
"are very childish, and, as usual in Universities, suffer
from drowsy drunkenness. " It can be imagined how
this failure affected and depressed the eager young
professor, for whose subsistence the Leipzig students
had sent a deputation to Dresden, and whom they had
honoured on his departure with a torchlight procession.
To me he said: "The Freiburg students are lazy--
abominably lazy. " More than once he had been com-
pelled to write to truant-playing pupils asking whether
they intended hearing lectures at all in future, since he
could well employ his time to better advantage. It was
only natural that these experiences biassed his opinion
of the whole population, and he judged the fathers'
qualities by those of their dissolute sons. Society also
left him discontented, and to his father he wrote, "I do
not find it easy to adjust myself to the social conditions
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? THE LIFE OF TREITSCHKE 13
of this small hole; anybody with as little talent for
gossiping as I possess suffers from an ignorance of
individual peculiarities, and stumbles at every moment. "
The Freiburg nobility being not only strictly Catholic,
but also thoroughly Austrian, he, with his outspoken
Prussian tendencies and attacks against the priests,
stirred up a good deal of unrest. Among his colleagues,
he associated principally with Mangold, the private
lecturer von Weech, the lawyer Schmidt, and the
University steward Frey, all of whom were of Prussian
descent. The letter in which he informs his godfather,
Gutschmid, that he had again been asked to act as god-
father is, from the point of view of phraseology, truly
"Treitschkean ": "A few weeks ago I again acted as
godfather, to a daughter of M. , and on this occasion
silently implored the immortals that the child might
turn out better than her uncommonly good-for-nothing
brothers. For my godchild in Kiel this prayer was
superfluous; in my presence at least, your Crown Prince
always behaved as an educated child of educated parents. "
Through his Bonn relatives, the two Nokk, he became
acquainted with Freiherr von Bodman, the father-in-law
of Wilhelm Nokk. Especially welcome was he at the
house of von Woringen, the Doctor of Law, where he
saw a good deal of Emma von Bodman, who subsequently
became his wife, and at that of von Hillern, the Superior
Court Judge, whose wife, the daughter of Charlotte
Birchpfeiffer, consulted him in regard to her poetical
creations. Already, after the first half term, the deaf
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? 14 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
young professor was the most discussed person in local
Society, and he himself boasted to my wife that for his
benefit several Freiburg ladies learned the deaf and
dumb language. They waxed enthusiastic over the
young and handsome scholar, and in their admiration
for him sent for his poems, only to be subsequently
shocked, like Psyche before Cupid. Yet it is charac-
teristic that he started his literary career with historic
ballads which he called " Patriotic Poems" (1856), and
"Studies " (1857).
The political life of the Badenese, which at that time
principally turned upon the educational question, was
not to his taste. The Ultramontanes he simply found
coarse and stupid, and he writes: "It is empty talk to
speak of doctrinal freedom and freedom to learn in a
University with a Catholic faculty.
All Professors of
Theology are clerks in holy orders, and so utterly depen-
dent upon their superiors that only recently the arch-
bishop asked the brave old Senator Maier to produce the
books of his pupils. Furthermore, the students of
Theology are locked in a convent, and true to old Jesuitic
tradition are watched step by step by mutual secret
control. That is what is called academic liberty. " But
here, also, is his opinion regarding others: "The grand-
ducal Badenese liberalism is nothing but cheap char-
latanism without real vigour "; nay, he calls " particularist
liberalism" the most contemptible of all parties which,
however, unfortunately, would play an important part
in the near future. "Look for instance at this National
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? THE LIFE OF TREITSCHKE 15
Coalition. Has ever a great nation seen such a monster? "
In his opinion it sides with the Imperial Constitution of
1849, although the leaders themselves are convinced of
their inability to carry through the programme, and at
the same time the future political configuration of Ger-
many is declared to be an open question, consequently
it has on the whole no programme at all.
Soon I was destined to make the personal acquaint-
ance of the much-admired and much-criticized one. It
was at an "At Home" at Mathy's. Scarcely had I
entered the vestibule when I heard a very loud voice
in the drawing-room slowly emphasizing every syllable
in the style of a State Councillor. "This is Treitschke, of
Freiburg," I said immediately, and it was really he. The
Freiburg ladies had by no means exaggerated his hand-
some appearance. A tall, broad-shouldered figure, dark
hair and dark complexion, dark, pensive eyes, now dreamy,
now vividly glistening--unmistakably Slav. With his
black hair, the heavy moustache, which he still wore at
that time, and his vivid gesticulations, he could not
conceal his Slav origin. He looked like a Polish noble-
man, and his knightly frame reminded one of a Hussite,
a Ziska for instance. Later, he told me of his exiled
ancestors--Czech Protestants of the name of Trschky,
referred to by Schiller in "Wallenstein," although the
editions mostly spoke of Terzky's Regiments. At about
midnight, when wending our way through the silent
town, a policeman approached us, intending to warn
the loud, strange gentleman to moderate his voice.
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? 16 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
The arm of the law, however, quickly retired when, in
company of the disturber of the peace, he recognised
Herr von Roggenbach and several Ministerial Secretaries.
As Treitschke at that time made use of the Karlsruhe
Archives, he from time to time came to Karlsruhe,
where he sought the society of Mathy, Nokk, von Weech,
and Baumgarten. Under Mathy's influence a gradual
change took place in him, which transmitted itself to all
of us. At first he was an eager adherent of Augusten-
burg, and the first money received for his lectures in
Freiburg he invested in the Ducal Loan. Through
Freytag he had likewise recommended his friend, von
Weech, to the Duke of Augustenburg with a view to his
securing an appointment in Kiel for publicistic pur-
poses. After that his attitude totally changed. When
he realised that Bismarck earnestly aspired gaining for
Prussia the dominating power in the East and North
Sea, he frankly declared the strengthening of Prussia
to be the supreme national duty. Hausser intended to
pin him down with his former views by citing Treitschke's
first Augustenburg dissertations in the "Review of the
Prussian Annuals" of 1864. Treitschke, however, by
way of reply, in an essay on the solution of the Schleswig-
Holstein question, proved that the compliance of the
Augustenburg demands was detrimental to Germany's
welfare. Again he had spoken the decisive word, and
all writers of our circle now advocated annexation. We
were nicknamed "Mamalukes and Renegades" by our
Heidelberg colleague Pickford, then editor of the
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? THE LIFE OF TREITSCHKE 17
Konstanzer Zeitung. Treitschke was now as violently
against as formerly for the Duke. Now he sees the latter
as "the miserable pretender, whom he despises from the
bottom of his heart. Not only has he not come to the
noble decision which Germany is entitled to expect from
him, but by his unscrupulous demagogical agitations he
has utterly unsettled his country. " In Karlsruhe, the
quiet town of officials, such a political point of view was
perhaps admissible; not so, however, in the high country
filled with animosity against Prussia. Every child was
convinced that Prussia now, as formerly, intended hand-
ing over the dukedoms to the King of the Danes. Junker
Voland, who had persuaded the King to break with
the Constitution, was, of course, bribed long ago by
England and Russia to again restore the dukedoms to
Danish supremacy.
Everything that had happened after the short, hopeful
glimpse of Prussia's new era was an object of sarcasm
for the South German population. When a boy talked
very stupidly, his comrades would call out: "Go to
Konigsberg and have yourself crowned "; and at Mass
the beggar-women, pointing with their sticks to the
Prince's image, shrieked out mocking insults.
This coarseness of the street and the tone of the
Freiburg democratic journals against Prussia filled the
politician, so inconsiderate against his own Saxony,
with immense indignation. In a letter to Freytag he
finds the Badenese "quite steeped in the quagmire of
phrases and foul language. Examining these parties,
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? 18 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
the moral value of both sides seems identical; the mean-
ingless mendacity of our average liberalism fills me with
deep disgust. How long shall we labour ere we again
are able to speak of German faith? If I am now to
choose between the two parties, I select that of Bismarck,
since he struggles for Prussian power for our legitimate
position on the North and East Sea. " He considered
as impossible the peaceful conversion of the Badenese
to Prussia. "Amid this abominable South German
particularism it has become perfectly evident to me that
our fate will clearly be decided by conquest. Six years
of my life I have spent in the South, and here I have
gained the sad conviction that even with a Cabinet com-
posed of men of the type of Stein and Humboldt, the
hatred and jealousy of the South Germans against
Prussia would not diminish. I am longing for the North,
to which I belong with all my heart, and where also our
fate will be decided. " His public lectures were very
largely frequented. "But," he says, "the Philistines
are prejudiced when entering the Aula, and are firmly
determined to consider as untrue every word I say about
Prussia. The opinion is prevalent that the South Ger-
mans are the most modest of our people. I say they are
the most arrogant; to a man they consider themselves
the real Germans, and the North a country half of which
is still steeped in barbarity, this quite apart from a
dissolute braggadocio the mere thought of which fills me
with disgust. Believe me, only the trusty sword of the
conqueror can weld together these countries with the
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? THE LIFE OF TREITSCHKE 19
North. " Later on, when I conversed with him every
evening at a round table in the Heidelberg Museum, I
realised the reasons for his lack of understanding of our
people. We seemed to him lukewarm, because we did
not strike the national chord with the power which he
expected of a good German. But why should we do
that? In the Saxony of Heir von Beust, and in Prussia's
time of reaction, national ideas were tabooed, and that
is why the patriots felt compelled to bear witness in
season and out of season. But we lived in a free country,
under a Prince harbouring German sentiments, and
where it would have been an easy matter to feign pat-
riotism quite apart from the fact that we South Germans
do not care discussing our sentiments. I told him that
in the same way as I, despite my warmest feelings for
my family, could not bring myself to proclaim pompously
the excellence of my wife and child, so was I reluctant
to publicly praise my Fatherland; and subsequently I
reminded him of the Yankee who declared that im-
mediately a man spoke to him of patriotism he knew him
to be a rascal. In regard to our sympathy for France,
which he reviled as the Rhine Confederation sentimen-
tality, it would be difficult for him to place himself in
our position. During the last century we had received
nothing but kindness from France, namely, deliverance
from the Palatine Bavarian regime, from Jesuits and
Lazarists, from episcopal and Junker rule, from guild
restrictions and compulsory service: all this and the
very existence of the country which we enjoyed we
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? 20 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
owed directly or indirectly to Napoleon and the Code
Napoleon, from which the hatred of the French arose.
This, it is true, I found quite natural, considering Napoleon
weakened Prussia and abused Saxony. He was in-
dignant when he noticed in corridors of inns and even in
parlours the small lithographs which, under the First
Empire, were poured out in thousands from Paris even
across the States of the Rhine Convention, representing
the Victor of Marengo, the sun of Austerlitz, Napoleon's
Battle at the Pyramids, etc. , and which, owing to the
conservative spirit of the peasantry, decorated the walls
until moths, rust, and wood-worms gradually brought
about their destruction. He even took offence at the
attitude displayed by Frenchmen in the Black Forest
watering places, and in Baden-Baden. When, finally, a
Heidelberg lawyer declared in the Reichstag that for
him the cultured Frenchman is still the most amiable
of all European beings, Treitschke stigmatized us as
incorrigible partisans of the Rhine Confederation. But
a glance at the letters of Frau Rat Goethe, in Frankfort,
who prayed God that French and not Prussian soldiers
should be quartered in her house, might have taught
him that the expressions of a long historical epoch find
expression in these remarks, which could not be effaced
by proud words. Furthermore, when the Prussian
Ministry trampled on the Budget rights of Parliament,
and by a sophistical theory about a defect in the Con-
stitution exasperated the sense of justice of every honest
thinking German, when the most extraordinary verdicts
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? THE LIFE OF TREITSCHKE 21
of the Supreme Court, accompanied by the removal
from office of the most capable officials, provoked the
population, it was really not the time to stimulate among
South Germans the desire to become incorporated with
Prussia. The moment was, therefore, most unpro-
pitious for his propaganda. In those days even such
old admirers of a Union with Prussia as Brater became
converts to the triad-idea, and Treitschke's friend,
Freytag, commented on it in merely the following manner:
"It is always very sad and unpleasant when intelligent
people so easily become asses. " Why, therefore, should
the unintelligent masses be judged as harshly as was
done by Treitschke? In regard to our clerical-political
struggles--and this was the second reason for his lack
of understanding of our population--he found himself
in the position of a guest who enters a room in which
a heated discussion has been going on for hours past and,
not having been present from the beginning, is unable
to appreciate the intensity of the contending parties.
Even at that time I was annoyed at the haughty tone
with which he and his non-Badenese friends--Baum-
garten in particular--discussed the Badenese struggles.
They considered the educational problem trivial compared
with the mighty national question at stake; and over-
looked the fact that to get rid of the clerical party was
to be the primary condition for joining hands with
Protestant Prussia. They knew less of the situation
as far as the population was concerned than of events
in the Ministry and at Court. Thus they constantly
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? 22 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
looked behind the scenes, and thereby missed the
part which was being played on the stage. That is
why none of the North German politicians achieved
a really cordial understanding with their citizens,
while Bluntschli of the South, in spite of his suspicious
political past, could boast of great respect among the
Liberals.
In the autumn of 1868 Treitschke made a long stay
at Karlsruhe; he spent his days mostly in the Archives,
and the evenings found him either in the family circle of
his friends or hard at work. He had not become more
favourably impressed with the "townlet of clericals,"
and expressed the desire more and more frequently
to be nearer a town where there was controversy and
quarrelling, and where the mind was exercised, and
deeds were done. Nevertheless, few towns in Germany
could have been found at that time where he could
express so freely his political opinions without inter-
ference from head-quarters, as is proved by the publica-
tion of his famous dissertation on " Union of States and
Single State. " In regard to this, he himself thought
it "extraordinary" that it could have been published
in Freiburg. That the German Confederation is not a
Coalition of States, but a Coalition of Rulers, that Austria
cannot be called a German State, and that the Minor
Powers are no States at all, lacking as they do power of
self-determination : all these axioms to-day have become
commonplace, but at that time the particularist press
raised a fierce outcry against them. Although an official
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? THE LIFE OF TREITSCHKE 23
of a Small State himself, he nevertheless put into print
that a ship a span in length is no ship at all, and that,
should the Small States of Prussia be annexed, what
would happen to them was only what they themselves
in times gone by had done to smaller territories; for
they owed their existence to annexations. Of the German
Princes he said: "The majority of the illustrious heads
show an alarming family resemblance; well-meaning
mediocrity predominates almost everywhere. And this
generation, not very lavishly endowed by nature, has
from early youth had its mind imbued with the doctrines
of monarchy, and with the traditions of particularism.
From childhood it is surrounded by that Court nobility
which is Germany's curse, for it has no fatherland, and
if it does not completely disappear in stupid selfishness,
it rises at its highest to chivalrous attachment of the
Prince's personality and the princely family. Should
that Coalition State, which the princes prefer to the
Centralised State, come about, their fate would not be
an enviable one. If, even at this day, the pretentious
title of King of the Middle States bears no proportion
to its importance, we shall in a Coalition State be unable
to contemplate without a smile the position of a King of
Saxony or Wiirtemberg. Monarchs in such position
would be quite superfluous beings, and the nation sooner
or later would ask the question whether it would not
be advisable to discard such costly and useless organiza-
tions. " This essay he sent to the Grand Duke, who
graciously thanked him for the valuable gift. In few
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? 24 TREITSCHKE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
German States would a similar reception have been given
to such a treasonable publication. "The Karlsruhe
official world"--so he informed Freytag on December
27th, 1864--"has recovered from the first absurd shock
which my book occasioned"; he himself, therefore, did
not deny its startling character. Nevertheless, he was
often commanded by the Court to give lectures, and
in spite of his political heresy he was still a much sought
after and distinguished personality, and already regarded
as possible successor to Hausser.
When the crisis, anticipated by him long before, really
broke out he decided to relinquish his thankless duties
in Freiburg, in spite of the fact that he was too far
away from the theatre of events to take an active part
in the press campaign. Roggenbach's resignation had
not endeared Baden to him. As regards Stabel, Lamey,
Ludwig, etc. , he thought they did not even bestow a
thought upon Germany. "Edelsheim is no good at
all. Mathy, ironically smiling, keeps aloof; he is above
the question of Small States; he was the first to predict
that nowadays a Small State cannot be governed by
Parliament. The downfall of our friend is only a ques-
tion of time, and presumably it will be accelerated by
the extraordinary ineptitude of the Chamber. Naturally,
at the next Session ministers will be harassed by flippant
interpellations until the Liberals resign and the strong
bureaucrats take office. That will then be called a
triumph of parliamentary principles. " Still more drastic
are his views on June 12th, 1866: "Lamey's views on
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? THE LIFE OF TREITSCHKE 25
politics are on a level with the beer garden; and then
this fool of an Edelsheim! Roggenbach's resignation
was a fatal mistake. " Treitschke's friends were infallible,
but not the later "Ministry of Emperor Frederick. "
After the Battle of Koniggratz, even Freytag spoke
in his letter of "Bismaerckchen" (Little Bismarck), and
of the waggish tricks of this "hare-brain," of which in
reality he was afraid. Comparing the clear, self-con-
fident letters of Bismarck with the excited correspon-
dence of these spirited political amateurs, no doubt can
be entertained as to where was the superiority of mind -*
and character. But to know better was then the order of
the day, and the mischievous attempts of Oscar Becker
and Blind Cohen, which aimed at removing King Wilhelm
and Bismarck because they were not the right people
to frame Germany's Constitution, were only a crude
expression of the self-same desire to know better. At
the same time these gentlemen were no more agreed
among themselves than they were in agreement with
the Government, and when Baumgarten warned the
Prussians to think more of the threatening war than of
the constitutional contest, he received in the journal
Der Grenzbote, from Freytag, a very impolite answer
for his "craziness. " The Prussians had no wish to be
taught their duties by the Braunschweigers. Meanwhile
Bismarck's attention had been directed to Treitschke,
and through the medium of Count Fleming, the Prussian
Ambassador at Karlsruhe, he was invited to a personal
interview to Berlin. The Count, a very musical and
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