THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE
THE POLITICAL THOUGHT
OF
HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
THE POLITICAL THOUGHT
OF
HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
BY
-Ay v v
Hf wr cf DAVIS M.A.
FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD
SOMETIME FELLOW OF ALL SOULS' COLLEGE
"Fas est et ab hoste doceri."
LONDON
CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD.
1914
TC233
PREFACE
THIS book which is mainly composed of selections from
the work of Treitschke has not been put together with
a controversial purpose, but in the belief that English-
men may find it worth their while to understand the
political philosophy which is now the vogue in Germany.
Though I have sometimes criticised, criticism has not
been my main object. I have attempted to explain
how the thought of Treitschke was influenced by the
events of his own lifetime, and how his famous lectures
upon Politik grew out of the polemical essays which he
wrote between 1860 and 1878. These essays referred
directly or indirectly to current questions of German politics ;
what abstract thought they contain is coloured by contro-
versial considerations and partisan sympathies. But the
Politik is little more than a symmetrical and co-ordinated
restatement of the positions which he had defended in the
essays. For this reason, that it reflected the views which
had gained the upper hand in German controversies, the
Politik has been enthusiastically applauded by German
readers ; but for the same reason the book seems inexplic-
ably one-sided to a foreign reader until he has retraced the
process by which the author formed his ideas. It has been
vi HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
no part of my scheme to estimate the worth of Treitschke
as a historian. But it may be useful for English students
to have before them, in an English form, some of the principal
passages from the History of Germany in the Nineteenth
Century, which explain why the author believed, and taught
his pupils to believe, that England was a decadent State,
relying for her preservation upon a tortuous and immoral
foreign policy. A collection of these passages will be found
in the tenth chapter.
My thanks are due to Miss Winifred Ray for the skill
with which she has made the necessary translations under
my supervision.
H. W. CARLESS DAVIS.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE v
EDITIONS CITED . ix
CHAPTER I
EARLY LIFE (1834-1857) i
CHAPTER II
DIE FREIHEIT (1861) . . . . . . . 9
CHAPTER III
TREITSCHKE AND BISMARCK (1861-1866) . . . . 19
CHAPTER IV
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY (1848-1866) . . 35
CHAPTER V
THE NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION AND THE FOUNDING
OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE (1866-1871) ... 82
J
CHAPTER VI
THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR (1870) . . . . .107
viii HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
CHAPTER VII
PACK
DIE POLITIK (I.) THE NATURE OF THE STATE . . . 117
CHAPTER VIII
DIE POLITIK (II.) THE RELATIONS OF STATE WITH STATE 148
CHAPTER IX
DIE POLITIK (III.) CONSTITUTIONS 180
CHAPTER X
TREITSCHKE ON ENGLISH HISTORY IN THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY . . . . . . . . .227
EDITIONS CITED
Heinrich von Treitschke's Briefe. Herausgegeben von Max Cornicelius.
2 vols. Leipzig, 1912-1913.
Historische und politische Aufsatze von Heinrich von Treitschke.
Vol. II. Die Einheitsbestrebungen zertheilter Volker. Fourth
Edition. Leipzig, 1871. Vol. III. Freiheit und Konigthum.
Fourth Edition. Leipzig, 1871.
Zehn Jahre Deutscher Kampfe. 2 vols. Third Edition. Berlin, 1897.
Deutsche Geschichte im Neunzehnten Jahrhundert von Heinrich von
Treitschke. Vol. I. Seventh Edition. Leipzig, 1904. Vol. II.
Fifth Edition. Leipzig, 1897. Vol. III. Fifth Edition. Leipzig.
1903. Vol. IV. Fourth Edition. Leipzig, 1897. Vol. V. Fourth
Edition. Leipzig, 1899.
Politik : Vorlesungen von Heinrich von Treitschke. Herausgegeben von
Max Cornicelius. 2 vols. Second Edition. Leipzig, 1899-1900.
CHAPTER I
EARLY LIFE, 1834-1857
HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE was born at Dresden on Septem-
ber 15, 1834. His father was a distinguished Saxon officer,
of Czech descent, who had first seen military service in the
War of Liberation against Napoleon ; his maternal grand-
father had fought under George Washington in the American
War of Independence. ( Such family traditions help us
to understand the enthusiasm with which Heinrich von
Treitschke writes of war, as the mother of States, the
noblest activity of the citizen, the school of the deepest and
truest patriotism./ The Slavonic strain in his blood is also
worth remembering ; it may afford an explanation of the
fiery temperament which made him a political crusader from
his school-days upwards. Otherwise his antecedents and
his early upbringing had no very obvious influence upon
the formation of his mind. In after years he wrote to a
fellow-historian :
" I was brought up in the atmosphere of the Court of
Dresden, in circles whose one political idea was hatred of
Prussia. If therefore I think highly of Prussia, this con-
viction is at least the fruit of independent study." 1
His father was a typical Saxon in politics and character ;
by no means uncultivated, for he had read widely in the
literature of several European languages, and had written
1 Briefe, ii. No. 428.
i B
2 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
sedulously, if indifferently, both in prose and verse ; but
full of an old-fashioned loyalty to the Saxon royal house,
which prevented him from sympathising with any proposal
to establish a national constitution at the expense of the
ruling dynasties. He encouraged his son in literary pur-
suits, but on political and religious questions they drifted
so far apart that General von Treitschke once spoke of his
son's opinions as the second sore trial of his old age. The
General was a staunch Protestant, while his son parted
company with all dogma before he had finished his university
career. In a sense Heinrich von Treitschke was always
a Protestant. He believed in the rights of the individual
conscience ; and he said that Kant's Categorical Imperative
pleased him more than any form of Utilitarianism, not
because it was more capable of proof, but because it gave
him a greater sense of repose.-l He was also a sworn foe to
Roman Catholicism, both as a moral and as a political force.)
But neither those convictions nor this antipathy sufficed to
make him orthodox in his father's sight. With his mother
he had more in common. She was impatient of Klein-
staaterei, and showed some appreciation of the political
opinions in which her son grew only the more obstinate
under the stress of his father's criticism.
Almost from childhood the future historian was keenly
interested in the political questions which filled the minds
of his most inspiring teachers. His school-days were spent
at Dresden in a critical period of Saxon and of German
history. At the age of fourteen he was the spectator of an
abortive revolution which was signalised by some hard
fighting in the Dresden streets. One of the masters of his
gymnasium became a revolutionary leader ; and the young
Treitschke was in sympathy a Liberal. He expresses his
disgust at the refusal of King Frederick Augustus to accept
the Frankfort Constitution and this at a time when his
father was in command of royal troops. The Rector of the
gymnasium did his best to divert his pupils from political
controversies ; but they nevertheless found their way into
EARLY LIFE 3
the curriculum. We hear of an oration, delivered at a
school prize-giving, in which Treitschke vindicated the
services of Prussia to the cause of German unity. At
Dresden he acquired a sound acquaintance with the classical
languages, and a taste for Greek literature, which never
wholly deserted him. In after years he used to inveigh
against the modern craze for cramming boys with mis-
cellaneous information, until they became " two-legged
encyclopaedias." The old humanistic course, he said, had
produced not only more exact habits of thought, but also
a wider range of intellectual interests than he found among
the auditors of his Berlin lectures. Still, when at the age of
sixteen, he entered upon his university course, he turned
his attention from the classics to the study of political
economy, political science, and history, not so much from
any definite views concerning his future career as from a
desire to form his judgment on political questions.
After the fashion of the time he roamed from one uni-
versity to another, in search of teachers who could best
satisfy the needs of the moment or of a library which con-
tained the necessary literature. Bonn pleased him best.
Here in 1851 he fell under the influence of Dahlmann,
eminent as a historian, but still more remarkable as a political
theorist, who was in a sense the founder of the Prussian School
of history ; an advocate of constitutional monarchy who
hoped for the union of Germany under a liberal constitution
and the leadership of Prussia. Next, at Leipzig in 1852,
Treitschke sat under the famous economist Roscher, and
listened to the course of lectures which was afterwards
published under the title Die Grundlagen von National-
okonomie. Though Treitschke never displayed any great
enthusiasm for political economy, he was impressed by
Roscher's leading thoughts. He welcomed the revolt against
the abstractions and deductive reasoning of Ricardo. He
realised the national importance of the economic revival
which Germany had witnessed after the establishment of
the Zollverein, seeing in it, besides the hope of national
4 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
wealth, a school of practical capacity and of the virtues
which make self-government both possible and useful. We
recognise the influence of Roscher when the young student
exults, in 1854, that Prussia has obtained a harbour on the
North : " Yet another attempt to remove the old humilia-
tion which has for so long made the first seafaring nation
of the world a stranger to the sea." 1
For a time, indeed, the ideas of these great teachers lay
undeveloped in his mind. Some years elapsed before he
found out the line of study best suited to his aptitudes and
interests. He dabbled in the theory of aesthetics, he was
tempted towards journalism, he had serious thoughts of
devoting himself to poetry. But his political views were
forming themselves more rapidly and decidedly than he was
himself aware. It is significant that his first volume of
poetry, V aterlandische Gedichte (1856), was inspired by his
discontent with the state of German politics, and was in-
tended to show that Germany still suffered from the same
evils as in the Middle Ages. " There are many bitter words
in this little book ; they only express the sensations which
every thinking man has experienced in the last few years." 2
In the last resort his poetry was inspired by political con-
victions, and by a wide, though unsystematic course of
historical reading. He discovered his true vocation when
he began, as a young doctor, to give occasional courses of
lectures. It was easy for him to express his views with
method and with vigour in a spoken discourse. He also
realised, as many other teachers have realised, that his own
studies were helped by personal contact with an audience,
that his mind worked more freely and his conclusions
shaped themselves more clearly when he was lecturing.
This experience, and financial considerations which he could
not disregard, turned the scale against poetry and in favour
of an academic career. He settled down, though not with-
out a struggle, to the systematic study of political science.
Thus in 1855 and 1856 we find him busy with the Politics
1 Briefe, i. No. 97. z Ibid. No. 147.
EARLY LIFE 5
of Aristotle and the Prince of Machiavelli. Any reader of
his lectures upon Politik will recognise the extent of his debt
to these two books. One is led to suspect that these lectures,
in their original form, must have followed rather closely the
headings of the Politics. However this may be, the course,
as we have it, is based upon the leading ideas of Aristotle
and Machiavelli. 'Treitschke was delighted with the Greek
conception of the State as an end in itself, as an ideal com-
munity for which the individual is bound to sacrifice his
private interests and desires, as the cradle of all morality and
all civilisation.) He sympathised with the lofty idealism of
the antique world, with its contempt for mere economic
development and for the mechanical existence of men ab-
sorbed in the pursuit of wealth. 1 Machiavelli he accepted
with more reserve ; but he finally came to the conclusion
that here he had found a thinker who was, like Goethe, born
to be the " physician of an iron age." Of Machiavelli he
wrote to a friend :
"fee is indeed a practical statesman, more fitted than
any other to destroy the illusion that one can reform the
world with cannon loaded only with ideas of Right and
Truth.) But even the political science of this much-decried
champion of brute force seems to me moral by comparison
with the Prussia of to-day. Machiavelli sacrifices Right
and Virtue to a great idea, the might and unity of his
people ; this one cannot say of the party which now rules in
Prussia. (This underlying thought of the book, its glowing
patriotism, and the conviction that the most oppressive
despotism must be welcome if it ensures might and unity for
his mother country-J-these are the ideas which have recon-
ciled men to the numerous reprehensible and lawless theories
of the great Florentine." 2
( Discontent with the political state of Germany was
driving him to accept one-half of Machiavelli's teaching, to
1 Briefe, i. No. 136. 2 Ibid., No. 146.
6 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
believe that whatever else the State may be or may aim at,
it must be armed with irresistible force to shatter opposition
and to cow the mutinous] On the other hand, he owed to
Aristotle a profounder understanding of the nature of the
State than Machiavelli ever reached. I For Treitschke the
State had the right to be omnipotent over the individual
because the individual could never develop or live a worthy
life without the State's protection and guidance ; because
the State was the supreme moralising and humanising agency
in human life. On these grounds he held that the first duty
of the statesman was to consider what things the State in its
own interest ought to do ; the second duty was to consider
the means by which these things could be done. The moral
law, commonly so called, was only a law for the individual
citizens of the State. For the State no moral law existed
but that of maintaining its existence and developing its
potentialities} So Treitschke passed from Aristotle and
Machiavelli to the study of Realpolltik, of which he found a
congenial exposition in Rochau's Grundzuge der Realpolitik,
an essay which he found in the Heidelberg library ; no author
he said, destroyed preconceptions and illusions with more
trenchant logic. 1
The cult of the State was less fashionable then in German
universities than it has since become. Many German
teachers were turning their attention from politics, the
science of the State, to sociology, the new science of society
in its non-political aspects. The assumption of the sociolo-
gists was that economic relations, scientific progress, and
intellectual movements do more to mould the individual
than can ever be done by state-authority. A society is a
living organism ; the State is a mechanical structure which
exists to protect society. Society has unbounded claims
upon the allegiance of the individual ; but the State is only
1 Briefe, No. 152. A. L. von Rochau (1810-1873) published his Real-
politik in 1853. The main idea of the book was Der Staat ist Macht. It
contained a prophecy that Germany would only be united by force, by one
state which was capable of coercing the rest. Treitschke gives an account
of Rochau in Aufsdtze, vol. iv. pp. 189-196.
EARLY LIFE 7
needed for definite and circumscribed objects, and has only
to be obeyed in so far as the interests of society demand such
obedience, j Against this doctrine Treitschke hurled himself
with characteristic vehemence. He attacked it in a disser-
tation which he presented to the University of Leipzig in
1857. The main idea of his essay was already in the air ;
he discovered, when he had nearly completed the work, that
it had been anticipated by Ihering in his Geist des romischen
Rechts. But, as it became the inspiration of all Treitschke's
later work as a historian and a publicist, it deserves to be
stated here. ( As Roscher had argued that every State must
have its own system of political economy, so Ihering and
Treitschke argued that every nation must have its own
peculiar form of State. A State is the product of the legal
and moral ideas and of the economic conditions of a people.
In other words, it is produced by what Treitschke's opponents
called sociological conditions. A society generates a State,
and the two things remain inseparable. Neither can be
studied in isolation from the other ; neither should be ex-
alted at the expense of the other. Further, no form of State
is either good or bad in itself. There is no such thing as
an ideally best State. A constitution is to be judged with
reference to the social conditions of the people who have
made it and who live under it. 1 ]
The immediate result of this essay was that Treitschke
obtained the right to lecture in Leipzig. A more important
consequence, and the logical corollary of his theory of the
State was that he began to study modern history, and
especially German constitutional history. His lectures on
German history attracted great attention ; and within a
short time he began the studies upon which his greatest
historical work was to be founded. His first intention was
to write a history, which should also be an indictment, of the
German Bund ; and he did not propose to go beyond the
printed sources for his facts. But the work grew on his
hands. As his outfit of historical scholarship increased he
1 Briefe, i. No. 193.
8 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
realised that an adequate treatment, even of constitutional
history, would only be possible when the archives of the
principal German states had been examined ; and his
researches only confirmed his theoretical conclusion that a
constitution, however academic and futile it may seem,
cannot be judged in isolation from other aspects of national
life :-
" The kernel of the subject is not to be found in the
Congresses and the negotiations of Estates, but in the truly
marvellous development of public opinion, or of the soul of
the people or whatever else you like to call it." 1
' But for a long time his preliminary studies were diversi-
fied with other occupations. He was fiercely interested in
politics, especially in Prussian politics ; for he was every
day more convinced that national salvation depended on the
growth of a Greater Prussia.) He became a prolific publicist ;
he wrote literary and historical essays on the most various
subjects ; and, if he had died before 1879, he would have left
behind him neither a great history nor a systematic treatise
on politics. There was, however, more method in his multi-
farious activities than appeared upon the surface. His
literary and historical essays were studies preliminary to the
Deutsche Geschichte ; his political essays were similarly useful
as material for the Politik ; and there was always a close
connexion between his historical studies and the progress of
his political ideas. His essay on the United Netherlands
was suggested by his interest in federal forms of government
that on Bonapartism by his desire to prove the superior-
ity of constitutional monarchy to the most enlightened
Caesarism.
1 Briefe, ii. No. 332.
CHAPTER II
" DIE FREIHEIT," l86l
WE are chiefly concerned with the political essays ; and of
these Die Freiheit is the first which claims attention. It was
written in 1861, at an early stage of Treitschke's political
evolution, and it shows us a Treitschke in some respects very
unlike the Treitschke of the later and maturer Politik. Die
Freiheit is a review of Mill's Essay on Liberty, a review which
attacks the fundamental assumptions of Utilitarianism,
which puts the case for a strong State, and for a State that
is more than the means of realising individual happiness.
This we should naturally expect. But when Treitschke
passes from negation to affirmation, it is surprising how
much of humanism and of Liberalism he has retained in his
revolt from the lines of thought then fashionable in the
smaller German States.
" How lifeless, how sterile are the supporters of absolut-
ism in their opposition to the demands of the nations for
liberty ! It is not a case of two mighty streams of thought
rushing in mighty billows one against the other, until out
of the whirlpool a single new stream emerges to flow
along a middle course. No ! there is one stream which
surges against a rigid dam, making for itself a way
through thousands of fissures. Everything new which the
nineteenth century has created is the work of Liberalism.
The enemies of liberty can only persist in negation, or
waken to the semblance of new life the ideas of days
which have long since been submerged. On the tribunes
9
to HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
of our Chambers, through a free press which they owe to
the Liberals, with catchwords which they have picked up
from their opponents, they champion principles which, if
carried into execution, would destroy all freedom of the
press and all parliamentary life."
No doubt, to a German writing in the year 1861, political
Liberalism meant first and foremost the idea of a united
Germany for which German Liberals had contended in 1848.
^And already, hi Treitschke's mind, the national State was
enthroned as the idol of his dreams.) But the Liberals had
proved themselves singularly incapable of establishing a
national German State. When Treitschke desires to illus-
trate the victory of Liberal principles, he selects one of the
propositions laid down in the American Declaration of
Independence : " The just powers of government are derived
from the consent of the governed." When he wishes to
define liberty in the political sense, he contends that it means
" ruling and being ruled at the same time." The State of
his dreams is therefore to be so organised as to satisfy
Liberal aspirations. Its claim upon the loyalty of the
citizens is to be absolute because its government is their
government. Only he contends and here he differs from
the extreme German Liberals that such freedom may be
realised under a monarchy no less than under a republic.
Thoroughly Liberal again is the prophecy that a free and
great German State will come into existence as a natural
development from the internal freedom of trade which the
Zollverein had secured. This prophecy deserves quotation
if only to show how radically, in the next few years, Treit-
schke revised his estimate of the ways and means most
calculated to produce German unity. The nation, he sug-
gests, must be left, as far as possible, to work out its own
destiny. Even if a popular government should by some
miracle be called into existence, it ought to leave the free
forces of society to take their natural course and produce their
appointed fruit :
" DIE FREIHEIT " n
'\Yet a State, ruled by a Government elected by a
majority of the people, with a Parliament, with inde-
pendent laws, with self-governing departments and muni-
cipalities, is for all that not yet free.) It must set a limit
to its activity, it must recognise that there are private
possessions, so high and inviolable that the State can never
subject them to itself. / The fundamental laws of modern
constitutions should not be ridiculed too lightly. In the
midst of their phrases and their foolishness they do contain
the Magna Charta of individual freedom, which the modern
world will never again surrender. Freedom of belief and
of knowledge, of trade and of traffic, is the battle-cry of
the time. It is in this sphere that the achievements of
the age have been greatest ; this notion of social freedom
constitutes for the great majority of men the summary of
all their political ambitions. It may be asserted that, when-
ever the State has made up its mind to allow any branch
of social activity to develop itself without restriction, this
toleration has been richly rewarded, and all the prophecies
of nervous pessimists have been proved false. We have
become another people since we have been drawn into the
world of daring and aspiration of a universal commerce.
Two centuries ago Ludwig Vincke, in the capacity of a care-
ful president, explained to his Westphalians how it was
possible to construct a highway by means of a share-
holding company, in accordance with the English fashion.
^To-day a close net of independent companies of every kind
is spread over the whole of Germany ; at any rate, through
their traders, the German people will share in the noble
destiny of our race, that they shall enrich the whole
earthy And even at the present day it is no empty dream,
that out of this world-commerce there will be evolved
at some future date a political science, in whose world-
embracing vision all the activities of the great powers
of the present day will appear like the miserably insigni-
ficant operations of small States. So immeasurably rich
and various is the nature of freedom. Therein lies the
12 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
consoling certainty that at no age is it impossible for the
triumph of freedom to be effected. (For though from time
to time a government may succeed in undermining the
partnership of the people in its legislation, only the
more ardently will the passion for liberty of the modern
man apply itself to domestic or intellectual productive-
ness, and success in the one sphere will be followed up
sooner or later by success in the other. Let us leave to
boys and to those nations who always remain children
that passionate and impetuous pursuit of freedom, as of
a phantom which melts away in the hands of its pursuers.
A fully developed nation loves liberty as its lawful wife :
she lives and works among us, and delights us every day
with fresh charms." *f
Another Liberal trait of the essay, and a trait which sur-
vived in Treitschke's mind when most of his Liberalism had
disappeared, is the faith in the virtues of free thought and
free discussion. It is characteristic that this faith had in it
nothing of the fatalism so common among the Liberals of the
sixties, which supposed that truth could be left to fight her
own battles, that falsehood, however strongly intrenched,
would always be routed by the native power of a right idea :
" Is it true, then, that free investigation has ever power-
fully disturbed the tranquillity of society ? No, whenever
men have torn each other to pieces for the sake of opinions
it has been a case of minds long the victims of oppression
breaking off the ancient yoke with passionate ferocity. Let
us not cradle ourselves in the false security of the theory so
constantly reiterated that a supreme power dwells in Truth
which will always ensure victory in spite of all persecu-
tion. This is, stated in such general terms, a dangerous
error. To be sure, Socrates, Huss, Hutten, and the other
great martyrs were not in error when they proclaimed with
their last breath the immortality of truth. For a wonderful
1 Aufsdtze, iii. pp. 12-13.
" DIE FREIHEIT " 13
elevation of spirit may be attained, from which it is vouch-
safed to mortals to gaze with a smile on their lips beyond
the limits of time. Certainly, a truth, which to-day for the
first time thrills a lonely and despised thinker in his closet
with a holy joy, will somewhere and at some time be
preached from the house-tops, even though he carry it un-
uttered to his grave. To deny this is to question the divine
nature of humanity. But we who are living at the present~\
time must earnestly probe the true signification of that
ambiguous assertion that every people does actually in the /
end satisfy its spiritual and material needs. This really
means no more than to say : of the imperishable human
possessions Freedom, Truth, Beauty, Love, each nation
acquires just so much as it can obtain and preserve by its
own strength. For whole centuries whole nations came and
went, who discovered great and fruitful truths, but they
were not able to preserve them through the hard struggle
with the powers of indolence and lying. Have we not still
among us that House of Hapsburg whose whole history is a
never-to-be-forgotten record of the power which a crude
despotism may have to establish a lordship over the spirit ?
Therefore we must watch and struggle to the end that
Truth, which is only imperishable for the whole of humanity,
may win recognition and freedom here and now in this span
of time and among this handful of men which we call our
own." l
Die Freiheit, in fact, although it is inspired with a poet's
enthusiasm for the humanest of political ideals, is also a
battle-cry. In the first lines of the essay the author declares
war upon the cosmopolitanism, the Weltburger-Sinn, on which
the cultivated Germans of the smaller States were inclined
to pride themselves. (.The hope of the future, Treitschke
holds, must be looked for in the national State based upon
an intense pride of nationality and scrupulous reverence for
all national idiosyncrasies :4-
1 Aufs&tze, iii. p. 31.
I 4 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
" When will they ever become extinct, those anxious
souls, who feel an obligation to aggravate life's burden
by troubles born of their imagination, to whom every
progress of the human soul is only one more sign of the
decay of our race and of the approach of the day of
judgment ? The great majority at the present day are
beginning God be thanked !-t-to feel once again a firm
and strenuous belief in themselves i (but we are still all
too weak, at any rate if we are to judge by the gloomy
, forebodings of those pessimistic souls. The notion that a
universally -extended culture will finally displace national
customs by customs for all mankind, and turn the world
into a cosmopolitan primitive hash has become a common-
ce./ Yet the same law holds good with nations as with
individuals that their differences appear less in child-
hood than in riper years. ^.If a nation has the power
to preserve itself and its nationality through the merciless
race-struggle of history, then every progress in civilisa-
tion will only develop more strikingly its deeper national
peculiarities. } We Germans acquiesce in Paris fashions ;
we are bound to neighbouring nations by a thousand in-
terests ; yet our feelings and ideas are undoubtedly at
the present day more independent of the intellectual
world of the French and the British than they were seven
hundred years ago, when the peasant all over Europe lived
in the bondage of primitive custom, when the priest-
hood in all countries drew its knowledge from the same
source, and the nobility of Latin civilisation shaped for
itself beneath the walls of Jerusalem a new code of honour
and of morals. (_ Moreover, the active exchange of ideas be-
tween the nations of which the present day justly boasts
has never been a mere give and take."
Here, he admits, he reaches controversial ground. But
it is the controversial conclusion which he most desires to
drive home. j^If Liberalism stands for the free Government
1 Aufsatze, iii. p. i.
" DIE FREIHEIT " 15
of a free people, and for the development of all the latent
capabilities in the people, then the ultimate consequence
of Liberalism is to foster nationalism^) And this is what he
desires that Liberalism should work for. Nationalism is
the final and the crowning stage of political evolution : j
'(jf the moral conscience of the nation does really
form the just and ultimate groundwork of the State ;
if the nation is really governed in accordance with its
own will and with a view to its own happiness, then there
arises automatically the desire for a nationally exclusive
State. For where the living and indubitable consciousness
of unity pervades all the members of the State, there and
there only is the State what its nature requires that it should
be, a nation possessing organic unity. JfHence the impulse
to amputate alien elements of the population, and hence the
instinct of divided nations to break up the smaller of their
two ' mother countries.' | It is not our intention to describe
the numerous limitations and qualifications to which this
political liberty must of necessity be subject. Enough that
there does exist everywhere the demand for the government
of nations in accordance with the national will. The de-
mand is now raised more generally and more uniformly than
at any previous time in history. (^ That it will ultimately
be satisfied is as certain as that the being of a nation is
more permanent, more justified, and more robust than the
lives of the rulers who are its enemies." x )
There is indeed a wide gulf fixed between Treitschke in his
most Liberal mood and such a Liberal as Mill, or as Wilhelm
von Humboldt, from whom Mill derived the idealism with
which he adorned and dignified the individualism of Jeremy
Bentham. The difference becomes most apparent when
Treitschke seems to be following most closely in Mill's foot-
steps. Nothing in Mill's Essay on Liberty appealed so
forcibly to Treitschke as the statement that popular govern-
1 Aufsatze, iii. pp. 8-9.
i6
ment may coexist with social intolerance, that the spiritual
despotism of the majority may be more deadening than the
rule of a Louis XIV. or a Napoleon. \~But Treitschke takes
the opportunity to introduce, as a foil to his picture of
German middle-class mediocrity, his conception of the men
who are needed to act as the spiritual saviours of society. J
Mill, one may say without much injustice, had put in a plea
for the faddist ; Treitschke asks liberty for the political
fanatic :
'{All highly-developed morality is based on a genuine
self-knowledge, but just as we find stunted bodies, so do
we find souls in which one organ or another is entirely
absent.) ^Let us be grateful to every man who can humbly
admit this, to all those strong one-sided natures, who
willingly sacrifice breadth of culture for a thousandfold
gain in strength and depth. These men ask imperiously
for either hate or love. Though their understanding be
finally closed against many of the great blessings of
humanity, their character is none the less harmonious, for
it shows an exquisite adjustment between strength and
ambition.) How high they tower above those detestable
mediocrities, who are becoming so terribly numerous at the
present day, men who will offer you now a remark about
the Sistine Madonna, now an opinion on Bonapartism,
now an observation on the steam-engine seldom anything
absolutely stupid, but even more seldom anything shrewd,
and absolutely never one of those strong original sayings
at which the friend of humanity laughs in his heart, and
the hearer exclaims in silent exultation : ' That was the
man himself. None but he could have said it just so.' The
present age boasts and with justice that never before
have culture and well-being been distributed over such a
large proportion of humanity. L On the other hand, we find
in the society of the present day a strong impulse to tolerate
nothing which surpasses a certain standard certainly a
liberal standard of thought and sentiment, ]and of the
" DIE FREIHEIT " 17
great teaching of Humboldt to preserve only the husk the
many-sidedness of culture, but not the kernel of his teaching
namely the individuality of culture and of talent. ( If
there was once a time when the unrestricted freedom of will
and of action of individuals endangered the existence of
society, and a later age offered the gay and animated
spectacle of varied class-customs, the danger at the present
day on the contrary is that, by a slow irresistible pressure,
the customs and notions of one particular class of society will
suffocate all individual and personal inclinations and ideas." y
Still, when all deductions have been made, this peculiar
Liberalism of Treitschke has undeniable nobility. ^ He desires
a strong government for Germany, but a government which is
based on popular consent, and in which the ordinary elector
has the opportunity to play an active and even an important
part. In later years he was accustomed to argue that, at the
best, the average citizen could only exercise a negligible
influence, and to argue that every government is free if it
rules under rational laws which the people approve and obey
of their own accord. ) At the age of twenty-seven he was
more sanguine. He hoped for a German State in which not
only would local government be left in the hands of officials
elected by popular suffrage, but the central executive also
would be brought under popular control by an efficient
parliamentary system. There must, he said, be self-
government in every branch of the administration from the
highest to the lowest. (Not until he became a professor
of Berlin did he throw overboard this early constitution-
alism and argue that even the subjects of the Great Elector
had been free in the truest sense of the word ; that a vote
means nothing, and that local self-government must become
government by a local aristocracy. \ It is cheering to believe
that his earlier ideal has still some advocates in Germany ;
that Die Freiheit is still read and admired by those who
have before them the maturer, less amiable doctrine of the
1 Aufsatze, iii. pp. 33-4.
i8 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
Politik. (Die Freiheit preaches the gospel of the State ; but
of such a State as we can gladly serve and reverence :-v-
" Though we continue at the present day to quote
cheerfully the words of Humboldt with reference to the
all-round development of the human being as a cultivated
and energetic individuality, we must realise that the old
doctrine has another significance at the present day. For
this age is a new age ; it does not exist merely on the
wisdom of the ancients. That inward freedom which
turned away without either joy or sorrow from the
necessary evil of an unemancipated State no longer suffices
us. (We want to have free men in a free State. But the
liberty of the individual which we have in view can only
flourish under the protection of political liberty ; and
the all-round cultivation of the individual for which we
are striving is only really possible when the spontaneous
performance of various civic duties enlarges and ennobles
the human mind. Thus every consideration of moral
questions brings us into the province of the State] Ever
since the lamentable condition of this country has con-
trasted so ludicrously with the advanced ideas of its
inhabitants, ever since noble hearts have been seen to
break under the intolerable burden of the people's suffer-
ing, something of the patriotism of the ancients has
entered into the hearts of the best of the German people.
(The thought of the Fatherland brings us warning and
guidance in the midst of our most private affairs. If there
is any thought at the present day which can admonish
a true German to moral courage more powerfully than
the sense of an obligation common to all humanity, it is
this thought : Whatever you can do to become more
pure and manly and free is done for your nation." * \
* Aufs&tze, iii. pp. 41-2.
CHAPTER III
TREITSCHKE AND BISMARCK (l86l-l866)
FROM the moment when Treitschke began to lecture at
Leipzig, his popularity as an academic teacher was assured.
He devoted himself to the exposition of recent German
history, and worked unremittingly to make good his defects
of equipment. Until 1861 his best work was given to his
Leipzig courses. Of these he writes to Max Duncker (Febru-
ary 24, 1861) :
" I have been able to do absolutely no work for myself.
My lectures have, in fact, become fashionable. I have
an audience of more than two hundred, and you will
realise that this has compelled me to raise my own de-
mands for my eloquence. The question of remuneration
has not been neglected. The Minister and the President
have not judged it unbecoming to appeal to me on my
mortal side : that is to say, they have seriously alarmed
my father by murmured hints of the " Apostle of Prussia."
I shall probably not go back to Leipzig again. I can
work more freely and with less distraction from personal
concerns in any other place. But where ? As yet I have
no idea. Never was my future more obscure. To begin
with, I shall work at Munich ; and, if it is at all possible,
I shall not forget the Almanac." 1
In April 1861, having obtained leave of absence from
Leipzig, he settled down for some months at Munich to
1 Briefe, ii. No. 288.
19
20 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
work systematically on a history of the German Confedera-
tion. The point of view from which that history would be
written was already clear to him. f When he made himself
at Leipzig the " Apostle of Prussia " he was already con-
vinced that the only hope for Germany lay in a complete
breach with the ideas which had animated the founders of
the Confederation.) He desired the overthrow of the Con-
federation and the establishment of a Prussian supremacy
over the smaller States. But he knew that it would be a
long and arduous business to convert public opinion outside
Prussia. And he was determined to serve as a missionary ;
to demonstrate from the history of the years 1815-48
the defects of the Confederation and the impossibility of
\uniting Germany in any real sense of the word by means of a
constitution so weak and so capable of being abused ;/ and
incidentally to prove that, however great might have been
the mistakes of Prussian policy in the last fifty years, Prussia
alone possessed the material resources and the traditions of
policy which were essential for the successful leadership
of a united Germany. ^The vindication of Prussia could be
best effected by bringing to the knowledge of the German
, public the elementary facts of Prussian history! in such
-^essays as Das deutsche Ordensland Preussen 1 which he wrote
' in 1862. That essay, he said, was bound to be useful
because he lately discovered that, in a society of Saxon
professors, no one but himself had ever heard of Marienburg,
the capital from which the Teutonic knights had governed
Prussia. The indictment of ^he Confederation was, he knew,
a harder task ; though he characteristically imagined at the
commencement of the work that he would be able to finish
it in two or three years. On reaching Munich he sketched
his plan of work in a letter addressed to Ludwig Aegidi, a
friend of his student days :
" I intend (you need not let this go any further) to
write a history of the Confederation and of the small
1 Aufsdtze, ii. pp. 1-76.
TREITSCHKE AND BISMARCK 21
states from 1815 to 1848 ; not of course a work based on
the study of original sources, which would be impossible,
but a conscientious and, above all, a thoroughly uncom-
prising presentation of the facts contained in scattered
narratives ; perhaps in the style of Rochau's French History,
but j better than that work, wherever possible. That is to
say, I propose to trace out particularly the changes in the
spirit of the nation, which at the present day, even in our
stubborn people, take place with such amazing rapidity.
I want the book to produce an effect. I want to show
palpably to the indifferent and the thoughtless in what
miserable triviality, and in what sinful dissipation, this great
people is wasting its most precious forces. Naturally, I
am prepared for the possibility that, at the end of three
years, by which time I hope to have mastered the enormous
mass of material, the book will have become superfluous,
and the German Confederation will have been gathered to
its fathers. I am not trying to investigate unfamiliar
sources, but if any such should happen to come under
your notice, I earnestly implore you to inform me of them.
Apart from this, I shall, in the course of the work, be
frequently obliged to come to you for advice.
' You will ask how I came of my own accord to form
this scheme. I think that such a book as this is needed
by our people, who set such a high value on books. A
gloomy discontent is spreading at an alarming rate.
Gradually we shall find ourselves in the right mood to think
better of ourselves and of our recent shame. I should
like to help this on as much as I can, because most
historians recoil affrighted from the repulsive task. The
jurists, to be sure, understand a portion of the matter
better than I, but not the whole." 1
The work grew on his hands, and he was sometimes
appalled at the mass of literature with which he had to deal.
When he returned to Leipzig from Munich (January 1862)
1 Briefe, ii. No. 294.
22 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
he had only made a beginning. Henceforth the Bund was
the main subject of his lectures ; and in the intervals of
lecturing and political controversy he continued his re-
searches. That in academic eyes he was still rather a pub-
licist than a historian is shown by the invitation, which he
received in 1863 from the University of Freiburg, to become
a Professor of Political Science and Public Finance. The
authorities at Freiburg needed a man who would equip
embryo administrators with an outfit of general ideas.
After some hesitation he accepted the offer :
" My sphere of action is wider here than in F[reiburg].
My material situation would there be seriously changed for
the worse. Finally, I lecture here on historical subjects,
which harmonise with my inclination and with my own
educational development ; while there I should be en-
gaged in occupations much more remote from my own
interests. In spite of this, I have, in the meantime,
declared myself ready to undertake it ; for, when it is a
case of a first post, one must not be too exacting, and
it would be a great joy to me to live at last under a decent
administration. Had they simply required a professor
of public finance, I should immediately have declined
the post, as my knowledge of political science is entirely
historical and political. Instead of this, they have made
me an offer, which seems to me not quite clear and
in fact contradictory. They want particularly not to
have a technical expert, but a political scientist, who
shall instruct future officials of finance concerning the
political and social significance of the chief branches of
their calling, and also cover in lectures a wide ground in
political science, the history of political theories, and so forth.
For the last task, I think I do possess the qualifications ;
for public finance itself my inclination and my preparation
are far less. But I know of no teacher who could fill both
these widely different requirements." 1
1 Bricfe, ii. No. 369.
The years spent at Freiburg (1863-6) were by no means
wasted. Treitschke found his duties as a teacher of political
science thoroughly congenial ; and he now laid the founda-
tions of the famous course on Politik which he was after-
wards to deliver at Berlin. As a publicist he achieved the
height of his reputation by his lengthy attack on the gospel
of Bonapartism which was in a form a review of the Life
of Julius Caesar by Napoleon III. and by the essay on^
" Federalism and Centralisation " (Bundesstaat und Einheits- /
staat] which has been judged not only the finest of his"\
political writings, but the most weighty utterance of all that \
school of German publicists who fought the battle of German ..'^
unity in the middle years of the nineteenth century.
This essay appeared in 1864. It was an invitation to /
Prussia to attack the smaller States and incorporate them
with herself. It is a more powerful production than Die
Freiheit, more closely reasoned, more obviously founded
upon historical study and practical experience. But it also
shows that Treitschke was travelling fast and far from that *
idealism of his student days which throws a golden haze
over the pages of Die Freiheit. We are not surprised that
old General von Treitschke should now begin to denounce
the " Jesuitical " morality of his son ; for the assumption of
Bundesstaat und Einheitsstaat is that, for the statesman, the
end j ustifies the means. It is more surprising that Treitschke
should be growing reconciled to Prussian methods of domestic
government which, at their best, were a long way from
corresponding to those of his ideal free State.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of his mental
development in these years was the alternation of fits of
revolt against the principles of Prussian Junkerdom with
other fits of conviction that, even though the Prussian idol
had feet of clay, there was no other possible centre of German
national unity. His feelings swayed in the one direction or
the other according as he was for the moment concerned
with the actual policy of Prussia, which he disliked, or with
her historical development, which he could not admire too
24 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
highly. What he had thought of Prussian politics in the
years 1861-3 may be seen from the following utterances to
private friends :
'^1 realise that for Germany there is only one hope
of salvation, namely, a united and indivisible monarchy.)
Any suggestion of a federation of monarchies seems to me
a contradiction in terms ; any hope of a republic is folly,
as long as there is nothing which corresponds with these
ideas in the life of our nation. C Prussia, then, has no choice.
She must triumph with the help of the German people. 1 } And
for this very reason the crisis in Prussia must finally cul-
minate in a healthy ebullition. I hope the nation will do
its duty, and elect as democratic a Chamber as possible.
Then the course will be clear, as befits a valiant people.
But only try the effect of a Junker ministry or a coup d'etat :
it is no time for such madness. The situation is ripe for a
final decisive break with Junkerdom ; for it is Junkerdom
which is the Achilles' heel of the North, just as Ultra-
montanism is that of the South. The North German
nobility has not felt, as that of South Germany felt after the
collapse of the spiritual estates in 1803-6, the mighty
hand of a new great era ; it lives in a fashion which would
be intolerable to any moderately healthy nation. By a
bold step like this, Prussia will have covered half the distance
to the German crown. For the consciousness of our shame
is too universal, f Only one thing hinders the great majority
of the German people from saying frankly : ' We want to
be incorporated with Prussia ' ; and that is the consciousness
i that, in the questions of the nobility and (closely connected
\with it) of the military caste, Prussia is unfortunately even
lore abject than most of the German States.'*} 1
" To the question, How is Prussia ruled at the present
day ? I find in cold blood only one answer : On the side of
the ministers, with a frivolity which weighs a sworn oath as
lightly as a feather ; on the side of the king, with an infatua-
1 Briefe, ii. No. 295 (April 22, 1861).
TREITSCHKE AND BISMARCK 25
tion which allows audacious sophists to declare black to be
white and beautiful to be ugly, an infatuation which reason-
able men can no longer consider sane or accountable. It is
horrible that the State, to which I am as devotedly attached
as yourself, should find itself in such a situation, but I am
convinced that it is so. And even if this judgment were
too severe, my opinion is that, after the constitution has
been shattered, those who are attached to it ought not to
speak of the well-meant intentions of the subverters of the
law of the land ; they ought to say nothing which would
tend to diminish the just, but unfortunately all too feeble
indignation of the country." J
On the other hand, his letters also contain passages in
which he expresses a supreme confidence in Prussia and even
admits that Bismarck, whom he regarded as, in domestic
government, the protagonist of the worst form of Junkerdom,
was at all events fighting the battles of Prussia and of
Germany against Austria and the forces, of particularism :
"It is actually a fact that every square foot of earth
which has been conquered for Germany during the last
200 years, has been conquered by Prussia. Believe me,
the history of such a State cannot end in despicable folly.
It will only really begin when all the envious nonentities
and amateur politicians surrounding those who have
always invariably been the sole promoters of our welfare
have been indiscriminately polished off. I have aged
rapidly during this winter, which has afforded such a
terrible revelation of the immaturity of our public
opinion. I am no longer so presumptuous in my hopes,
and I shall be happy if, in my grey old age, I see a
Prussian Germany ; but that a happier generation will
attain this end I do not for a moment doubt." 2
^If I had to choose between such parties, I should
place myself on the side of Bismarck; for he fights for
1 Briefe, ii. No. 376 (July 17, 1863). * Ibid. No. 406 (May 19, 1864).
26 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
the might of Prussia^ for our legitimate position on the
North Sea and on the Baltic. I would rather support
the Gerlach ministry than join myself with the traitors
to my country,' like Dr. Frehse, and help the enemies of
Prussia to hatch plots against our State. \I am not and
never shall be an admirer of Bismarck,^ although accord-
ing to Roggenbach's certainly not very flattering account
I have a greater respect for him and his Keudell than you
seem to have.) I look upon it as a duty to support his
foreign policy, f 'Some of the methods it employs are
detestable, but if it fails, we shall have a second Olmiitz,
the triumph of all the enemies of the Fatherland." 1
(\]p to the outbreak of war between Austria and Prussia the
attitude of Treitschke towards Bismarck's government was
still one of qualified respect. Treitschke could not forgive
Bismarck for his press laws or for his contempt of Prussian
parliamentary institutions.! On these points he remained
obdurate, though he approved enthusiastically of Bismarck's
conduct in the Schleswig-Holstein question, which to many
people then and since has seemed far less defensible, In
this matter (i.e. Schleswig-Holstein) positive law is irre-
concilable with the vital interests of our country. We must
\set aside positive law and compensate those who may be
injured in consequence. This view may be erroneous ; it
is not immoral. ] Every step in historical progress is thus
achieved . . (^positive law when injurious to the common
\ good must be swept away.'] 2 ? The upshot was that, in
public, he defended Bismarck as far as he could, but in
private refused any alliance which would make him morally-,
1 Briefe, ii. No. 474 (Oct. i, 1865). Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach was one
of the reactionary counsellors of Frederick William IV. of Prussia, and a
leader of the Kreuzzeitung party. Franz von Roggenbach was one of the
Liberal counsellors of the Grand Duke Frederick of Baden. Robert von
Keudell was a confidant of Bismarck. At the Conference of Olmiitz in
1850 Frederick William IV. had yielded to Austria in the question of the
Electorate of Hesse, thereby recognising Austria's pretensions to be re-
garded as the leading State in the German Confederation.
2 Briefe, ii. No. 459 (May 22, 1865).
TREITSCHKE AND BISMARCK 27
an accomplice with Bismarck in the denial of constitutional
liberty to Prussia./
" I subscribe," he writes in October 1865, " I subscribe
to all that Freytag says about the dishonesty of Prussian
policy. But when I look at the opposition party and see
there the Rheinbund intriguers of the courts of Dresden and
Munich and the conscienceless demagogues, who are corrupt-
ing an honest people at the bidding of the Augustenburg
claimant . . . then I understand that by comparison with
such enemies Bismarck is pursuing not only a clever, but
even a moral policy. (^He will do what we need, he will
advance another step towards the lofty goal of German
unity ; those who are men are bound to help him. To
misuse those great words Law and Self -Government has
always been the trick of knaves. Let them continue their
unconscionable and stupid vituperation. U The good cause
will triumplm: the heirs of Frederick the Great will reign
in Schleswigfcolstein ; and in a short time the nation will
be ashamed emits own stupidity.'*/ 1
Bismarck wl¬ slow to appreciate the value of such a
supporter as the\ Author of Bundesstaat und Einheitsstaat.
An opportunity of showing goodwill to Treitschke occurred
in December 1865, when the latter wrote asking for per-
mission to use the Prussian archives in the preparation of
his history. Bismarck promptly replied in an autograph
letter, assenting to the request with an " unheard-of liber-
ality " which was profoundly gratifying to Treitschke. The
historian still expressed his intention to avoid any lasting
connexion with Bismarck ; and the intention was not
altered by a personal interview in which the statesman
evidently did his utmost to be conciliatory :
" Personally Bismarck has made a very favourable
impression on me ; politically, a much worse impression.
1 Brief e, ii. No. 476.
28 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
He talked much of his plans for reforming the Confedera-
tion, till I could hardly contain myself for astonishment at
these fantastic follies. Muddled as he is, I do not on that
account despair about the Schleswig-Holstein business.
About the war 1 Bismarck spoke very moderately and
rationally ; he does not desire it, but thinks he can carry it
through, if need be, and quite realises that annexation is now
a point of honour for Prussia after all that has happened." 2
Had Treitschke been privileged to attend the Prussian
Council of War which met on February 28, 1866, nearly a
month before this interview, he would have been better
able to commend the views of Bismarck, who had then
cast his vote for war with Austria, not only as a means
of securing Schleswig-Holstein for Prussia, but with the
further intention of preparing by the war for a closer union
of the German States. As it was, Treitschke did not feel
sufficient faith in the success of Bismarck's German policy
to forgive all his sins against the Prussian constitution.
While he warned his Liberal friends that, for the sake of the
permanent interests of Germany, they ought to forget their
resentment against Bismarck, and support Prussia in the
coming war with Austria, he declined point-blank to take
service under Bismarck. LEarly in June, before the war broke
out, he was asked by Bismarck to place his pen at the service
of the Prussian government, and was offered as a reward
a professorship at Berlin./ Treitschke had already decided to
throw up his appointment at Freiburg, if, as seemed certain,
the Grand Duchy of Baden declared for Austria ; and,
since he was meditating matrimony, Bismarck's offer must
have offered no ordinary temptations. His refusal under
these circumstances is a convincing proof of his disinterested
integrity. He wrote to Bismarck on June 7, 1866 :
" The formal scruples which stand in the way of my
migration to Berlin are not insuperable. Were I indeed
1 With Austria. * Brief e, ii. No. 504 (March 25, 1866).
TREITSCHKE AND BISMARCK 29
convinced that my presence at Berlin would be not
altogether unprofitable, I should hold myself bound to
give up my professorship, even in a somewhat tumultuary
fashion. It is another matter when the question is one of
principle. The course which the Royal government has
adopted up to the present has not induced me to hope
that I could offer it my services, and I have not yet been
able to feel any great confidence in the probable success
of the reform of the German Confederation. How the
situation presents itself to me, and whether my views are
at all in agreement with those of His Majesty's Govern-
ment, Your Excellency will best be able to gather from
an article in the Prussian Almanac which I send you
herewith. The aim of the essay was to win over a few
not yet incurably infatuated Liberals to a reconciliation
with the Government ; and therefore I had to speak indulg-
ently of the progressive party, and to conceal the limitless
contempt which I feel for the fanatics of this party.
Apart from this, the essay expresses my opinion exactly.
The absolute recognition of the right of the deputies to
control the Budget seems to me an indispensable neces-
sity. No art in the world will ever persuade a Prussian
Diet to renounce this right.
" Will Your Excellency permit me to point out that this
question of right and freedom may very possibly become
a vital question for Prussia ? The Berlin Cabinet will be
enlightened with regard to the worthless character of several
of the South German courts. What prevents these courts
from going over, with flags flying, to the Austrian camp, is
only the characteristic distaste of the small States for action,
and an uncertainty as to the disposition of the; people,
which just now is wavering between its hatred of Prussia
and its vague yearning towards Parliament. If it should
happen as I do not anticipate but as is not impossible
that the result of the first battle should be unfavourable
to us, and if then the conflict in Prussia has not yet been
adjusted, the malice of the small courts, as well as of the
30 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
red radicals and of the Austrian party in the South, will
probably be more powerful than the opposing efforts of
well-meaning patriots, and the South will join itself with
Austria.
" It seems to me terrible, that the most distinguished
foreign minister whom Prussia has had for centuries, should
be at the same time the most hated man in Germany ; and
it seems to me even sadder that the finest schemes for the
reform of the Confederation that a Prussian Government
has ever put forward, should have been received by the
nation with such shameful indifference. But this fanaticism
in the outlook of the Liberal party does exist. It is a
power, and it has to be reckoned with. The restoration of
the right to control the Budget and the overwhelming force
of the war these are in my opinion the only means which
will bring misguided public opinion back to its senses. Even
after a victory for our arms, if the internal conflict has not
been settled, the unconquerable mistrust of the Liberals will
prepare the greatest difficulties in the way of the plans for
the reform of the Confederation. Your Excellency has, by
the grace of Heaven, been preserved to our nation almost
miraculously. May you also succeed in restoring that
internal peace, which is essential for the success of your
magnificently conceived national plans.
" So long as I live outside Prussia, my task as a political
writer is easy. If, however, I were to enter into any con-
nexion with the Royal government, I should be obliged to
accept my share of the responsibility for its home policy ;
and this would be impossible to me, so long as the legal
basis of the constitution had not been restored.
" I beg Your Excellency to accept my most cordial wishes
for the opening of the great struggle now at length about
to begin, and the assurance of my sincere admiration." 1
Before the end of the month, Baden had joined Austria.
Treitschke at once resigned his chair. " I cannot," he
1 Brief e, ii. No. 513.
TREITSCHKE AND BISMARCK 31
wrote, " remain the servant of a State which is included
in the Rhine Confederation, a body which as a patriot I am
bound to injure to the best of my ability." Released from
his academic position, he threw himself into the fray of
pamphlet controversy with zeal and bitterness, publishing
on July 30, four days after Austria had signed the pre- '
liminary peace with Prussia, his notorious essay on " The
Future of the North German Middle States." It was a
demand that Prussia should crown her victory by annexing^,
Hanover, electoral Hesse, and Saxony, the three North t
German States which had declared for Austria. So far as
Hanover and Hesse were concerned, this programme was
carried out in the Treaty of Prague (August 23, 1866), which
assigned those two states to Prussia " by the law of nations ";
Saxony was only saved by the obstinate stand which
Austria made on behalf of her old ally.
V,Treitschke had prophesied the rise of Prussia to pre-
eminence. His prophecies had contributed in no small "
degree to preparing Prussia's triumph. He had insisted so
long and so eloquently upon the advantages which Germany
would reap from any and every aggrandisement of Prussia,
that few German Nationalists were prepared to judge
Prussia's conduct by the standards which they would have *
applied to any other State. For the sake of a national ideal \
he had helped to debase the political morality of his country-
men. But, as we have seen, he was at least free from any
taint of interested motives. He had fought Bismarck's
battles as an independent and unpaid ally ; he would have
scorned to reap advantage from his exertions on behalf of
the national idea/
Singularly enough he was still half a Liberal, still wedded
to the doctrines of constitutional Government which he had
learned in his student days from Dahlmann. More singular
still he remained a believer in Kant's categorical imperative,
and spoke with a high seriousness of religious matters. In
the new gospel of Force, which was exemplified by Prussia's
policy, he saw nothing inconsistent with the moral code
32 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
which he had learned from his Protestant father. It pained
him that his father should speak of him as not a Christian,
as a political Jesuit :
" Your question, how I stand with regard to religion,
surprised me. It grieves me, my dear Father, that you
should worry yourself about this, and it grieves me all
the more, because I know that it is unnecessary. If it
were possible to discuss exhaustively such a great subject
in a few words, I am sure that we should find ourselves
in complete agreement. I am unable to conceive
any great man without a profound religious sense.
But as to the form which this religious belief may take
hi the heart of the individual, it seems to me that there
ought to be absolute freedom. A man must experience
and build up his own faith. That seems to me the
supremely important thingA\Jhe universe is so im-
measurably large, and we men are so insignificant, that
a man must be satisfied if, by some road or other, he can
come a little nearer to the understanding of God. I can
best seek to accomplish this by seeking to fathom the
eternal reason which governs human hi story. 11 This way
suits best with my disposition ; and it thrills me with
a deeper devotion than I have ever felt in reading theo-
logical works. I think that, in these secret things of the
soul's experience, every one must leave others to go their
way, and must hold to the conviction that the re-
ligion of a man is best discerned in his morality and his
tolerance. I do not admit that those who base their belief
strictly on the Bible are justified in holding themselves to
be the only true Christians. In the last two thousand
years Christianity has changed its shape over and over
again ; but its eternal value has not been lost, and never
will be lost. If Luther thought it necessary to hold fast to
the letter of the Scripture, we have since his time grown
older by 300 years, and we have the right to go further
than the reformers. I have a sincere and humble conscious-
TREITSCHKE AND BISMARCK 33
ness of my own sinfulness and weakness ; but I know that
it is not the form of my creed which is to blame for my
shortcoming." l
General von Treitschke no doubt approached the question
of religion in a narrow and sectarian spirit. But he saw
life steadily and as a whole. He saw that the political
principles of his son were incompatible with Christian religion^
and morality. And his son's reply shows, by its very
sincerity, the inconsequence and incoherence which so
often develop in the mind of one who has concentrated all
his intellectual energies upon one special field of thought. ,
Heinrich von Treitschke was so entirely absorbed in historical
and political studies that his opinions on other subjects
had become prematurely stereotyped. On religion and
morals, for instance, he thought at the age of thirty-two .
very much as he had thought at the age of eighteen. He
lacked the inclination and the energy to reconsider his
intellectual position in all its bearings. Therefore his con- v
victions were full of inconsistencies. Even his political \
principles had ceased to square entirely with his political, .
programme. In politics he was a partially converted SC.
Liberal of 1848, preaching with fire and fury the half truths
which he had learned by the experience of the intervening
eighteen years, and only half conscious of the old stock of
Liberal opinions which still formed a large part of his mental
furniture.
To the end of his life he remained a Protestant hi politics ;
and a leaven of sturdy Protestant prejudice shows itself,
sometimes rather unexpectedly, in his writings. He detested , ;
the hierarchical system of the Roman Catholic Church ; he
detested " Jesuit " ethics also, in spite of his father's belief
to the contrary. In a sense his nature was profoundly
religious, as was also that of Bismarck. But towards
dogma he was contemptuously indifferent. Religion for
him was not so much an intellectual belief as an optimism
1 Briefe, ii. No. 407 (May 19, 1864).
34 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
for which he acknowledged that he could give no reason,
and a noble scorn for material objects of ambition. His
faith seems to be summed in the two following sentences :
" The true good fortune of life must only be sought in an
end which is common to all men and attainable by all ; not
in the possession of wealth, or in political power, or in art
and science, but in the world of feeling, in a clear conscience,
hi the strength of love, and above all in the power of faith. '.I 1
" I have thankfully experienced the might of Providence
in the great fortunes of my people and the small experiences
of my family life ; and I feel more strongly than ever the
need to bow myself submissively before God." 2
1 Deutsche Kdrnpfe, ii. p. 145.
1 Quoted by Petersdorff in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographic, Iv. pp. 301-2.
CHAPTER IV
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY, 1848-1866
OUTSIDE his own country Treitschke is known either as the
most brilliant historian of the Prussian School, or as a
German Machiavelli, the most outspoken advocate of
Realpolitik in the Bismarckian period. But in Germany
itself he is also remembered as one of the makers of the
German Empire ; (as a publicist who taught his countrymen
to expect with confidence the realisation of national unity,
and to base large hopes upon the consequences political
and social, moral and intellectual which were to follow
upon their union in a single State .j He was the last and
greatest in the succession of professor-prophets which began
with Dahlmann. Treitschke's most brilliant prophecies
were uttered in the sixties. They did not all come true ;
but many of his countrymen still hold that the German
Empire would be better than it is, if Treitschke's dream of
a centralised monarchy had been realised in 1871. It is
to the political programme which he advocated in the
sixties that we must now turn our attention. Our readers
will understand it goes without saying4=that few parts of
this programme were the product of his own unaided
thought. ) i He was the spokesman of a large and influential
school of thought ; and for this reason, rather than because
of any striking originality, he at once secured an enthusiastic
hearing.) No one else, however, expressed the ideas of
Prussian policy so pointedly ; and not even Droysen or
Sybel used the weapon of historical argument with such
35
36 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
remarkable success. (JThe effectiveness of his arguments was
partly due to the fact that he based them upon facts which
I were still within the range of living memory .1 Droysen
wrote panegyrics of the early Hohenzollerns and elevated
the Great Elector to the rank of a national hero. Sybel
used the history of the French Revolution to prove the
immense superiority of Prussian conservatism over the
gospel of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. But Treitschke
, turned to the age of the German Confederation for his
instances ; and the ghost of the Confederation still walked
the stage of German politics when he was writing. \JThe
> moral of his story was drawn from the failure of constitutional
experiments, for which men still prominent upon the stage
had been prepared to shed their blood.)
Three alternative forms of union were under the con-
sideration of patriotic Germans at the time when Treitschke
wrote his essay, Bundesstaat und Einheitsstaat. First of all
there was the form which had been tried in 1815 the
Staatenbund or mere Confederation ; a permanent alliance
of German States for mutual defence, which in effect left
the sovereignty of the single States untouched, and which
possessed no central institutions except a congress of
ambassadors (Bundesversammlung). The second possibility
was a Federal State (Bundesstaat), analogous to the United
States of America. In the Bundesstaat there would be a
central executive, a central legislature, and a central judica-
ture, which for certain purposes came into contact with the
individual citizen. The powers of the central government
would be denned by a rigid constitution. But within its
own sphere the central government would be superior to the
governments of the constituent States ; and it would not be
dependent upon the pleasure of the State-governments, for
the enforcement of its laws, its judgments, and its admini-
strative orders. This is the ideal which was realised in the
constitution of the German Empire, though it was an ideal
which Treitschke, both on historical and on a priori grounds,
pronounced impracticable. Lastly, there was the possibility
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 37
of annihilating the governments of the smaller German
States and of establishing a Unitary State (Einheitsstaat) ,
which should be simply an expanded Prussia. This was the
alternative which Treitschke preferred ; and when his hopes
were disappointed he comforted himself by arguing that the
Empire, though in form a Bundesstaat , owed its efficiency to
the fact that it was indeed an Einheitsstaat skilfully
disguised.
In the following passages, taken from the Politik,
Treitschke discusses the true nature of the Confederation
(Staatenbund) and of the Federal State (Bundesstaat} with
admirable historical illustrations :
" A Confederation of States (Staatenbund) differs from a
mere international alliance, first of all by its duration. I It
is seriously planned to endure for eternity as we men conceive
eternity. It has for its basis a living consciousness of
a common nationality, or of common historical memories.
The federated States feel that they could not dispense with
one another's support in fighting for common objects, and
they express this in a permanent political form, j Switzerland,
which is a genuine example of a Confederation, was formed
in this way. (The joint obligation is not only that of uniting
against a foreign enemy, but also of settling internal dis-
sensions by dint of good will or of legislation.) This arrange-
ment may give rise to a number of other permanent
institutions, but the sovereignty of the individual States
is always preserved.) Hence the liberum veto of the members
of the Federation follows naturally. Since a sovereign
cannot obey, the individual States must have a right of
protest against the final resolutions of the majority of the
States.) So it was in the Netherlands, in old Switzerland,
and also in the German Confederation. In the case of every
alteration in the Act of Confederation (Bundesacte) , in the
case of all the so-called " organic " decrees (to which every
one attached a different meaning) , unanimity was essential ;
and the practical result was that, in important matters,
38 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
the Federal Council was incapable of coming to a conclusion.
It was a permanent Board of Incompetence.
" The self-contradictoriness of this system is obvious,
and lies in the fact that unequals are considered as equals.
Save for certain honorific privileges, all the partners in the
Confederacy are made equal. Hence the weak States have
an unjust advantage over the strong. It was a citizen
of the State of Holland Spinoza who declared that to
insist on equality among unequals is to insist on an absurdity.
I In the Diet of the German Confederation, Austria, Prussia,
' Bavaria, Wiirtemburg, and Hanover might all be out-voted
by the small States. That was an utter absurdity, and
could not possibly be continued in practice. The large States
were compelled to bring to bear privately the weapon of
their power, in order to secure for themselves a party.
" Thus in Confederations a hegemony may be formed,
either in fact or in law, for the sake of introducing a para-
mount factor into this chaos of conflicting sovereign wills.
That was what occurred in the Republic of the Netherlands.
The conditions of the Confederation were in this case ex-
tremely lax in themselves ; for, as we know, the strict prin-
ciple of the liberum veto required the unanimity not only
of the States-General of the Seven Provinces, but also
the Provincial States, from which they were sent. In
theory that was about as abnormal a state of affairs as
could well be imagined ; but, in practice, it was equalised by
two powerful centralising forces in the Federation. Of the
Seven Provinces, Holland by herself was so strong as to com-
prise two-thirds of the entire population, and about seven-
eighths of the national wealth. The material centre of gravity
of the whole Union, therefore, lay in Holland, in towns
like Amsterdam, Haarlem, The Hague, and Leyden ; and
the Republic of the Netherlands was commonly referred to
by the name of this one Province, which seemed identical
with the whole. Further, the maritime interests, which
were especially considered in Holland and Zealand, became
much more important than the internal affairs of the little
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 39
inland provinces. It was truly said : ' Hoch von Muth,
klein von Gut, ein Schwert in der Hand, das ist das Wappen
von Gelderland.' * But how small was the actual significance
of this little Guelderland by the side of the world-power of
Holland. By this time, too, the Republic had been for-
mally so organised that the will of Holland should invari-
ably prevail. Both the States-General of the Union and
the Provincial States of Holland sat in council together at
the Hague, in the same building, the Binnenhof. If the
Union had to deal with an important question, first there
was a meeting of the Provincial States to deliberate before-
hand on the proposals to be put before the Union. Their
resolution was then, as a rule, adopted by the other
States.
" Thus, through the actual predominance of Holland, a
certain unifying force was introduced despite the liberum veto.
The living bond between the chief Province and the Union
was the remarkable office of the Grand Pensionary, which
has furnished our constitution with a model for the office
of Imperial Chancellor. It must be remembered here that
Bismarck was in his youth a friend of Motley, the talented
American historian. Motley wrote a book on the United
Netherlands, and from this Bismarck acquired a theoretical
knowledge of Federalism. The combination by which the
chief official of the dominant State was at the same time the
most powerful official of the Union was, in the case of
the Netherlands, very ingeniously contrived. It avoided
the necessity of openly displaying the hegemony of the
Republic produced by this means. The Pensionary sat
bareheaded at the lower end of the table, at which the
high and powerful lords of the States-General took counsel,
as sovereigns, with covered heads. He had not even a vote.
But he was minister for foreign affairs ; he conducted the
business of the Union ; it was with him that every foreign
country had to negotiate. If the proposition be true that
1 High in courage, small in wealth, a sword in hand. That is thecoat-
of-arms of Guelderland.
40 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
whoever negotiates and is responsible also rules, then he was
the man who actually ruled.
"To this hegemony of the one province was added a second
centripetal element, the House of Orange, with its hereditary
military office, which constituted a force at once democratic
and monarchical ; and which, as the representative of a
vigorous continental policy, though it often came into
conflict with the Republic of Holland, at the same time had
for its aim the establishment of a solid central government.
Through the eighty years of the struggle for liberation the
House of Orange provided the commander-in-chief of the
Army ; and, even afterwards, in the midst of continuous
wars, its representatives held together both the Union and
their Army.
" So, by dint of these two institutions, which are nowhere
laid down in writing, the centrifugal force of the Seven
Provinces was restricted. But anarchical weapons were
employed without compunction against the liber um veto of
the Provincial States. Either threats were used ; or else
a so-called ' deputation of notables,' of stadtholders and
influential members of the States-General, was sent to the
Provinces of the minority. It journeyed to the people of
Friesland or Guelderland, in order to melt their hard hearts
by a personal appeal, a feat which was seldom accomplished
without the aid of a full purse." 1
"If we consider the distinction between a Federal State
(Bundesstaat) and a Confederation [taatenbund) of States,
we see clearly that it does not consist, as many theorists
have affirmed, in the extent of the powers of the central
administration. The weak central administration of the
German Confederation none the less possessed in many
respects greater power than the modern German Empire.
It intervened in local matters, which our Empire allows to
be administered locally by its members. The difference
between the two forms of federalism cannot, then, be found
here ; nor in the fact that, in a Confederation, the decrees
1 Politik, ii. pp. 310-3.
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 41
of the central administration are executed by the individual
States, while, in a Federal State, the Central Administration
itself executes its own decrees, and forms its own adminis-
trative departments.
" This theory, which, as we shall see, is not in accordance
with facts, originated in America. In the dark days of the
war against England, when the Union of the thirteen
sovereign States of the starry banner had fallen so low that
it could not even pay oft its war-debt to France and Holland,
and had suffered a universal loss of prestige, then the chief
patriots took their courage in their hands ; they assembled
the Congress of Philadelphia, 1 and behind closed doors they
accomplished what had become a necessity the overthrow
of the sovereignty of the several States. For that was
really the important thing ; and, though the American
statesmen did not make this clear in theory, in practice
they handled the situation with genius. Lit is practical'
genius that has always been the strength of the Anglo-
Saxon people.} Alexander Hamilton, the great American
statesman of that time, founded a periodical, the Federal-
ist, with the aim of winning in the first place the approval of
the sovereign people of New York. This stroke of diplomacy
suffices to show that matters were not conducted quite dis-
ingenuously ; but, in addition to this, the uncertainty of the
whole age with regard to the theoretical nature of sovereignty
is revealed in the credit which was given to the theory of
division des pouvoirs. This produced the theory of the
Federal State (Bundesstaatstheorie) , according to which the
sovereign members of the Confederation should remain
sovereign, but should cede a portion of their sovereignty to
the Union, so that certain branches of the administration
for instance, the Army, the Customs, the Post Office, and the
Coinage should be excluded from the functions of the
individual States. The Union should have the sole control
1 In 1787 it met " for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles
of Confederation," and to " render the Federal Constitution adequate to
the exigencies of Government and the preservation of the Union."
42 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
of certain branches of the activities of the central State, the
constituent States should control other branches ; and each,
therefore, should be equally sovereign in its own way.
" That was the new doctrine. In practice it effected an
infinite amount of good ; because, by the dissimulation of
the true state of the case, the population of New York was
won over. The Swiss, too, believed in it ; and, in Germany,
all the professors of constitutional law were filled with the
desire to make use of these precepts of the Federalists, in
order to avoid the necessity of saying to the German princes,
in so many words : ' It is our firm intention to abolish your
sovereignty, and to utterly destroy the work of our arch-
enemy, Napoleon.' No one dared to say this openly ; and
so there was an attempt to utilise the American theory
of the division of powers as a way out of the difficulty. (^But,
examined more closely, the very idea of a division of sover-
eignty is seen to be utterly untenable, because it is evidently
absurd to speak of an upper supreme and a lower supreme
authority.] And, if we examine impartially the text and
the spirit of the new Federal Constitution of America, as it
emerged from the conferences, and as it has continued down
to the present day^jwe see that there can be no doubt who
is actually the sovereign of the Union. It is the totality
of the population of the United States. It is the nation
that wields the supreme power. Its members have simply
to obey.) This becomes much more evident if we consider
further that the careful division of the activities of the
State, which was laid down in theory, is actually neither
possible nor necessary in a Federal State. It rests entirely
with the American Congress to decide whether it will execute
its decrees through its own officials, or will order the con-
stituent States to execute them through their officials. If
Switzerland desires to construct a road in the Alps, she
manages the affair according to the special circumstances.
Either its construction is undertaken by the Confederation,
or else one canton is ordered to construct the road, in accord-
ance with the plans submitted.
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 43
" Here again, then, we see that it is a case not of division
but of centralisation of the supreme power. Of course, the
notion of sovereignty is elastic, as are all political notions
which come within the domain of the will, but we have seen
that it must none the less have a solid kernel. ( There must
be an ultimate criterion, by which the nature of the
sovereignty can be recognised. The solid and absolutely
indispensable kernel of all sovereignty, without which no
State can properly be called a State, is the right to control
the army, and the power of itself deciding the limits of its
own prerogatives. A State which has no right to control
the army is, in fact, a State no longer. It is of the essence
of the State that it should be able to enforce its will by
physical force. If it cannot claim the right to arm, if it
allows itself to be protected by the might of arms of a higher
power, then it is a subject of the higher power ,1 The first
decisive step taken by America at the Congress of Phila-
delphia was the decision that henceforth a common army
under the control of the Union should be established ; and
this step was imitated in Switzerland.
'\Jt is clear, in view of the fact that the individual so-
called States of the Union are no longer States at all, that
this name is only a convenience.^ Lincoln expressed the
truth well and briefly in the last war, 1 when he said : ' The
States have their status in the Union, and they have no other
status.' So it is in reality ; they are subjects, and, when the
South rose up in opposition to the common will, its States
were rebels. \They were named ' rebel States,' properly a
contradiction in terms ; for only subjects, not States, can
properly rebel.) But, after all, names prove very little in
politics. Considerations of piety and prudence often lead
to the preservation of titles which have lost their true signi-
ficance. This is especially noticeable in Federations, where
the vanity of former sovereigns has to be humoured. When
the American countries had separated themselves from the
English mother-country, they could no longer designate
1 In the American Civil War, 1861-5.
44 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
themselves ' colonies.' It became a matter of earnest
deliberation what name they should adopt in the future.
Finally, since the individual districts, in the anarchy of the
Civil War, had snatched the supremacy to themselves, they
were given the name of ' States.' This designation was
retained unthinkingly, even when, under the Confederation,
the former States had ceased to be States any longer. On
the other hand, consider the Seven Provinces of the United
Netherlands. They had been provinces of the Greater
Netherlands, which had rendered obedience to the King of
Spain as their common sovereign. When they broke away,
and each Province acquired a sovereignty for itself, they
still preserved the name ' Provinces ' ; but it would be folly
to deduce from this name that they were not sovereign." 1
Of the three alternative forms Staatenbund , Bundesstaat,
Einheitstaat that which Treitschke preferred was that which
entailed the completest breach with the traditions of the
past. To understand his attitude a strange one, as it
may seem, for a historian to take we must realise the
inefficiency of the German Confederation and the failure of
the attempts which had been made, between 1815 and 1865,
to convert this permanent alliance of States into a single
State of the federal type.
Never had a political system been more plainly fore-
doomed to failure, from the moment of its birth, than the
Confederation. It came into being (1815) as a compromise
between contending parties, at a time when any compromise
seemed better than a prolongation of the anarchy which
had for so long been endemic on German soil. It had not
existed for a generation before every German patriot was
convinced that a revolution would be a cheap price to pay
for its destruction or complete reconstruction. It was a
compromise founded upon two jealousies : upon the jealousy
between Austria and Prussia, which dated back to the
Silesian wars of Frederic the Great ; and upon the jealousy
1 Politik, ii. pp. 319-323.
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 45
with which the smaller German States regarded these two l
powerful and ambitious neighbours. Far from extinguishing
these jealousies, the Confederation inflamed them ; the
Diet of the Confederation only formed a new battle-ground
for the three contending parties which held the future of
Germany in their hands. The Confederation was a com-
promise which would hardly have been accepted at all but
for the pressure of the non-German Powers ; when these
Powers ceased to be solicitous for its maintenance, it survived
chiefly as an instrument by which other and more effective
schemes of national organisation could be brought to nothing.
It would be an endless business to enumerate all the
absurdities of this constitution. The boundaries of the
Confederations intersected those of three half German
Powers. The Duchy of Holstein belonged to the Con-
federation ; but that of Schleswig, though indissolubly
united to Holstein, was not included. Neither was Den-
mark, although the sovereignty of Holstein (and of Schleswig)
was vested in the King of Denmark. Similarly the Con-
federation included the German lands of Prussia and Austria,
but excluded the non-German dominions of these Powers.
The Confederation was thus an absolute anomaly in the eyes
of international law, and it was practically impotent in the
councils of European diplomacy. Prussia and Austria
ranked among the great Powers ; the Confederation had tioJ.
ambassadors and no foreign policy. Most absurd of all, it
was, or rather professed to be, a State, while it lacked
an executive, and possessed only a phantom legislature,
whose powers were undefined and whose activity could be
suspended by the liberum veto of any single German ruler.
The fact was that the Congress of Vienna had drawn the
rough outline of a German constitution, and the outline had
never been filled in. The Federal Act of June 18, 1815,
defined the Confederation as a permanent alliance for the j
maintenance of the national security against foes without \
and disturbers of the public peace at home. The allies were
to defend one another in the possession of all the lands
46 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
included in the Union to defend the hereditary dominions
of the Hapsburgs, but not Hungary ; to defend the Electorate
of Brandenburg, but not the Prussian or the Polish provinces
of the Hohenzollern. The only organ of government created
by the Federal Act was the Diet, a congress of ambassadors
who could not vote on any subject without instructions
from their governments. The Diet had power to make
" fundamental laws " and " organic institutions " ; but the
liberum veto was a sufficient guarantee that these laws and
institutions would be few and insignificant ; and they could
only be enforced, if they were enforced at all, by the govern-
ments of the constituent States. There was an attempt to
raise a Federal Army composed of quotas from the States ;
but sixteen years elapsed before the quotas were defined,
and the army never assembled. There was another attempt
to enact that representative institutions of a moderate and
antiquated sort (Assemblies of Provincial Estates) should be
introduced in every State. But it was held that the Diet
had no power to enforce this law ; it remained " a prophecy
rather than a command."
For one short period in its history the Confederation
pursued a consistent policy. Between 1819 and 1833 the
Diet was made by Metternich the passive instrument of
Austria, and of the dynasties which looked to Austria for
support, in suppressing German Liberalism. The Carlsbad
Decrees of 1819 and the Vienna Resolutions of 1820 were
drawn up for this end by the reactionary sovereigns and
were meekly endorsed by the Diet. The Confederation set
itself to destroy the freedom of the Press, to gag the Univer-
sities, to break up political societies, to extirpate the
monstrous heresy of " responsible government," and to
support all princes of the Confederation against their re-
bellious subjects. The system of Metternich was rendered
more feasible by the existence of the Confederation ; it had
become an alliance of the governments against the governed.
Most absurd of all an alliance which ostensibly existed to
; defend the indefeasible rights of hereditary sovereigns,
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 47
now undertook to coerce any of the weaker sovereigns *
who yielded spontaneously to the liberal aspirations of
their subjects.
This vicious polity was maintained chiefly by an alliance
between Austria and Prussia. The two Powers whose
jealousy had made the union of Germany, in any real sense,
impossible now united to prevent the smaller States from
bringing their constitutions into harmony with the prevailing \
idea of liberty. They had kept Germany divided ; and they
wished to keep the German people enslaved.
What was the remedy for this intolerable situation ?. As
early as 1820 the smaller States had been urged by Liberal
thinkers to form a new Confederation from which both
Austria and Prussia should be excluded! But this was
clearly a Utopian scheme, a league of the mice to bell the cat.
Material force was on the side of the absolutist governments ;
they had the support of Russia ; and they had also at their
disposal the best statesmanship which the German nation
could produce. The small States were weak, and they were
politically uneducated. And, at the best, if they held
together what was the ideal which they had in view ? It
was that the majority of the German people should continue
to live in small States, which would be governed liberally
or illiberally at the pleasure of hereditary princes. On the '
moral and political weaknesses of the system of small States '
Treitschke is particularly outspoken. He may have been
partially blinded by his prejudice in favour of Prussia. But
his testimony is the more striking because he wrote his
indictment at Freiburg, in the Grand Duchy of Baden,
which was one of the most liberal States of Germany. He had
at all events seen the small State at its best. The first
section of Bundesstaat und Einheitsstaat is entitled " The
Fairy-tale World of Particularism." Here he takes up
one by one the usual arguments in favour of Particularism.
The following passages are typical of his dialectic :
" If the question of German unity were one of those
48 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
disputes that are won on the ground of argument but lost
by reputation, the case of German Particularism, as it
stands to-day, would indeed be desperate. Nothing is so
unreasonable that some argument cannot be found in
support of it. Thus, the calculations of those who desire to
perpetuate the weakness of Germany and that German
contentment which can transform the unendurable into
something endurable have, with an amazing sentimentality
and zeal, created a world of myths calculated to prove that
Germany was destined to disintegration from the outset.
But the consoling arguments of Particularism will cease
to console ; its black prognostications will cease to affright ;
and if, with shameless brow, it ,still maintains the historic
/necessity of the German Kleinttaaterei, we will refuse to
allow the most precious thing in life, the human will, to be
argued out of history. That which a later generation names
a historic necessity was always only a possibility, until, by
the will and energy of the nations, it was made a reality ;
it was nothing more than a combination of political circum-
stances, in which the destinies of the protagonists might
aid or obstruct, but never alone decide. With almost the
same arguments that to-day are brought forward to prove
the, necessity for the disintegration of Germany, it will one
day be explained to a happier generation that this land
was from the beginning destined to unity. If we make a
rapid survey of the fairy-tale world of Particularism, it
becomes clear that any moderately intelligent person could
sweep it away with a few words, and it is indispensable
that this undergrowth should be swept away if we are to
clear the ground for an understanding.
" It is vain to try to defend the reality of the German
Confederation behind the shield of legitimacy. There are
truly no legitimate considerations which can hinder the
German nation from setting aside the Federal Diet, since
the latter has been unlawfully revived. 1 The advocates
of a stupid conservatism would have done well to have
1 By Austria in 1850, in opposition to the new Prussian Federal Union.
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 49
looked for a less discredited catchword. ' Les rois s'en
vont,' is a fool's saying, if it means that our continent,
with its monarchical traditions, is to emulate republican
methods ; but it is profoundly true if it means that the
childish belief in the divine right of the ruling families has
vanished from the world for ever. In every country
constitutional law is struggling towards the dawn of a
new and more human epoch. [ Even in a monarchy, thel
truth will be recognised of the great and fundamental ,
principle of public rights, that every right must entail a i
corresponding obligation ; that, in matters of the State, no 1
right ought to exist for the sake of an individual, but only J
for the sake of the State. J Does any one suppose that
these ideas, which the modern world can never now abandon,
would come to a halt at the German frontier ? The only
question is whether the German nation will have the
strength to embody these ideas in her constitution, or
whether, as at the beginning of our century, the office of
judge will be assigned to a foreigner.
" It has ceased to alarm us when the Particularists
shout at the advocates of unity : ' You want a revolu-
tion ! ' No one wants a revolution. Our nation has
had a sufficiently painful experience of what a revolution
means. But the persistence of a state of things which
has no right to persist constitutes an evil which is growing
before our eyes ; so that finally nothing less than a bold
revolutionary decision will suffice to secure law and order
in this constitutionless country. All high and noble hearts
extol the Italians, and their conspiracy in the broad light
of day which laid the foundations of a united Italy ; and
they extol the statesmen of Prussia for that ' Revolution in
the good sense,' directed straight towards the great goal of
the ennoblement of humanity, by which the human worth
of our Fourth Estate was recognised. Not all the unctuous
talk of juridical theologians will prevent our nation from
wishing to make a similar decision for the sake of securing
her unity, as soon as she possesses the necessary power.
E
50 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
And even the ghost of Caesarism, with which some delight
to threaten her, will excite no alarm. The very character
of our nation renders government by the sword impossible
as a lasting form of rule. As a transition stage, it is a
painful but not an unendurable affliction, if it establishes
the unity of our State.
" More rarely (for Particularism has gradually borrowed
from its opponents some slight sense of shame) somewhat
more rarely, we are warned that a German State would
threaten the peace and the balance of power in Europe.
So, out of a tender regard for foreign nations, this nation
is to disregard a sacred duty, to renounce its political
existence. Johannes Miiller x and Heeren 2 were able with
impunity to offer the German nation such soothing argu-
ments as these. To-day even the most modest German
citizen begins to see the beggarliness of such sentiments.
Is it true, as the pacificists assert, that the German Con-
federation has preserved the peace of Europe ? Much
more was it the peace of Europe that preserved the
Confederation. There can be no doubt, that, at the out-
break of the first general war, its constitution would have
collapsed hopelessly. ( Our continent will not enjoy any
permanent tranquillity, until Central Europe has become
sufficiently strong to cry halt to the greedy ambitions of its
neighbours. When once she is restored to herself, Germany
will never pursue a policy of conquest. It is true that
neighbouring nations, misled by a short-sighted calculation
incapable of seeing beyond the present, refuse to recognise
this. But that cannot hinder a great nation from availing
herself of the first favourable opportunity in order to fulfil
her national duty. When the transformation is completed,
the world will do, as it always does when some necessary
thing has been accomplished ; it will admit the great and
beneficial truth that the interests of the nations are one. |
1 Born 1752, died 1809. A Swiss historian, and a strong individualist.
1 Born 1760, died 1842. A professor at Gottingen ; wrote an Ancient
JJistory, and also, in 1800, The Political System of Europe and its Colonies.
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 51
" Another pacificatory argument has proved equally in-
effectual ; an argument especially affected by men of high
culture in the days of the old romantic school \ namely,
that the affairs of Germany must be left to develop V
spontaneously and organically. We have come to realise
that, whenever this unhappy word ' organic ' finds its
way into politics, all thought disappears. 3 But the cradle
song of indolence, which has rocked the German world in
comfortable slumber only too long, can no longer delude us.
Look back a hundred years at the Confederations of the
Netherlands and Switzerland, and then look at our own
Holy Roman Empire. Those indeed were States that
developed organically, until at last a foreign power trampled
disdainfully on the decaying fragments that remained of
them. ( We may be absolutely certain that a reforming and,
if necessary, an energetically revolutionary will is essential
to every State ; otherwise the very reason of the State
will gradually become void of significance.)
" But the Particularist remarks soothingly : ' All the
prosperity of the State depends ultimately on the moral
character of its citizens. It must be possible to keep the
sons of a nation united, even if the State itself is not united.
Besides, power is far too unequally distributed among the
members of the German Confederation, so that in every
decisive question the superior influence of the larger Federal
States will always control the issue.' We know that unity
very well. It did not hinder the Rhine Confederation ; it
has even armed German against German, under the protec-
tion of the Confederation." 1
" We are coming now to the most precious and sacred
notion of the Particularists ; they guard this notion like a
jewel and flash its rays in all directions. It is as follows :
' We live in the promised land of Decentralisation ; and,
even if such a lot be fraught with some ills, it is a thousand
times better than if we were to descend to the tedious
monotony of soul-destroying receptiveness which marks the
1 Historische und politische Aufsatze, ii. pp. 81-4.
52 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
centralised States.' This pronouncement is put forward as
something quite indisputable, and it has already engendered
a wealth of phrases. But I maintain that no more blatant
untruth has ever been uttered than this statement that
Germany is the land of decentralisation. The truth is
rather that our States are suffering from most of the evils
attendant on centralisation, without a single one of its
benefits. We cannot, for instance, as France can, make
a bold decision to concentrate rapidly the best forces of the
Fatherland on one particular point that has been threatened.
And yet our government is not national, as the Swiss
government is. The local government of our communes
still stands aloof and disconnected from the monarchical
Civil Service. The government of the nation is directed
from thirty different and arbitrarily selected small centres ;
and it is conducted with a paternal and interfering officious-
ness which, for instance, in many of the small States forbids
any innkeeper on the frontier to hold a shooting match,
before he has received the blessing of the government on
the proceeding. So much for the vaunted decentralisation
of Germany. L The aim of national liberalism is to do away
7 with these thirty small centres, and to focus the administra-
tion of our country and the work of legislation at one point,
at the same time introducing the principle of local govern-
ment into the districts and provinces. In this way Germany,
like England, would enjoy simultaneously the advantages
centralisation and of decentralisation,) whereas now we
are experiencing little but the dark side of both./ The
natural defects of great States may be mitigated by a care-
fully planned administration ; the defects of Kleinstaaterei
are irremediable.?
" Even more foolish than the fear of an excessive
centralisation of the German State is the fear that a united
\Germany would do away with that wonderfully uniform
distribution of the national culturej^for which the world
justly envies us.] But does any one seriously imagine that
the results of a thousand years of progressive culture could
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 53
be wiped out by one political change ? *sThe centralisation
of the French State did certainly bring about the intellectual
impoverishment of the provinces) but this was not the
work of the first Consul, nor yet of Richelieu ; for more
than five hundred years, since the days of Philip the Fair,
it has been helped on by all the successive rulers of France
with a remarkable consistency. But what six hundred
years of labour on the part of a powerful government have
brought about in a Romance nation, to the satisfaction of
the huge majority of the French, could this conceivably
happen to a Germanic nation which, like ourselves, has
lived through those six hundred years in a state of political
disintegration-^-to us Germans, with our unconquerable
enthusiasm for independence and for the culture of the
individual ? No one has been able to say of Germany that
her culture has suffered through the loss of her political
independence." 1 J
" They cry out to us : Have we not to thank the
disintegration of Germany for the beautiful diversity of
our political life ? As Heeren said : ' If the German
sees in his Fatherland republics side by side with monarchies,
let him rejoice ; it will preserve him from the narrowness
of political prejudice.' In point of fact, that narrowness
which Heeren condemns is only the necessary and whole-
some preoccupation which belongs to every energetic man.
It is an absolute impossibility at the same time to will
and not to will anything, although, as a matter of fact, the
Germans have greatly distinguished themselves by that
breadth of outlook, which is a barrier in the way of
resolute action. A man who is fighting for a parliamentary
monarchy cannot at the same time fight for a republic
and for absolutism. Is this then to be the destiny of our
great Fatherland ? to serve as a valuable collection of
instructive illustrations and examples ? When such
opinions were first expressed half a century ago, they were
merely an evidence of the innocent ingenuousness of the
1 Hist, und pol. Aufsdtze, ii. pp. 87-8.
54 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
time ; but any one who gives vent to them to-day is
guilty of a frivolous disrespect towards his country. / It is
certain that, out of that wealth of political and social
contrasts which Germany comprises, a very rich and varied
political life may some day be evolved, if only these
contrasts are first consolidated into one empire, and if, as
^formerly, in the German Parliament A they can be finally
reconciled and can meet and supplement one another upon
a common platform. (At the present day, since these
contrasts stand side by side, without any political connec-
tion, they engender nothing but a crowd of narrow local
prejudices : in the interior, that feeble inland policy which
gives no thought to the great historic might of the sea^
\m the seaports, that vagrant cosmopolitanism which refuses
to take any interest in the development of the national
industries. A great opportunity has once more arisen for
the union of the human race in one brotherhood. The
dream of Columbus, to unite the primitive civilisation of
Further Asia with European civilisation, is being realised
before our eyes. It has been said proudly that the South
Sea is beginning to awaken. And, as at the beginning of
a new age, there are other mightier, united nations, who are
opening new paths for the world's commerce ; yet we
Germans are only permitted to follow humbly from a
distance the footsteps of the foreigner.^ More than this,
millions of our countrymen, even of the highly-educated
classes, listen in stupid amazement, if any one deplores
the shame and misfortune of a situation which, in all the
most important questions of modern political science, con-
demns the Germans to the role of menials or victims]
And yet of such a nation, a nation the great majority
of whom are so lamentably steeped in inland notions,
of such a nation Particularism presumes to boast that
it is characterised by the breadth of its political
outlook." 2
1 In the Frankfort Parliament, 1848-49. See pp. 61 et seqq.
1 Hist, und pol. Aufsdtzc, ii. pp. 92-3.
55
He comes to the conclusion that nothing has maintained
the small States, but the vested interests of the dynasties
and their hangers-on, and the indolence and irresolution of
the German nation. 1
Next he proceeds to analyse the moral diseases which
had been engendered by the system. Since the Confedera-
tion is a sham, and its laws are only obeyed by those who
find it convenient to obey them, Germany is plunged into a
state of anarchy which had never been surpassed in the
worst days of the medieval Empire. Practical statesmanship
finds no field for its energies except within the narrow
bounds of the single State ; the result is a general narrowness
of mind among the political classes. { Those who have any
patriotism left console themselves with catchwords and
sentimental ideals of a Greater Germany united by nothing
more concrete than national sympathies and national
traditions :-j-
" We boast that in questions of knowledge and belief,
mere words are powerless to deceive the simple honesty
of the German conscience. Yet in the hazy politics of
the Confederation, in a matter that actually concerns our
country, the most trivial catchword is able to gain an
ascendency. The one word Pangerman (Grossdeutsch) ,
invented by a clever demagogue and exploited with
systematic zeal by all the devotees of the existing dis-
order, has attracted thousands into the Austrian camp ;
it sounds so terribly unpatriotic to be a Little German
(Kleindeutscher) ![ Only in the stern school of State affairs t
can a nation be cured of this childish susceptibility to \
political phrases and abstractions J Hence it is that in the
confederate States, thanks to the educative influences of
our Chambers, we do find clearly differentiated parties,
which know what they want. (_ But, since the nation is not\
allowed to participate in the affairs of the Confederation, \
German politics are still nourished on that empty so-called '
1 Hist, und pol. Aufsdtze, ii. p. 95.
56 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
, imperial patriotism, with its talk of German unity and
German loyalty,/ which has already been used at the
Regensburg Reichstag to cloak the lack of any clearly-
conceived ideas and of any earnest spirit of self-sacrifice ;
and which has filled energetic patriots, a great Elector, a
Frederick II., with bitter loathing. / This vocabulary of
imperial patriotism has devolved upon us like some dubious
inheritance, and has since been supplemented by another
generation of new-fashioned catchwords!
^The fact that to-day we do feel ourselves with pride
to be one nation, we owe above all to the great age of
our literature.] ( In most other countries national pride has
sprung from a full consciousness of the greatness of the
State ; in this new Germany of ours, out of the conscious-
ness that we are members of one nation, there has sprung
up the desire for an energetic consolidation of the power
of the German State.) \Yet, though we welcome this develop-
ment from within outwards as the surest sign of the inborn
nobility of the German nature), we are still suffering from
the evil consequences of sucn a very tortuous progress.
it was necessary, indeed, that Klopstock and the poets
of the War of Independence should extol the glory of the
German name in thrilling dithyrambs. It needed a great
aesthetic stimulus to stir the hearts of the obedient subjects
of the German minor princes, until they should embrace
their whole nation in a noble-hearted love. But when
to-day we still hear the vague catchwords of that old time
introduced into political debates, when it is imagined that a
profoundly important question of power can be settled by
the verse soweit die deutsche Zunge klingt, 1 or by sentimental
claptrap about our good German brothers in Austria, then
we realise with a deep sense of shame, the power of phrases
Mn German politics." 2
L But it is impossible to expect political sense in a nation
1 *.., " As far as German speech is heard."
1 Hist, und pol. Aufsdtze, ii. pp. 100-101.
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 57
which is excluded from any effective participation in German
politics. To this exclusion must be attributed that abnormal
apd suicidal patience which tolerates intolerable evils.
Patience comes naturally to the German temperament ; it
"lias some affinity with admirable virtues of the German
character. But until patience of this kind has been reformed
away, there is no hope of political reformation. One result
of this patience is that political liberty is nowhere secure : -)
"It is not merely in these ungracious features of the
German national character that the results of our state of
disintegration are reflected ; political freedom is not assured
in any constituent State, so long as the German Confedera-
tion persists in its present condition. Even their opponents
do not think any worse of the Ultramontanes and the
Junkers for their hatred of any notion of German reform.
But there is one of the German parties which is absolutely
absurd and unjustified, and that is the party of the Par-
ticularist. Liberals. And in fact, what has been^'cirEieved
by the Chambers of the constituent States, the Chambers
which that party extols as the corner-stone of German
liberty ? 'they have checked many evils ; they have made
some improvements ; they have been a school of self-control
for the German people ; but they have fostered a par-
ticularist self-sufficiency, and, even at the present day/
in no German State does a constitutional government
possess any other security than the goodwill of the prince. >
Honour those whose purposes are still so noble ; but only
let a ruling prince assert himself in any German State
with the brutal energy of an Ernest Augustus, 1 let him
disregard the clamour of the Press and all kinds of personal
discomfort, which an unpopular prince cannot escape, and,
with the support of his army and the German Confederation,
he will as certainly shatter the constitution of his state, as
happened in the case of that young King of Hanover.
1 King of Hanover, 1837-51 ; son of George III. and Duke of Cumber-
land.
58 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
.Therein lies the security of German liberty ! It is an
absolute impossibility to compel a dynasty to an everlasting
parliamentarism, if it finds a support already prepared for
it in an oligarchy of princes.) Since the histories of most
of the German States exhibit a long series of ' concessions '
(Oktroyirungeri) , this melancholy truth is hardly likely now
to meet with any vigorous contradiction. And at the
present day is it possible for any one to follow with any
feeling of satisfaction the proceedings in the Chambers of
our smaller States ? That dissipation of noble energies
in the performance of tasks which could only be accom-
plished satisfactorily by a national legislature, or else in the
drafting of legislative proposals, all originating solely from
the petty ambition to possess institutions different from
those of neighbouring States ? Those military debates, in
which the statement upon which everything depends, the
statement ' Our State is powerless/ is on the tip of every
tongue, and yet is never openly expressed ? Those ex-
tremely personal conferences concerning the organisation
of the Civil Service, in which any one could point with
his finger to the individuals who are characterised under
the head of ' superfluous offices ' ? Those debates on the
budget in which again no one dares to express a decisive
opinion, or to admit that ' the vast apparatus of a State-
constitution is superfluous in a country which can scarcely
claim to be a province ' ? That thankless attempt to
remodel the two-Chamber system in States which do not
possess a ruling aristocracy ? (And, in conclusion, what
magician will secure once again for the Chambers of the
small States that eager participation of the people which
is the necessary foundation of constitutional life ? ) How
warmly and enthusiastically the people participated in the
diets before the German Revolution ; yet all that has
completely vanished since we have seen the German
Parliament. Baron von Blittersdorff * once described the
1 A minister of the Grand Duchy of Baden ; prominent in 1847-48 as
an opponent of Liberalism.
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 59
animated debates in the Chambers of the small States
as a storm in a teacup ; and in the 'forties those words
roused a general indignation. Now they express the
general opinion." 1
Under such conditions, he continues, the sense of citizen- ;
ship is atrophied ; the worst enemies of state-authority are j
invincible. The system of small States has left the Ultra-
montanes supreme in the South, the Junkers supreme in the
North. Even the Hanseatic cities, which boast of their!
republican freedom, and which as municipalities within a ;
German State would be the glory of the nation, show in
their policy a deplorable pettiness. Against a system which
breeds these evils the growing intelligence of the nation
will certainly rebel, and that within a short time.
" The stark immobility of our public law becomes much
more dangerous every year, since political ideas are now
transformed with such unprecedented rapidity. .Any one
who looks upon the State not as a mechanical organisation,
but as the living embodiment of the spirit of the nation,
discerns the inevitable approach of a complete transforma-
tion of the existing order. Democratic notions are being
propagated in an ever- widening circle. Only mark the tone
adopted in the most popular of the middle-class newspapers,
when speaking of crowned heads ! The belief in the justice
of universal suffrage is already cherished by hundreds of
thousands. In addition, the immense development in means
of locomotion brings German closer to German every day ;
and even the most stay-at-home citizen now makes light of
the frontiers which are so quickly crossed. And into the
very midst of this age of fermentation there streams the
intoxicating theory of the right of nationality. Can any one
deny that we Germans had no need of this new-fashioned
theory ? { Our inalienable right to a national State is rooted
in something deeper than abstractions or vague notions of
1 Hist, und pol, Aufsdtze, ii. pp. 104-6.
60 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
a common descent. It is founded in that political union,
which has bound together our successive generations from
time immemorial, and which only once, during the eight
years of Napoleonic anarchy, was completely dissolved.
None the less, a large number of the half-educated class
have accepted this new theory as an inspired revelation, and
have thus arrived by a different road at the same demands
as have been made by thinking people long since. It often
seems as if there dwelt in our country, side by side, two
different generations, separated from one another by two
centuries. In the one we find an ineradicable and deeply
inculcated submissiveness, an indolent endurance, and a
genuinely patriarchal gratitude for the least word of kind-
ness from those above them ; and by their side a young
' generation talking a new language with noisy assurance, as
if the old world were long since done away with, and a
democratic centralised German State had actually been
realised among us. Behind these high words there lurks a
great deception. "/Just as surely as the rivers flow to the
sea will our quarter of the globe absorb the true essence of
the democratic and national ideas of the present time into
its system ; { for these ideas are like the conceptions of
ecclesiastical reform in the sixteenth century the pre-
dominating and characteristic force of their age.] The
question is whether our nation will co-operate spontane-
ously in this great movement ; whether, as happened three
hundred years ago, it will rest satisfied with a half success ;
or whether it will simply supply the cement for the splendid
edifices of foreign powers. The confident talk of our Radi-
cals is a sign of political immaturity, but it is likewise a
consequence of the mediatisation of our nation ; for if the
v nation took any part in German politics, even the most
\ short-sighted would realise how long the road really is, that
to the hopeful seems so short." 1
.1 But something more was needed than intellectual
1 Hist, und pol. Aufsdtze, ii. pp. 107*8.
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 61
progress. The history of the years 1848-49 was enough
to show that German unity could never be effected until
one of the greater states, Prussia or Austria, should place ,
*-> * ...wj A ^\
its military resources at the service of the national party.
The German Liberals had undertaken in 1848 to reform
simultaneously the Confederation and its constituent States.
They had supposed that this could be done by a strong
appeal to the conscience of the German nation, by preaching
the gospel of representative institutions. And up to a point
their efforts had been crowned with success. The majority
of the governments had been induced to permit the election of
a representative German Parliament. This Parliament had
met at Frankfort (October 1848) and had remained in being
for six months. It included among its members the flower
of German Liberalism. It secured the services of an Austrian
Archduke as the head of the federal executive ; and it
proceeded to draw up a code of fundamental laws. Un-
fortunately these fundamental laws, excellent as they were
in principle, awakened the profound mistrust of the greater
German powers. One law provided that in every German
State there should be " responsible " government, by
ministers answerable to a representative assembly. Another
forbade the fusion of any German lands with lands which
lay outside the boundaries of the Confederation ; Hungary
might not be united with Austria under one constitution ;
nor might Prussia be united with the more westerly posses-
sions of the Hohenzollerns. Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, and
Hanover refused to recognise the fundamental laws ; and
Prussia helped the King of Saxony to suppress a revolution
raised by the constitutional party in that kingdom. The
Frankfort Parliament, after long wranglings, decided that
they must offer the imperial crown to Prussia ; when
Frederick William IV. evaded giving a definite answer, the
new Federal Constitution fell to the ground like a pack of
cards. The local revolutions which had been expected to
reform the governments of the Absolutist States, and to
propagate the cult of national unity, proved everywhere a
62 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
dismal failure. The Frankfort Parliament melted away in
1849 '> a Rump, composed of about 100 stalwarts, removed
to Stuttgart, but was suppressed by the government of
Wurtemberg.
Many reasons might be given for this fiasco. The pro-
ceedings of 1848 often served Treitschke as a text for attacks
upon German doctrinaires. The Frankfort Parliament
had made the mistake of transplanting English constitution-
alism to German soil, not perceiving that the English party
system was the product of local and peculiar circumstances.
From the first the representatives at Frankfort had been
divided into a large number of unstable groups and cliques.
Further, they had underrated the strength of monarchical
feeling in the German States. In Prussia, for instance, the
Hohenzollerns were the one great national institution ; and
the sort of constitutionalism which the Liberals desired was
avowedly intended to make the hereditary sovereign a
cipher, a marionette whose wires would be pulled by a party
Cabinet. Not only had Frederick William IV. revolted
against the Liberal schemes for reorganising his dominions ;
he had refused the Imperial Crown on the ground that he
was asked to become the servant of a written constitution
and a popular assembly. Despite his many blunders, he
represented on this subject the national sentiment ; the
Liberals had outraged the traditions of the strongest States
in Germany. But above all they had not realised the
importance of material force. They should have begun by
securing the help of Prussia ; and then they should have
framed a constitution which Prussia would accept, a con-
stitution making her interests identical with those of the
federation.
But such a constitution would not have been a federa-
tion at all. So, at least, Treitschke argued. Prussia could
never consent to be merely a member of a Bundesstaat. Such
a constitution is only possible, he said, when the contracting
States are on a level of equality ; only durable when they
are all democracies, as in Switzerland or Holland or the
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 63
United States. \ It is not to be expected that sovereign
princes will show themselves accommodating, will descend
to compromises, in questions which affect their own pre-
rogatives. VBut a Federation must be governed by com-
mittees and councils ; and compromise is of the essence of
such forms of government. 1 ) Besides, how can it be expected
that a monarch will surrender the control of his army to a
federal government, or submit in disputes with his own
subjects to the arbitration of a federal court. 2
" And what rights do the supporters of the Frankfort
imperial constitution suppose that the German princes will
resign of their own free will and without indemnification ?
Even in the most modest^ the most loosely united form
of federal State the central administration must possess ?
exclusive authority in two matters : the conduct of foreign /
affairs, and at any rate in time of war the command of I
the federal army.] It is often said in jest : ' The federal
princes do not possess even now the right to declare war
on their own initiative ; and if we desire to abolish that
military sovereignty which they possess in time of peace,
what difference will it make ? And how futile is the in-
dependent administration of foreign affairs by the small
States ; its only result is that a dozen loafers the more
haunt the antechambers of the European courts.' I reply :
this is merely a judgment of the subject class upon these
questions ; but it is a question here of the opinion of the
governing class ; and it must be apparent to any one that
rulers esteem these two privileges very highly. It is a
prevailing opinion in the majority of our courts that the
army is the natural support of the throne. A very intimate
and personal tie exists between the war-lord and his army ;
most of the German princes consider themselves officers,
and always appear in military uniform ; and even a Prince
of Reuss of the younger line would feel that he had been
expelled from the family of European sovereigns, if he no
1 Hist, und pol. Aufsdtze, ii. p. 134. a Ibid. ii. pp. 137-8.
64 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
longer maintained at any rate a charge d'affaires at Vienna.
Their diplomacy, and their armies bound to do service for
the war-lord alone, make it possible for our princes not by
right, but in fact to call in the aid of the foreigner in time
of need. Surely rights which have such consequences as
these ought not to be called insignificant. And if we
remember that, only a few months ago, German patriots
seriously projected a new Rhine Confederation for the
salvation of the German nation, we cannot look upon it as
impossible that, in a case of great distress, the German
princes might form a similar plan for the salvation of
their dynasties. Only a few years ago, Count von Borries 1
declared that Hanover would rather call in the aid of France
than sacrifice a portion of her sovereignty for the benefit
of a Prussian central government. Nay more : under the
constitutional system which prevails in the German States,
foreign and military questions are the only important affairs
of State upon which the sovereign decides without the
intervention of the Estates. Would you take by storm this
last and most precious bulwark of absolutism ? Consider
that, in matters of the Civil Service, a prince, where he is not
actually restricted, is at any rate hampered and criticised by
his Estates, and is above all under an obligation, indis-
pensable in a Federal State, to submit every serious dispute
with his Estates to the judgment of a Federal Supreme
Court ! If, in addition to this, he is to be entirely deprived
of the conduct of foreign affairs, and almost entirely of the
control of the army, such a prince is certainly in a far from
enviable position. He has not even the power, mistakenly
ascribed by Hegel to the constitutional monarch, of adding
the dot to the ' i.' It is no use to say that the establish-
ment of the constitutional system was also a hard blow to
the monarchs, and yet they consented to it. This is a futile
comparison. ( In a Constitutional State it is an inviolable
i principle that nothing should be done contrary to the will
1 A Hanoverian Minister, one of the leaders of the German Particularists
in the years 1860-66.
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 65
of the crown. ] In a Federal State, on the other hand, foreign
policy must very often be directed contrary to the will of,
or at any rate without the consent of the federal princes.
No ! It is a heavy and unprecedented sacrifice which the-;
Federal State party asks from the German princes. Is it
likely that hereditary and irresponsible sovereigns, who
cannot be removed from their position, should voluntarily
give way to such a demand, and console themselves with the
proud consciousness of having performed this act of re-
nunciation for the honour of the German name ? Is there
anything in the history of the higher nobility of the German
nation to justify us in expecting such a resolution ? " 1
In this passage Treitschke is not simply speculating as
to the probable attitude of the lesser princes. He is explain-
ing the failure of an experiment which the unlucky Frederick
William IV. had made in the years 1849-50 ; the experi-
ment of founding a new Federal Union from which Austria
should be excluded and of which the King of Prussia should
be the president. The scheme had been wrecked by the
jealousy of the other German princes, and had ended with
the humiliation of Prussia at the Conference of Olmiitz
(1850), when she was compelled to purchase peace with.,
Austria by renouncing the new Federal Union and consenting
that the old Confederation should be restored. This sur-
render was under the circumstances a wise one ; Bismarck
had approved of it, for Prussia in 1850 was no match foj
Austria in military strength. But the obvious moral was
that German unity could only be effected by force of arms.
There was no possibility of a peaceful evolution by which
the Confederation would be transformed into a true Federal-
State. There must be a revolution ; and this could only
be brought about by Prussia. Austria desired to perpetuate-
the disunion of Germany ; and the smaller States would
never combine of their own accord to crush Austria. Only
Prussia could free them ; and it would be absurd if Prussia,
1 Hist, und pol. Aufsdtze, ii. pp. 137-8.
66 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
having borne the burden and heat of the contest, should be
required to accept a position, in united Germany, of no
greater consequence than was accorded to her prote'ge's.
She could not possibly accept such a situation. 1 On the
other hand, if she openly made herself supreme, the situation
would be equally precarious. The Federal State so formed
would not be founded on the essential conditions which had
made federal government a success in Switzerland and the
United States :
([' We cannot but realise that there is very little ground
for hoping that the German Federal State can be founded
peacefully, by an opportune and generous decision of the
dynasties. As far as the human mind can estimate, the
ideal of our Federalists can only be realised, if the Prussian
State, with the support of a strong popular movement or a
strong foreign alliance, uses its power at the right moment.
But a Federal State that has been founded on violence bears
within itself, as Waitz admitted, the seed of its own decay
a loyal federal spirit would scarcely be likely to thrive in it.)
And it is even more doubtful if the Prussian State or the
German nation, when once their forces had been roused to
action in a moment of supreme excitement, would be satisfied
with a Federal State. Once already in stormy days 2 has
the German people stayed its hand before the thrones :
the reward for this moderation was the restoration of the
Federal Diet. Once already has Prussia sacrificed the
blood of her sons to strengthen anew the tottering thrones
of the petty German princes ; 8 Prussia's reward for this
friendly, federal help was the enmity of those whom she had
saved. Such experiences are not easily forgotten. The
pitiless law of ingratitude is predominant in history ; and,
in virtue of it, every political power, when once it has
performed its office and become superfluous, is infallibly
swept aside without any consideration for its former services.
1 Hist, und pol. Aufsdtze, ii. p. 156. 2 In 1848.
3 By lending her support to Saxony and Baden in 1849, to suppress the
Liberal movement.
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 67
In virtue of this law, colonies break away from the mother-
country that has fostered them so carefully. It is in accord-
ance with this law that our monarchical bureaucracy, which
educated the German citizen for the State, and which gave
the peasant his freedom, must retire step by step before the
self-government of local communities and constitutional
reforms. In accordance with this law the petty German
principalities will be abolished, whether by the nation or by
a foreign power, as soon as they are no longer in a position
to contribute anything towards the civilisation of the nations.
Yet even supposing that the Federal State of the Frankfort
Parliament were, either peacefully or by force, introduced
into Germany ; that it were purged of the crude contradic-
tions and ultra-democratic sentiments embodied in the
Frankfort project ; that it carried to the logical conclusion
the principle of the Constitution of the United States, that
the central administration should execute its own decrees
without the interference of the constituent States ; even
then it will always be open to question whether the Federal
State contains within itself any guarantee of permanency.
I feel bound to contest it. Robert von Mohl, 1 in his excellent
history of Political Science, expresses his astonishment that
the democracy of the United States should have tolerated
for so long such a subtle and complex form of government
as that of a Federal State. For my own part, all that I find
astonishing is that it should ever have been possible to
found such a constitution ; to persuade the whole collective
human understanding of a democratic people to adopt such
an elaborate form of government. But the work was
accomplished in those great days when the American people
still tolerated the leadership of a natural aristocracy, of a
small number of noble and gifted statesmen. It does
not seem to me in the least remarkable that, when once the
Federal State had been founded in America, it should have
1 A Heidelberg professor, prominent in the Frankfort Parliament, and
one of the federal ministers appointed under the Constitution of 1848 to
assist the Imperial Vicar.
68 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
retained its vigour. Its constitution is planned with rare
sagacity to suit the peculiarities of democratic political life.
In the United States the self-government of every com-
munity has been the predominant political principle since
the foundation of the Colonies. If this democratic principle
were to persist unimpaired, the Federal State was the only
possible form of administration. For there is only one
rational argument which can persuade a nation, in making
for itself a constitution, to prefer the complexities of the
Federal State to the simplicity of the centralised State.
It is the argument that the Federal State secures at once a
measure of unity sufficient for the conduct of the external
affairs of the States as a whole, and a freedom of action in the
individual States such as could not be guaranteed to the
/
same extent in a centralised State; Montesquieu and
Sismondi had this peculiarity of the Federal State in mind
when they said quite incorrectly that it combined the
advantages of a monarchy with those of a republic. It is
evident, however, that this advantage of the Federal State
is only realised in the case of a democratic Federal State." 1
( Treitschke proceeds to explain in more detail the reasons
why, in his opinion, any federal system is unsuited to the
German nation. A federation of monarchical States must,
he thinks, be an infinitely more complex system than a
federation of democracies so complex that it will never
work in practice. Further, a federal government is only
tolerated when it interferes comparatively little with the
life of the citizens ) but the German tendency is to demand
almost unlimited State-interference, and this means a strong
bureaucracy, which again means sooner or later the estab-
lishment of a highly centralised State. ( Again, the chief
reason why the Germans desire union is that they may
assert their rightful position among the great Powers.
Germany needs a vigorous foreign policy and a formidable
army.) Experience seems to show that a federal State is
1 Hist, und pol. Aufsdtze, ii. pp. 142-4.
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 69
incapable of a vigorous foreign policy, and it is certain that
the German dynasties will not willingly permit the formation
of an army. ^Finally, he argues that the smaller States are no
longer capable of doing the work which is expected of them.
They are bound to be ruined by the financial burden of modern
armaments ; they cannot fulfil the tasks imposed by modern
culture.) Of these tasks he gives a remarkable instance :
" Schleswig Hoist ein . . . cannot hold in obedience
100,000 subjects of alien speech and gently habituate
them to the blessing of German manners ; she cannot
construct at immense cost a canal, of which the necessity
for Germany is as obvious as its financial remunerativeness
is doubtful. The Duchy can only do all this, if she
borrows for the purpose the resources of Prussia ; that is
to say, if she confesses her incapacity to maintain an in-
dependent existence." l
Such States have not even the good sense to recognise
their own futility. They will always be governed by second-
rate statesmen ; for the German dynasties are shy of employ-
ing eminent ability. The only way of dealing with them
is to place them under the protectorate of such a great
Power as Prussia.
A whole section of the essay is devoted to the defence of
Prussia against her detractors. Prussia, he admits, has a
less glorious past than Prussian patriotism will allow.
The ideals of Prussia may be represented by the views of
a Stein or a Humboldt ; the actuality falls far below the
ideal. " Yet this State with all her sins has performed
every great achievement that has been accomplished in
German politics since the Treaty of Westphalia ; Prussia
herself is the greatest political achievement of our nation."
The sins of Prussia, in the period of the French Revolution
and in the First Schleswig-Holstein War (1849-50), only
show how indispensable Prussia is to Germany. If Prussia
is badly ruled the whole German nation suffers.
1 Hist, und pol. Aufsdtze, ii. p. 153.
70 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
(( He then proceeds to show, from Prussian history, what
is the nature of Prussia's appointed task in the world. She
has risen to greatness by absorbing smaller States and
communities ^into herself. No other German State has
shown so much assimilative power ; whatever communities
she has absorbed she inspires with her own gruff national
pride. What Prussia has once conquered becomes a part
of herself. Further, Prussia has always gone her own way,
and made her own institutions to suit her own needs. Her
constitution is of native growth, and therefore possesses a
marvellous vitality/ The surrender of Frederick William IV.
to the constitutional movement (1848) did not prove, so
Treitschke audaciously argues, that the dynasty had become
weak ; rather it proved that Prussia had become a united
nation, and was able even in the teeth of a strong monarchy
to carry constitutional development to its natural conclusion.
He admits that constitutional reform is still far from com-
plete in Prussia ; that the powers of the Prussian Parliament
are insufficient, that the very existence of parliamentary
institutions in Prussia is not yet secure, that both the great
Prussian parties are open to severe criticism. But even so,
he argues, there is more healthy political life in Prussia than
in any other German State. From the political, as from
the economic point of view, the history of Prussia in the
nineteenth century has been one of steady growth.
( As Prussia has begun, so in the nature of things she will
continue to develop. She has thriven by conquest in the
past ; and her highest interests will compel her to make new
conquests in the future the annexation of Hanover and of
Electoral Hesse is indispensable to her safety. ( Other great
Powers find a vent for their ambitions in other continents,
but it is only in Germany that Prussia can satisfy her
legitimate ambition (wohlberechtigte Ehrgeiss). Her policy
towards other German States has been governed not only
by the perception of her own interest, but also by a sense of
her duty to the German Fatherland./ Frederic the Great
may have been only half conscious of this duty ; but the
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 71
sense of it has influenced Prussian policy ever since the Wars
of Liberation.
^It may be objected, says Treitschke, that the legitimate
ambitions of Prussia would only lead to a partition of x
Germany between herself and Austria. He repudiates the
idea that Prussian ambitions are so limited. Some Prussian
ministers may have thought of making the Main the southern
frontier of their State ; but 'that was a departure from the
old Prussian tradition. The nearer Prussia approaches to
the Main, the less is she likely to allow the South German
States the right of standing outside the German kingdom of -
the future. The more completely she rounds off her frontiers,
the more she is compelled to bear in mind the higher duty
of uniting Germany.) In the nature of things she must play
in Germany the part which the kingdom of Piedmont has
played in Italy. (If the German National Party does not
wish to stray blindly among political Utopias it must think
of Prussia as the nucleus of the German State of the future ;
it must become far more Prussian than it has been hitherto. /
" We must wait for the favour of fortune, for ' the fulfill-
ing of the time,' as Florestan Pepe 1 said to the Italian\
patriots. And yet all valiant spirits will prefer to take for|
their motto the arrogant retort with which the fiery Guglielmo
Pepe answered his brother : ' Men make their own times.'
Let the particularists continue to advertise their ingenious
fables ; let the most high and privileged Capuchins of both
orders continue to take the name of God in vain and to extol
the weakness of our country as a special favour of God's
providence ; let indolence, creeping in the dust, forget, in its
getting and spending, the shame of our nation. ( Even so,
whoever is worthy to be called a man, will not cease to toil
for the unity of Germany. ) A heart aglow with a great
passion, a brain cold and clear, a thoughtful consideration
of the strength of the respective States, that is the fitting
1 A Neapolitan constitutionalist who took part in the Liberal revolution
of 1820 ; brother of Guglielmo Pepe, who was the leader of the movement.
It was suppressed with the help of Austrian troops.
72 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
mood for a patriot in a nation which is struggling for exist-
ence. ( Germany still suffers from that faded sentimentality
which an over-intellectual age has handed down to us. Men
still cherish a certain lukewarm enthusiasm for the Father-
land; and the ardour which can find no place in jaded
hearts takes refuge in their brains, where it broods over the
fantastic whims of a purely sentimental theory of politics.
"*yA. lengthy task of political education lies still before us.
The nation must learn to oppose to the clearness and resolu-
tion of the particularists an equally resolute will, fighting
for unity and for nothing else. Our hearts must become
warmer, our brains cooler ;\ the aims of our patriots must
rise to the height of a personal passion ; and the under-
standing of the whole nation must be armed with the calm
realisation that it is only the power of the greatest of our
German States which can force the minor courts to submit
themselves to a national, central government. We shall
never even secure a federal State (which is the very least we
are justified in demanding), unless the nation has the courage
to take a further bold step in case of need, and to secure that
centralised State which Germany's greatest patriot, Carl
vom Stein, dreamed of for his country at the dawn of the
War of Independence." 1
Such is the argument of this most interesting essay. In
a sense it was falsified by the events of the next seven years.
The smaller States did assent, under Bismarck's influence,
to the formation of a Bundesstaat ; the Federal State so
formed proved to be a practicable constitution, although, as
Treitschke had prophesied, it was difficult to make it work
smoothly. And yet in a sense Treitschke was justified.
The Federal Empire has been less efficient than a Unitary
State for the purposes which German patriots hoped that a
united Germany would serve. The Empire has been held
together by the predominance of Prussia ; and there is no
doubt that, so long as the Empire prospers, the tendency is
1 Hist, und pol. Aufsdtze, ii. pp. 240-41.
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 73
for the power of Prussia to encroach upon the sphere which
the original constitution reserved to the State governments.
The essay is long and discursive. It is difficult in a resume
to do justice to its peculiar merits. The conclusions at
which Treitschke arrives are often dubious. But there can
be no doubt of the skill with which he marshals his historical
arguments. An excellent example is afforded by the
lengthy but closely reasoned passage in which he holds up
Italy as an example to Germany, and discusses the question
whether it is possible for Prussia to imitate the example
of Piedmont a passage which is all the more impressive
because it dwells chiefly upon the difficulties to be overcome
before Prussia can succeed as Piedmont has succeeded :
" The national movement in Italy was directed towards
the goal of a centralised State more rapidly and more resol-
utely than is possible in Germany ; for Italy was even less
hampered than ourselves by such legitimate dynasties as
call for respectful consideration. It was in that great age
of the Italian Renaissance, which the modern world has to
thank for a considerable portion of its civilisation, that the
name ' State ' first originated. Lo stato was originally
used to designate merely the person of the ruler and his per-
sonal retinue. In fact, the interests of the rulers were the
foremost consideration in these modern Italian States, which
had been erected on the ruins of a medieval theocracy.
Condottieri, bankers, daring sons of fortune, wiped out old
States and created new States, aided by their sword, their
money, their luck, and their immense ambition. The native
despots finally succumbed to foreign conquerors ; the
legitimate Republics of Genoa and Venice were abolished ;
and the high-sounding word ' legitimacy ' could only be
applied, with any semblance of justification, to Piedmont
and to the States of the Church. Under such circumstances
as these, when right was exclusively an attribute of might,
Machiavellism became indispensable as a national philosophy.
That virtu, that resolute conscious energy, which advances
74 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
towards its goal, without troubling to consider the honesty
of the means, was recognised as the supreme political virtue.
" In this chaos of purely materialistic States federalist
ambitions had for centuries ceased to have any power worth
mentioning. It is true that the peninsula was always bound
together by a certain community of political development.
All Italy feasted on the great memory of the avita grandezza
of Rome's world empire. Every part of the country had
been affected by the feudal system and by the struggle
between the Empire and the Papacy. In all alike had been
witnessed the rise of powerful municipal communes. At the
close of the Middle Ages the whole of Italy was under the
influence of the mercenary troops, the bankers, and the
despots of the cities, until there was established that system
of equilibrium between the more important States which
supplied a model for Europe to imitate. Finally, in modern
history, the whole of Italy was suffering under an alien yoke,
whether Spanish, French, or Austrian ; and this community
of political fortunes and misfortunes contributed at least as
much to strengthening the desire for unity as did the com-
munity of language and civilisation. Yet the peninsula
was never held together by the bond of federalism. The
moment when a league of the towns might have developed
out of the Lombard League 1 was allowed to pass ; and all
the various plans and endeavours of Arnold of Brescia 2 and
Rienzi, 3 Dante and Machiavelli, the Visconti 4 and the
Medici, Venice and a few great Popes, for securing the unity
of their country, had only the effect of preventing the idea of
unity from becoming entirely extinct in the unhappy nation.
"An immense impetus was given to the national idea when
the nation which had been despised by the world so long
gave birth to a ruler, and the Prince of Machiavelli became
1 Which opposed the Emperors Frederic I. and Frederic II. in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
a Disciple of Abelard, and leader of the citizens of Rome against the
Papacy ; executed in 1155.
8 Who became Tribune of a Roman Republic in 1347, and ruled in
Rome for seven months.
4 Despots of Milan in the fifteenth century.
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 75
incarnate in the person of Napoleon. The name of Italy
was introduced into public law ; and in the kingdom of
Italy 1 hostile neighbours learnt to make up their differences
and to feel themselves associates in one State. Yet even
then a Federal Union was not ventured upon ; and, after
the Vienna treaties, any such scheme became absolutely
impossible. The statesmen of the Vienna Congress, Metter-
nich and Castlereagh, declared drily that Italy's national
existence must be sacrificed to the peace of the Continent.
A league with Austria was justly rejected by Count Vallaise,
in the name of Piedmont, as ' a condition of perpetual
slavery/ a league without the imperial city of Rome, which
men had been toiling for in the forties, could never count on
the co-operation of dynasties under an Austrian influence.
And how difficult, or even impossible, was an enduring league
with the Papacy, which had always, even in secular politics,
made unscrupulous use of its right to bind and to loose !
Even the proposed Customs Union of the reformed States
never came to anything. Finally, after the battle of Novara, 2
attempts at Federation lost all the ground they had gained,
since a deadly hatred separated constitutional Piedmont
from the despotic dynasties. The middle parties, the leaders
of which, Gioberti and Rossi, strove in the year 1848 for a
monarchical Confederation, were now visited with a severe
persecution from the courts. In such a desperate situation,
at the time of the peace of Villafranca, 3 practical political
science progressed more quickly than the literary movement.
Men's thoughts reverted to the idea of a centralised State,
which had already been put forward in the year 1814 by a
few daring intellects ; for the country was faced with this
alternative : either renunciation of a national policy, or
annexation and a centralised State. Thus the open hostility
of the dynasties and the great stress of the time saved the
1 Revived by Napoleon in 1 805 ; he himself was crowned King of Italy
in that year.
2 In 1849, when Charles Albert, King of Piedmont, was defeated by the
Austrians under Radetzky.
8 In 1859, imposed by Austria and Napoleon III. upon Piedmont.
76 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
Italians from that chaos of federative and unitary ambitions,
which, in the case of Germany, impedes any resolute progress
towards the unity of the nation. Manin 1 summarily
described an alliance of monarchies as ' an alliance of princes
against nations/ and this was indisputably true as applied
to Italy, though only partly true as applied to Germany.
" Moreover, Piedmont was driven towards the goal of a
national policy by far more strong and compelling motives
than Prussia. Prussia had long been an independent power,
while Piedmont was in the position of a shuttlecock thrown
backwards and forwards between powerful nations, a power
of the third rank ; even, if we look more deeply, weighed
down by the very importance that it had enjoyed centuries
ago. The illusion that a State can be self-centred is
defended in Prussia with a passable show of reason ; but
in Piedmont it was impossible for any length of time.
' Risk the crown of Piedmont for the crown of Italy/ said
Pallavicino 2 to the House of Savoy ; for since the dynasty
of the counts of Maurienne was of foreign origin, like all the
other Italian dynasties, and had not yet been recognised by
the radicals as a naturalised Italian family, it could only
rise to power by devoting itself unreservedly to a national
policy. If the House of Savoy failed to respond to the call
of the nation, the national party would have been obliged
to unchain those republican elements, which in Italy are
incomparably stronger and more energetic and more deeply
rooted in national history than they are with us ; and it
would perforce have proceeded to the demolition of Piedmont.
Without the aid of a great and persevering national ambition,
Piedmont would have been powerless, cursed as she was with
the absurd consequences which that crude and premature
attempt made in 1820 to create an Italian kingdom drew
down upon the head of Charles Albert of Carignan. And it
had to be demanded of a State in such a desperate condition
as this, that it should, in the full sense of the word, be merged
1 The founder of the Venetian Republic of 1848.
z The Marchese Giorgio di Pallavicino-Trivulzio who brought about the
union of Naples with the Kingdom of Italy in 1860.
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 77
in Italy. It must use every means to assist a national
policy. Cesare Balbo's noble motto, L' Italia fara da se,
was at once revealed by the inspired moderation of Cavour
to be an impracticable idealism. In Germany such a radical
policy is not possible. Our movement for unity began more
tranquilly than the Italian, and it will take longer to reach
its goal. \ The Prussian State is too precious a possession of
the German nation for us to be able to cry to its king :
' Risk the crown of Prussia for the German crown ! ' A
great State is more slow to resort to revolutionary measures,
because it has greater things at stake. / The kingdom of
Italy at the present day pursues a more cautious policy than
was adopted formerly by the kingdom of Sardinia. Also
our position with regard to other countries is more difficult.
(We can neither rely on the moral approval of foreign nations
(for they all regard our country either with scorn or with
indifference), nor yet on the armed assistance of foreign
sovereigns. A State like Prussia can never submit to the
decrees of foreign nations,) as Piedmont was obliged to
submit ; nor yet can it purchase their approval at the price
of humiliating conditions.
" Italy had yet another circumstance in her favour.
Particularism was of course more deeply rooted in Italy than
it is with us, and the individual States made war on one
another with an envious hostility which recalls the Hellenic
world. But for the most part, in Italy, particularism took
the form of an arrogant municipal spirit. The Genoese had
long since been compelled to accustom themselves to the
foreign yoke of Piedmont, and the Bolognese to their union
with the hated States of the Church ; the bureaucratic
centralisation of modern States had stifled a municipal self-
reliance, and every one must realise now that it is impossible,
in this age of country states, that city states should be
founded on the antique model. When once, however,
men had learnt to renounce municipal ambitions, the way
was cleared for a centralised State ; for that territorial
particularism, which was nourished in Germany by the
78 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
bureaucracy, did not exist in middle and upper Italy. The
keener wits of the extreme particularists clearly foresaw
that a bureaucracy, which suppressed the municipal spirit
without creating a provincial spirit in its place, was assisting
the progress towards a centralised State.
[" We see, then, that a long series of historical facts, which
did not exist in Germany, smoothed the path of the Italians
towards the centralised State. But we must not forget the
most important factor of all, the political and moral rejuven-
escence of the national spirit) What a change of heart since
Machiavelli, on the threshold of the modern world, indicated
the direction of the political development of his country
with the great words ' ad ognuno puzza questo barbaro
dominio ! ' A nation which had been disdained for its
cowardice, and which had confirmed the unfavourable
opinion of the world by its revolution of 1820, finds the
courage for a heroic struggle ; the nation which had invented
the name of dilettantism, acquires the energy for persevering
and devoted political labour ; in the land of political murder
there ensues a revolution conspicuous for its moral purity,
and indeed, when we consider the atrocities of the dynasties,
astonishing in its moderation ; finally in the classic land of
sectarianism, of mistrust, of irreconcilable feuds, the noble
elements of bitterly antagonistic parties are seen uniting to
work for a common end. So this memorable movement
went forward with the certainty of a natural force ; and,
as it slowly advanced, it shifted its camp from the undis-
ciplined provinces of the South to the regions of the North,
the regions of a maturer political culture. Gradually
it became divested of its party character, and, in the place
of the colours of the Carbonari, it hoisted the national
tricolour. Strong in her purpose, Piedmont advanced into
Italy ; she began to adopt the language and the customs of
the great mother-country ; and whereas, sixty years ago,
Italy still ' ended at the Garigliano,' now, even in the most
forsaken districts of the South, all noble hearts are kindled
by the national idea." 1
1 Hist, und pol. A ufsdtze, ii. pp. 226-30.
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 79
In conclusion, before leaving this masterpiece of political
advocacy, we may instructively contrast it with the Prince
of Machiavelli, a work which both repelled and fascinated
Treitschke. Germany in the early nineteenth century, like
Italy in the early sixteenth, was partitioned between a
number of weak and mutually suspicious governments. In
both countries there was need of a strong military power to
overawe the vested interests which opposed the creation of a
national State. I Both writers are agreed that the interest of
the nation must be set above the ordinary obligations of law
and of morality. Both would welcome the violent overthrow
of the smaller States by a patriotic prince.) But Machiavelli
sees no hope in any established dynasty. He looks for a
Prince who will begin at the beginning, who will first make
such a state as Caesar Borgia had made in the Romagna,
and will then proceed to reduce all other States. Machiavelli
pinned his hopes upon the craft and resolution of an in-
dividual adventurer. Treitschke finds his country in a less
desperate situation. \ He sees already in existence a monarchy
which is, or which soon may be, strong enough to do the work
tha^is required. 1 All that is needed is that Prussia and the
Hohenzollerns snould live up to their past traditions of
conquest and of devotion to the national ideal.! But there
is not only a difference in the conditions with which the two
writers have to deal. There is also a difference in their con-
ceptions of the State. To Machiavelli the State is a cunningly
compacted mechanism ; ( to Treitschke the State is an organ-
ism, which is strong not only by virtue of the ruler's person-
ality, but still more through, the spirit which animates and
unites the citizens in devotion to a common ideal. This
spirit, he holds, is fostered by the long-maintained habit of
obedience to a well-ordered government and of participation
in political life. It is, in his view, the Prussian spirit, rather y
than any technical excellence of the Prussian government or
the Prussian military system, which marks out the Prussian
kingdom as the predestined saviour of German nationality.
Prussia is to reform the political state of Germany by a
8o HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
m
oral victory over the forces of particularism ; by imposing
her own ideals upon the citizens of other German States)
( For Treitschke, as for Machiavelli, der Staat ist Macht. But
to the German thinker Macht means something more than
brute force and cunning. It means the momentum of a
/ people inspired with the ideal of national service and trained
to sacrifice themselves in the service of the ideal. )
Unfortunately the effect of continual controversy on
Treitschke's mind was that the Liberal element in his con-
ception of the National State tended to fall into the back-
ground. He found it difficult to admit that the opponents
of Prussia had any right on their side or deserved the slightest
consideration. ( Every act of resistance to the onward
march of Prussia was in his eyes a crime against Germany.
fHe assumed that argument was futile, that the last word lay
iwith force and not with reason. He rej oiced at every success-
ful stroke of force which brought Prussia nearer to supremacy;
he no longer cared to inquire whether Prussia was likely
to realise his ideal of the free constitutional State, or whether
her policy was calculated to win the confidence and esteem of
the German people) We see him at his worst in the pamphlet
on " The Future of the North German Middle States " to
which we referred in the last chapter. It is a violent im-
r-peachment of Hanover, Saxony and Electoral Hesse. Their
offence was that they had united with Austria to uphold the
German Confederation, with the ultimate object of saving
themselves from Prussian hegemony. That they should suffer
for the failure of Austria to protect them was natural enough.
But Treitschke demands their extinction, as though they had
been guilty of the worst of crimes. He hardly condescends to
argue ; the pamphlet is a sustained invective on the text :
" These dynasties are ripe and over-ripe for the annihila-
tion which they deserve. Their restoration would imperil
the safety of the new German Confederation, a sin against
national morality." l
1 Deutsche Kdmpfe, i. p. 128.
THE MOVEMENT FOR GERMAN UNITY 81
The brutality of the course which he advocates is only
aggravated by the contention that the Saxons and the Hano-
verians will benefit,! materially and morally alike, by incor-
poration with Prussia. ) " As Prussian citizens they will
soon discover, if they have not already learned in this war,
from the elevating spectacle of Prussian patriotism, that the
human heart is richer and better when it has a fatherland,
a real and true fatherland, for which we live and give our
service, not a fatherland in the clouds, to which at dinner-
time we dedicate the brimming cup J Especially for Saxony,
entrance into the Prussian State would be nothing less than
the first beginning of public life." 1 It is an additional offence
of the Saxon and Hanoverian dynasties that they have not
made themselves unpopular. " Would God the middle
States were ruled by a bloody despotism which might
arouse all noble passions to a stout resistance ! The tyranny
of the small German princes is more easy-going than this
and therefore more pernicious for our drowsy nation ; it
insinuates itself by stealth and knows how to crush out all
character without disturbance." 2
Before he had finished writing, he received the news that
Saxony was to be spared, though Hesse and Hanover were
to be treated as he recommended,
mingled triumph and resignation,
processes of history it is the first step that counts. The
ball is set rolling, no god will stay its course. . . . The
costly harvest which we are fated to reap from the blood-
stained fields of Bohemia must not be curtailed by that
Albertine dynasty, which even at this hour implores
the help of foreign courts against Germany. The fate of
Saxony will not be finally settled by the conclusion of the
peace." 3
1 Deutsche Kdmpfe, i. p. 133. z Ibid. i. p. 143.
3 Ibid. i. p. 145.
CHAPTER V
THE NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION AND THE FOUNDING
OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE, 1866-187!
THOUGH Treitschke had refused the summons of Bismarck
to Berlin, he accepted, shortly after the conclusion of the
peace with Austria, a professorship at Kiel (October 1866).
f Here for twelve months he preached the gospel of Prussian
supremacy to the HolsteinersJ" a people of colossal sloth
and gluttony, of a stupid conceit the like of which I never
saw in any people," who were so far from being grateful for
annexation that they still spoke and thought of the Germans
as foreigners.]' In October 1867 he gladly left Kiel for
Heidelberg, to fill the chair of history which had been
vacated by the death of Ludwig Haiisser, the historian of
the War of Liberation. Here he remained till 1874. It was
the happiest period of his life, spent among congenial col-
leagues and enthusiastic audiences. Much of his time was
given to historical studies. He wrote here his studies of
" Bonapartism," " Cavour," and " The United Netherlands."
But his political essays of this time, collected in the two
volumes of Deutsche Kampfe, show that his interest in
contemporary German politics never flagged.
One of these essays was devoted to the constitution of
the North German Confederation, which was the work of
Bismarck. This new league, if considered as a step in the
direction of German unity, laboured under one obvious
disadvantage. It was smaller in extent than the old Con-
f federation which had been destroyed by the war of 1866 ;
2
NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 83
Austria stood outside it as a matter of course, and so also did
Baden, Wurtemberg, and Bavaria. On the other hand, the
bungling diplomacy of Napoleon III. had compelled the
last three of these states to conclude alliances with Prussia,
for mutual defence, while the North German Confederation
was still in the making (1866) ; and their economic depend-
ence upon Prussia was already bringing them to acquiesce
in Bismarck's schemes for their inclusion in a wider Zollverein
(1867). Further, the new Confederation was stronger than
the old in two essential points. First, the supremacy of
Prussia was assured. The King of Prussia was ex officio the
President of the League, supreme in military and foreign
affairs. The chief minister of the new Confederation, the
Chancellor, was chosen by the King of Prussia ; and Prussia
possessed votes enough in the Federal Council (Bundesmth)
to block any resolution of which she disapproved. Secondly,
the new Confederation was no mere league (Staatenbund) /
but a federal state (Bundesstaat] ; and the supremacy of the
federal government over those of the constituent states
was justified by the formation of a federal representative
(Reichstag) which voiced the popular will. Events were to
prove that Prussia could dominate the Reichstag as effect-
ively as the Bundesrath.
This was far from being the Einheitsstaat which Treitschke
had desired. He accepted it with a better grace than might
have been expected, even prophesying that it would be
the basis of German political life for a generation. But
it is characteristic of his temper that he then proceeded to
tear away the veil of forms and conventions with which
Bismarck had disguised the real inferiority of Prussia's
eighteen allies. " A secession of the Confederates," he said,
" is made practically impossible by their own impotence
as well as by the constitution of the Confederation." 1 " The
comfortable existence of the small states is swept away once
and for all ; only their taxes and their ridiculousness remain.
. . . When the inhabitants of Thuringia and Saxony dis-
1 Deutsche Kdmpfe, i. p. 213.
84 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
cover that, thanks to their useless courts and their equally
useless hordes of officials, they are more heavily burdened
than the Prussian people . . . then will the desire for
unitary government become a power in the nation." l He
points out that foreigners have already begun to speak of the
North German Confederation as a kingdom. And, in fact,
he continues, it is Prussia which, with the approval of the
nation (he gives this title to the peoples of the North German
States), has drawn up the Federal constitution. This con-
stitution, imperfect as it may seem, contains in itself the
germs of growth ; for both the King of Prussia and the
Federal Parliament have strong reasons to desire that the
Federal government shall be strengthened at the expense
of the State governments. There is every reason to hope
that the military forces of the States will soon be brought
more completely under Prussian control, and that the
State governments will be prevented from holding any direct
communications with foreign courts. 2
The grand defect of the constitution, in Treitschke's eyes,
/ was the Federal Council (Bundesrath) . His criticisms of this
body which acted as a ministry, but was in effect a congress
of ambassadors are the more worth reproducing because
the Bundesrath survives to this day in the constitution of
the German Empire :
" Another institution, the Federal Council (Bundesrath),
which also reveals very weak points to the critic, is even
more difficult to reform. This remarkable institution com-
bines the functions of a ministry, a council of State, a Senate
of States (Staatenhaus) , a general Customs Conference ;
and at the same time it represents the collective sovereignty.
The several States are represented by delegates, who are
.bound by instructions ; and the nation will find by experi-
ence, as it has already found at Regensburg and Frankfort,
that particularist egotism is expressed with far less reserve
through the mouth of such representatives as these than it
1 Deutsche Kampfe, i. p. 213. * Ibid. pp. 318-22.
NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 85
is through the mouths of ministers who are personally
responsible for their words. This is very unsatisfactory, but
it is inevitable. If it is essential to preserve the form of a
Confederation of States (Staatenbund) , we might at least
effect the complete transference of the supremacy in military
affairs and foreign relations to the crown of Prussia (an end
which seems to us, as we have said before, at the present
day both attainable and desirable) ; but such a Confederation
would be incompatible with an independent administration
set above the individual States. For this reason, the execu-
tive cannot hold the same position of responsibility as a
constitutional ministry. A delegate instructed by his cabinet
is not responsible for the purport of his commission, but only
for its faithful execution.
"It is not surprising that even moderate men in the
Reichstag longed for a really constitutional government. This
was no doctrinarianism, as was alleged by the governmental
press. After the experiences of the Electorate of Hesse in
the thirties and the forties, thoughtful Liberals know well
that the legal responsibility of ministers signifies in practice
very little, even when the whole apparatus of laws and
boards prescribed by the constitutional theory is present
in its entirety. It becomes only the more difficult for
parliament and public opinion to insist on political responsi-
bility. ( The political morality of the government as well
as of the governed is impaired, if the nation does not know
to whom to award praise or blame for the conduct of the
State.] Germany has already had some painful experience
of this : on the occasion of any unpopular Federal resolution,
the mandatories of the States washed their hands of all
responsibility ; I the lesser cabinets took shelter behind the
Federal Diet ;( and, as a result of this general hide-and-seek,
party-life was poisoned and perverted.] A repetition of
this false situation is inconceivable in the North German
Confederation, in spite of the similarity in the legal condi-
tions. The President of the Confederation is represented in
all seven committees of the Federal Council, two of which
86 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
he nominates on his sole authority ; and he has a veto in
military and naval matters. The predominance of Prussia
is so great that the committees will in fact be Prussian
commissions, assisted in their operations by a few provincial
officials. No momentous step in Federal policy can be taken
without the consent of Prussia. If the Prussian ministers
(as the government has admitted unreservedly) are responsible
to the Prussian Representative Assembly (Volksvertretung)
for their conduct in the Federal Council ; this is as much as
to say that it is they who are above all responsible for the
policy of the Confederation. The rights of the national
assembly in relation to the executive remain the same as
hitherto, and it will depend on the course of political develop-
ment in Prussia whether the ministers will be subjected to
that legal responsibility promised by the constitution, in
addition to the political responsibility to which they have
long been subject." 1
It is clear from this passage that the effect of the new
system would be to give a certain control over the Federal
executive, not to the Federal parliament, but to that of
Prussia. So far as the minor States were concerned, the
government of the Confederation would not be a constitu-
tional government. This is a point which Treitschke does
not meet. His attitude towards the Federal parliament is
the reverse of sympathetic. In one passage he suggests
that the individual needs to be protected against the possible
tyranny of this body, as well as against the possible tyranny
of the executive. 2 CHe thinks that the control of the purse
is the most important and most useful power for a parlia-
ment ; but he does not wish that it should have the power
of increasing or diminishing the army at its pleasure./
These remarks upon the Federal parliament bring us to
questions of political theory which were much in Treitschke's
mind between 1866 and 1871. ( He desired a strong execu-
tive, headed by a hereditary monarch. He did not desire
1 Deutsche Kampfe, i. pp. 222-3. * Ibid. p. 229.
NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 87
a despotism. The State for which he demanded an absolute
loyalty was to be governed by a king and parliament.)
What were the grounds of this preference ? and what measure
of control did he wish the German parliament to exercise ?
His answers to these questions are indicated in the essays
on the Second French Empire (1871) and on Constitutional
Monarchy in Germany (1869-71).
In spite of his dislike for Bonapartism, which he regarded
as Greek tyranny brought up to date, he was impressed by
the fact that the system of Napoleon III. had lasted longer
than any other French constitution of the nineteenth
century. Plainly it offered a provisional solution of problems
which had proved too hard for the restored Bourbons, for
the Orleanist monarchy, and for the Republic of 1848.
It was a bad form of government, but it had probably been
the best for which the French people were fitted when
Napoleon III. established himself by the coup d'etat. One at
least of the objects with which Treitschke began the essay on
Bonapartism was to prove that it would be entirely out of
place in Germany ; he wrote the first draft in 1868, when
Napoleon III. and his system was still invested with the
glamour of success. At that time it was natural enough
that some Prussian patriots should desire the Hohenzollerns
to turn Bonapartists. In Germany, as in France, there was
a strong monarchical tradition as old as the nation itself,
and a weak constitutional tradition of comparatively modern
growth. A German politician who believed in the import-
ance of defending old historical traditions might very well
denounce constitutionalism as a quack remedy, the invention
of latter-day doctrinaires.
( Treitschke, however, pointed out that France, unlike
Germany, was destitute of any dynasty with historical claims;
to the allegiance of the nation. The French constitution
was monarchical ; but the prize of the monarchy was
within the grasp of every political adventurer. /(The Bona-
partist despotism was founded upon a plebiscite, which
gave to Napoleon III. the only title to sovereignty that
88 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
France would acknowledge as legitimate ; and the fact
that he had been elected by a plebiscite made it possible for
him to arrogate unlimited powers, refusing any real share
in the government to the representative assembly. I What
thinking Frenchmen had desired was a constitutional king ;
and they only tolerated the absolutism of Napoleon III.
because they despaired of establishing something better,
and because any form of monarchy was preferable to the
anarchy with which they had been threatened in 1848.
But the desperate situation of 1848, and the long-suffering
of French public opinion after the coup d'etat, were due to
the special history of the French nation. They were due to
the disintegration of French political parties, which had
become incurable since 1815 ; to a centralised system of
local government, which gave the French elector no oppor-
tunity of a political education, and which had destroyed the
old local communities with their power of corporate resistance ;
last, but not least, to the feud between the propertied classes
and the labouring classes, which had grown up under the
Orleanist monarchy, and had culminated in 1848 during the
Socialist experiments of Louis Blanc. The propertied classes
accepted Louis Napoleon as President because they needed
a strong man to make headway against Socialist Republican-
ism, with its schemes for the redistribution of wealth. He
was in their eyes a bulwark against the tyranny of the Fourth
Estate. But he actually owed his power to the Fourth
Estate, who hoped that he would govern entirely in their
interest. There could be no doubt that, in the long-run, he
was bound to favour the labouring classes and to treat the
upper classes with contempt. The support of the working-
man was essential to him ; that of the upper classes was
useful but not essential.( There was the possibility that
Germany might, in the future, be compelled to accept Bona-
partism under the compulsion of the vote of the Fourth
Estate. ( But, as Treitschke pointed out, the middle class had
still the upper hand in Germany ; while this state of things
1. continued, Bonapartism was neither necessary nor desirable.
NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 89
"It is difficult between such an excess of praise on the
one hand and condemnation on the other to draw the hard,
clear line of historic judgment ; it is all the more difficult
because that inner self-contradictoriness of Bonapartism,
that diabolic half-truth which we have so often signalised
as the characteristic feature of revolutionary despotism,
exhibited itself in the second Empire, with suicidal force.
The third Napoleon scarcely made a single statement to
which he did not himself give the lie by some contradiction,
either of word or action. Personally he was perhaps more
free from the dangerous passions which are the curse of
modern France than any notable man among his French
contemporaries ; yet that necessity for self-preservation
which was the very essence of his system incessantly impelled
him to goad on these passions ; and on himself and his house
was fulfilled the Nemesis which was bound sooner or later
to overtake the frivolous arrogance of the whole nation.
" The greatest difficulty of all in the way of arriving at an
accurate political judgment springs from the social founda-
tions of the new French State. Class-selfishness has at all
times been the inalienable characteristic of all ruling classes ;
but, in the eyes of posterity, it never appears more odious
than when it has become a second nature, and so reveals
itself simply and unconsciously. The literature of antiquity
reveals unmistakably the intellectual arrogance of that huge
aristocracy which took as little account of the poorer free
men and the slaves as if they had been empty air. Very
few suspect to what a degree we ourselves are steeped with
the same sentiments. f The middle classes, who rule public
opinion in Germany at the present day, regard freedom of
competition as being of the essence of social freedom, and
freedom of discussion as the first and indispensable condition
of political freedom ; and, after a series of memorable
struggles, they have outgrown their unquestioning faith in,
the Church. To this frame of mind we owe the emancipation
of the peasantry ; it has made our educated classes the freest
and fairest of all the ruling classes of history. Yet a strenuous
90 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
self-examination reveals to us that, even while we are
working for these pure political ideals, our thoughts are still
in bondage. A haughty nobleman of the eighteenth century
could better understand the ideas of the rising civic popula-
tion than we could enter into the thoughts of our Fourth
Estate.)
" The disposition of the working classes has been charac-
terised by Aristotle in the classic expression : ^alpova-iv
av rt? ea 77/305 rot? ISioi? a-%o\d%i,v ', a statement which,
in these more emancipated modern days may be qualified,
but can never become entirely false. \ For these classes of
society, private life and the toil and burden of domestic
cares are the very core of their existence ; but while, for
that reason, they are fully justified in trying to gain some
control of the conduct of the State, they are not in a position
to perform any continuous and regular service for the
State. They are seldom enthusiastic for that lively, in-
tellectual war of mind with mind which to the cultured man
is the bread of life ; and they are prone to sacrifice freedom
of thought for a benevolent administration which will exert
itself to promote the well-being of the people at large. Of
all the spiritual forces it is always the Church which exercises
the strongest sway over a mind of this type, f This is the
reason why it is difficult for the scholar to give an accurate
judgment on the latest stage in the development of Bona-
partism. The importance of this Fourth Estate has never
been so great in the modern world as under the Second
Empire. In the days of the Convention, the Paris mob
controlled the government of the State, and they derived
a portion of their power from the smoothly-running ad-
ministrative machine. Under Napoleon III. they stood
outside the Government, and yet the Fourth Estate was
still the most important class in the State. Continuous
attention to the happiness of the multitude was the leading
principle of the new Bonapartism. Even to-day, under the
so-called Republic, the future of the realm lies undoubtedly
in the hands of the peasantry and the working classes.
NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 91
But, wherever the Fourth Estate predominates, its material
conception of life will also predominate. Indeed, in modern
France, this moral crudity, this disregard of all ideal good,
appears so revolting, that we are led instinctively to a con-
jecture, which, it must be confessed, cannot actually be
substantiated by historic proof. It appears, that is to say,
as if the nobler Romance and Germanic elements of this
mixed nationality had been entirely skimmed off, and the
foul dregs of Celticism were bubbling up again. In order
to discern, amid all its hypocrisy and immorality, the merit
of such a system based upon the Fourth Estate, the man of
culture must forcibly repress many of the dearest and most
noble instincts of his class.
" The Second Empire fell within the two decades of modern
times, which were, politically speaking, most fruitful ; and,
if we consider how rapidly, in a series of frantic leaps, the
judgment of the world has changed with regard to the third
Napoleon, we realise very forcibly how much older we have
grown in a short time. As the incarnate contradiction of
an ineffectual republicanism, the new Bonapartism wrought
a deeper and more violent transformation in the social
circumstances of the country than any other government
of modern times. With the boldness of an absolute authority,
it ventured on many deep and far-reaching reforms, such as
a Parliament would have lacked either the courage or the
impartiality to accomplish. But the precipitous downfall
of this energetic system is only another confirmation of the
rule that the existence of a government is the less secure in
proportion as its activity is extended more widely." l
That Bonapartism was capable of producing good results
was proved by the good work which Napoleon III. had done,
both in his foreign policy and in home government, during
the middle years of his reign. More especially Treitschke
praises the record of the Second Empire in the years 1858-
1860, when it helped Italy to achieve national unity, estab-
1 Aufsdtze, iii. pp. 290-2.
92 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
lished a moral supremacy over the Romance States of the
Mediterranean, and embarked on a policy of free-trade
which was expected to make the whole of Western Europe
a single open market. But after 1860 the Empire degener-
ated, very largely through the weaknesses which were
inherent in its structure. However earnestly Napoleon III.
may have desired to stand above the feuds of parties and
classes, he could never afford to forget that his power was
j derived from a Fourth Estate which could only be led
by indulgence, by deceit, and by systematically suppress-
\ing free discussion. Treitschke gives him the credit due
to good intentions and clear insight ; but suggests that his
personal merits only make more apparent the weakness of
the system to the maintenance of which they contributed.
( It is interesting to notice what Treitschke regards as the
chief sins of the Second Empire against individual liberty.
His catalogue reveals by implication some features of the
ideal monarchy which he expected the Hohenzollerns to
provide for Germany. He censures the Emperor for re-
stricting the right of petition. Petitions might not be pre-
sented to the Legislative Chamber, which was the representa-
tive element in the constitution, but only to the Senate,
which had the power to disregard them, and which, being
composed of life-members, was not responsible to the nation.
He notices again that the right of public meeting was practic-
ally destroyed ; that the newspaper press was subject to
a rigid censorship ; that the elections to the Legislative
Chamber were managed by the Government ; that the
proceedings of the Chamber were controlled by a nominated
president ; that the control which the Chamber was supposed
to exercise over the budget was altogether illusory. The
effect of all these restrictions was that, while the educated
classes might discuss politics in the privacy of a salon or a
learned society, the masses were prevented from forming
or expressing an independent opinion upon political subjects,
and their representatives were rendered impotent for good
or evil. The edifice of the imperial constitution was most
NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 93
ingeniously constructed ; it was buttressed by great vested
interests. But there was no assurance that the Government
would act in accordance with the will of the masses, though
in the last resort it depended on the masses .) It was in fact
a Byzantine despotism which existed by perpetuating the
divisions of the country : j
" At a first glance the consequence of this form of State
appears inevitable. The pyramid of the old Napoleonic
Government, created by a despotism for a despotism, based
on the theory of the omnipotence of the State, found its
natural apex in the elective autocrat, who uses his authority
for the benefit of the masses, and, if the worst comes to the
worst, is prepared for a revolution. The Council of State,
too, had its numbers considerably strengthened, and, under
the first Emperor, it formed once again the leading feature
and the training school of the executive. It protected
officials from legal prosecution, and its discussions on
legislative projects were so precise and circumstantial that
any further deliberation in a parliament seemed superfluous
to the vast majority. The Civil Service was attached to
the system by the immense increase of the number of official
positions, and by the raising of salaries ; and the removal
of troublesome characters without any scandal was facilitated
by the newly established cadres de non-activite. Moreover,
the independence of the judicature scarcely yet appeared
as a bulwark against absolutism. Promotion to the Bench
was invariably a reward for devotion to the dynasty. The
choice of members of the Bench to serve on judicial com-
missions was no longer controlled, as formerly, by the pre-
siding judge and the older councillors, but by the President
and the Procurator General. By the side of this hierarchy
of authority we find, as a prudent concession to the ideas of
past days, the systeme consultatif, described by Persigny as
the hierarchy of freedom the legislative bodies known as
the General, Departmental, and Communal Councils
which did not actually take part in the administration, but
94 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
were entitled to offer occasional advice to the bureaucracy
in the name of the propertied classes. If the army could
now be kept in a good temper by a short and successful war,
and the masses by amusements and public works ; and if
the educated classes could be completely imbued with the
toilsome and servile spirit of fonctionnomanie and the lust
for gold ; then would ensue a commonwealth, without any
moral purpose, it is true, but quite capable of maintaining
order and industry at home, and the authority of the State
in foreign affairs a modern counterpart of the Byzantine
empire. At Byzantium, as in France, an Emperor, once
acknowledged by the factions of the Circus, could count on a
tolerably tranquil government ; a rigid bureaucracy attracted
all talent to itself, and secured for the State a thousand
years of existence, for society an energetic commerce ; an
army which was technically first-rate achieved through the
centuries a series of triumphs over the East Goths and the
Vandals, the Cretans and the Syrians, the Armenians and
the Bulgars. If we are to believe Carlyle and other powerful
intellects of modern times, the ideals of freedom of our
century are to be regarded on the whole merely as a kind of
skin-disease of the present age." l
What was needed to make the system tolerable ? The
Liberal Opposition, after 1863, had striven for the English
parliamentary system ; but the conditions necessary for
the success of parliamentarism were absent. France had
no such stable and well-organised parties as were to be found
in England ; and the prospect of parliamentary govern-
ment did not appeal to the French proletariate. What was
needed, Treitschke thinks, was a reform of the administration
which would give the people some share in local government.
He had studied the views of Gneist and of Tocqueville on the
( English Constitution ; from these writers he had learned that
, the secret of English liberty was to be found in the self-govern-
ment of the English shire and the English municipality :-j-
1 Aufsdtze, iii. pp. 309-10.
NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 95
'\It is true that the healing of a sick State may be begunx
either from above or below, either by the administration ory'
by the constitution. In France every conceivable experi-
ment with the constitution had been tried long ago. The
hope for a new revolution, which was expressed in the current
phrase, ' France has pawned away her freedom,' was a
childish consolation. The reform of the administration was~~t
the only way still open to political freedom. So long as
local communities do not show any independence in their
relations with the bureaucracy, the freedom of the press and
of association leads inevitably to anarchy ; and the exten-
sion of the rights of the national assembly leads to party
despotism. \ Only by giving a greater freedom to the com-
munes to the extent, at least, that their mayors should
no longer be arbitrarily selected for them might the well-
to-do classes possibly have been induced to regard an honor-
ary local office as an honour. | Only the active participation
of the educated classes in the work of administration might
some day have compelled the bureaucracy to cease from
despising the advice of the press as the presumption of hommes
sans mandat. And, above all, nothing but energetic partici-
pation in local government could possibly, in the midst of
the storms of party-conflict, have revived the almost extinct
virtues of political discipline and devotion to duty, and have
done something to weaken the habit of unthinking and
mechanical routine which governed the whole nation." l
But Napoleon III. was not entirely to blame for refusing
to grant freedom of local government. The social situation,
in France made such a reform almost impossible. Free local
government is hard to establish and harder to maintain;
when the Fourth Estate is sovereign, f Free local govern-
ment means, in the last resort, government by a local aristo- .
cracy, it may be of birth, it may be of wealth. The masses
prefer to be ruled by paid officials, who stand above and
outside class-quarrels. Free local government throws heavy
1 Aufsdtze, iii. pp. 326-7.
96 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
responsibilities upon the propertied classes, which only
pressure from above will compel them to undertake./
Prussia was successful in establishing the system in 1808 ;
but the Prussian people had been long trained in the habit
of obedience such obedience as cannot be looked for under
a democratic despotism.
In the essay on " Constitutional Monarchy in Germany "
Treitschke pursues the same vein of thought. He holds
that the English party system of government is no more
v applicable to Germany than to France. | In Germany, and
more particularly in Prussia, the traditional prestige of the
monarchy is such that no ministry could impose its wishes
upon a legitimate king. The King of a German State must
be left to choose his ministers as he thinks best. It is un-
avoidable that his ministry should have a partisan com-
plexion and depend to some extent on partisan support.
But the constitutional king will see to it that his ministers
subordinate party considerations to the interest of the State.]
He may make a mistake in his choice. Parliament should
then be able to compel the retirement of the unpopular
minister. It should not have the power to designate his
successor. The ideal ministry is represented pretty well
by the Bismarck ministry in the years 1866-71, when it
had ceased to be a party cabinet :
I " The system of party-government has not proved
successful in any of the great monarchies of the continent. )
The frivolous conduct of those jealous coteries which, under
Louis Philippe, reduced all government to a game of grab,
terminated with a disgraceful bankruptcy. Even Cavour's
government only confirms the rule. That gifted statesman
succeeded for a few years in completely dominating the
Sub-Alpine parliament and in silencing trivial party differ-
ences by the great idea of Italian unity ; but immediately
after his death there ensued such a confused and disorderly
party administration as no one could hold up as a model to
our State. England alone, up to the present, has presented '
NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 97
those conditions which make possible a healthy development
of parliamentary party government a degraded crown,
which has renounced its own freedom of will ; a magnificent
and highly developed form of local self-government, pro-
tected by legal restrictions, a self-government which renders
absolutely impossible the despotic interference of party-
governments in local administration or in the management
of the churches and the schools ; a ruling class which fills
the offices in this system of self-government, and alone bears
the greater part of the burden of taxation ; a subordinate
Civil Service which is subject to the aristocracy in social as
well as in political life ; a parliament which unites within
itself almost all the practical political talent of the nation ;
a Lower House, the majority of the members of which belong
to the aristocracy, are elected by the overwhelming influence
of the aristocracy, and are therefore at once susceptible to
and independent of public opinion ; an Upper House made
up of the heads of the aristocracy ruling in the House of
Commons ; two great aristocratic parties, firmly bound
together both by tradition and by family relationship, and
united on all important questions relating to the constitu-
tion ; respected party leaders, who govern these parties with
dictatorial authority ; finally, a nation, who regard the
government with a vigilant open-mindedness, but cherish
a sincere confidence in the political skill of their nobility.
Let one of these pillars be struck down, and the whole mighty
and ingenious structure of English parliamentarism will
tremble to its foundations." 1
I One of the reasons why the system could never thrive in
Germany is that the parliamentary career will never be the
only career open to the German politician. The_bureaucracy,
whose existence is rendered inevitable by the many-sided
activity of the German State, will always absorb a consider-
able proportion of political energy and political knowledge ;
and this bureaucracy will always demand to be represented
1 Aufsatze, iii. pp. 561-2.
H
g8 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
in a German ministry. 1 ] It is improbable that German
general elections will produce those large and stable majori-
ties which are postulated by party government. Treitschke
thought that, even in England, there was no security for the
regular production of such majorities in the future ; in the
past, he maintained, they had only been ensured by the
existence of pocket boroughs and treasury boroughs. And,
he asked, how could the system possibly succeed in the
German Empire which started with a popular franchise, and
which could not restrict the franchise with any safety ?
( But in arguing against the party system, Treitschke is not
arguing that the King's ministers should be responsible to the
King alone. He wishes them to be responsible in law for every
|act done against the law. He holds that this legal responsi-
bility must be expressly enunciated and denned by legisla-
tion ; otherwise there is no hope that a German bureaucracy
will respect the constitution.) Such a special law is unneces-
sary in England, but in Germany, he would have us under-
stand, there is a real danger that power may fall into the
hands of a Strafford. 2
\Legal responsibility is in itself no guarantee that a minister
will give effect in his policy to the wishes of the nation.
But Treitschke argues that a non-party cabinet will always
be compelled to defer to the popular will, as expressed by the
representative chamber./ For it will not command a ready-
made majority ; it must purchase support for its own
measures by a certain degree of complaisance. Even Bis-
marck was obliged at times to rid himself of reactionary
colleagues, certainly not from any love of liberal doctrines.
Treitschke is not prepared to make the ministry dependent
upon parliament by giving to the latter the full " power of
the purse." He remarks that even in England it has been
found necessary to restrict, in practice, this old and much-
belauded privilege of the Lower House :
" It sounds incontrovertible, but is as a matter of fact
1 Aufsdtze, p. 562. 2 Ibid. p. 567.
NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 99
only an empty quibble to assert that, out of the right to vote!
individual taxes there follows automatically the right to\
refuse them altogether. The right of voting taxes is entrusted
to the Lower House, in order to safeguard the interests of
the tax-payers, and to exercise an effective supervision over
the State-revenues ; and not in order to subvert the State,
nor yet in order to subject the Crown to the Lower House.
The resolution simply to refuse taxes is always an insincerity ;
it does not mean what it says. It cannot mean that the
payment of taxes should cease, and that the State should be
abolished ; what it does mean is, by a powerful threat, to
attain some other end, for instance, the overthrow of a
minister. But to threaten with an impossibility is always
futile. A parliament which is strong enough to overthrow
a ministry by a vote of want-of-confidence has no need to
refuse taxes. A parliament which does not possess this
power will be even less in a position to exercise the very
much more oppressive right of starving the State into
surrender. It is the old amusing story of the boy who found
himself unable to roll away a big stone, and so looked for
a heavy lever. No doubt the lever would have been able
to move the stone, but the boy could not move the lever." l
He is thinking, naturally, of the deadlock which occurred
in Prussia between 1862 and 1866, when the House of Repre-
sentatives had rejected the budget to express their dis-
approval of a new and severer rule of military service. It
is significant of the change in Treitschke's opinions that,^
whereas in those years he had blamed Bismarck for the dead-
lock, in 1871 it is now the House of Representatives which
he censures :
" It was inevitable that such an absurd right of budget-
control, in the case of a nation with a strong sense of justice,
should entail a violent struggle. Weak parliaments are
always inclined to make an indiscriminate use of their rights ;
1 Aufsdtze, iii. p. 570.
ioo HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
and while, in fact, the passing of the budget does always
essentially depend on the Lower House, the Prussian House
of Representatives, as a result of the absurd regulations of
the constitution, could not feel the full measure of this heavy
responsibility. The House washed its hands of the matter,
and declared emphatically during the conflict : ' It is not
we who have rejected the budget.' This was so in appear-
ance, though not in fact ; for the House of Representatives
gave the Budget a form, which, as every one knew, could
not be accepted by the two other factors. The conflict is
forgotten, but the unfortunate regulations of the Prussian
constitution have unhappily, with some trivial alterations,
been adopted in the constitution of the North German Bund.
The German Reichstag has, indeed, an indirect right of grant-
ing taxes, since it fixes the amount of the quotas which are
to be paid by the States. But the Commander-in-Chief
of the Federal Army receives under any circumstances
definite sums for the maintenance of the present peace-
strength of the Army ; so that, as a matter of fact, he dis-
poses of the greater part of the Federal revenues." 1
' ' "
The subject of financial control is one which causes
Llreitschke considerable embarrassment. He rejects as im-
practicable a proposal to distinguish between ordinary and
extraordinary taxes, to make the ordinary taxes unchange-
able over a considerable period of time, and to earmark them
as the source of supply for the permanent needs of the States,
only leaving the Parliament free to reject proposals for
new expenditure of a less essential kind. To draw a dividing
line between essential and non-essential expenditure he
thinks extremely difficult. In England the standing Army
is voted afresh in each year as though it were non-essential ;
a Prussian Parliament might take this view of the Prussian
Army, and if it did so would at once come into conflict with
the Prussian monarchy. He comes to the conclusion that
there is no legislative expedient by which quarrels over
1 Aufsatze, iii. p. 573.
NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 101
expenditure can be prevented, and no unobjectionable
definition of the financial control which should belong to
the legislature. He merely hopes that, as the influence and
the self-restraint of German parliaments increase, they
will be able to exercise a salutary and effective control.
Such a control would not be a source of weakness to a wise
and moderate constitutional monarchy.
I For Germany, however, it should be an easy matter to
elaborate the much more efficient check upon the central
government which is supplied by a scheme of local self-
government. / Prussia, he points out, has already taken some
notable steps in this direction. Her municipalities enjoy
a remarkable degree of self-government ; her Circles and
Communes play an important part in financial and military
administration. In the development of such tendencies lies
the strongest safeguard against the encroachments of a
bureaucracy which makes new laws under the pretext of
interpreting those enacted by the legislature, and goes on
the principle that everything is permitted to it which is not
expressly forbidden by the law. An unfettered bureaucracy
was necessary to a State like Prussia, when her whole energies
were required for the reduction and absorption of the small
States by which she was surrounded. (^ But now the time has
come for returning to the older Germanic tradition of free
local government. He pleads for a sweeping reform of Prus-
sian local government which shall start from this first prin-
ciple. Self-government must be introduced into the Pro-
vinces, into the Circles which make up the Province, into the
Communes which make up the Circle. 1 He is particularly
anxious that the independence of the Provincial government
should be assured, and that its sphere should be enlarged.
For example, he would give each Province some control over
education. Greatly as he admires the centralised State, he
is still enough of a Liberal to feel that it would be disastrous
if the education of every citizen in the State should be
conducted on uniform lines, and those the lines laid down
1 Aufsdtze, pp. 585-6.
RIVERSIDE
102 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
by a single Minister of Education. Local self-government
is a potent method of training the political opinion of the
country, and of giving it a real weight. But free education
is even more important as a safeguard of political liberty ;
a free nation requires an intellectual aristocracy which
can never be reared under the paralysing uniformity of a
centralised educational system, j
The constitutional position of Treitschke is then a middle
position. He says himself that he will be criticised as a
fanatical supporter of centralisation, who at the same time
desires to curb the central power by Liberal checks and
balances. He holds a middle position between the agitators
- of 1848 and the Prussian school of Bismarck. The patriot
statesman of his dreams is a statesman like Cavour, who is
not afraid of resisting revolutionary idealists when they
attack the old institutions and traditions of his country.
Treitschke holds that the radical democrats of Germany
have always been, and must remain, the enemies of national
unity. But the monarchical state which he desires is to be
more Liberal in spirit than any Prussian government had
been since the time of Stein and Hardenberg. It was not
[to be the slave of public opinion ; but it was to be limited
J by law and always in close touch with the intelligent and
\ reasonable aspirations of the educated classes.) This is an
intelligible and indeed an imposing ideal. But it involves
certain dangers to political liberty, which are more evident
now than they were when Treitschke wrote. (^His constitu-
tional monarchy might fail to represent the true wishes of
the nation ; it might be, it probably would be, supported by
the bureaucracy and the military hierarchy. Under such
circumstances a parliament, invested with the limited powers
which Treitschke would allow to it, is unlikely to assert the
national will with effect ; and it will be left for the masses
or the organs of local self-government to resist the adminis-
tration by revolutionary methods. Such methods are
nearly always tried too late, and inevitably produce evils
as serious as those which they are intended to remedy.)
NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 103
But to all such doubts and questionings Treitschke would
probably have replied that, if we have to choose between a:
strong government and a free government, we must take the\
first alternative. VAt all events he was clear that, for Germany,
the question of liberty was much less urgent than the ques-
tion of making and maintaining a strong government :-)
" Great political passion is a precious treasure. The
jaded hearts of the majority of mankind afford it very little
space, f Happy the generation on whom a stern necessity
enjoins a sublime political ideal, a great and simple and
universally comprehensible ideal, which forces every other
idea of the age into its service ! And such an ideal exists
among us to-day the unity of Germany ! Whoever fails
to serve this ideal is not living the life of his nation. Our
life is spent in camp. At any moment an order from the
Commander-in-Chief may summon us to arms again. It
is not for us to pursue the myriad glittering hopes of freedom
which flutter through this age of revolution, to let our eyes
be blinded by desire. It is for us to stand shoulder to
shoulder, disciplined and self-controlled, and to guard
loyally that treasure of our unity, the German monarchy,
that we may hand it down to our sons, who perhaps
more free from care, but not more happy than their fathers
have been all through the hard struggle shall some day
increase the glory of the German State. To fight for the
unity of Germany is to defend freedom of thought against a
Roman lust for power ; the achievement of German unity will
mean the restoring to itself of a young and moral nation,
as yet only in the second quarter of its wonderful history.
If we fulfil this duty, then a proud future is assured for the
ideal of parliamentary liberty on German soil." 1 j
In conclusion, we may quote a passage from the Politik,
which can hardly have been acceptable to his non-Prussian
auditors ; which, at the time when it was written, hardly
1 Aufsdtze, iii. p. 625.
104 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
represented the exact nature of the Empire ; but which is
instructive as showing what, in the eyes of an uncompro-
mising Prussian, would be the logical process of Germany's
political evolution! Treitschke proclaims that, in spite of all
appearances, Germany has become an Einheitsstaat :
" There are features which are common to the Empire
and to the two republican Confederations, and most authori-
ties on Constitutional Law leave the matter there. But we
historians must consider the historical foundations and the
living spirit of the politics of the Empire ; and, when we
do this, it becomes perfectly clear that, if the Empire is
compared with these Confederations, it is seen to rest on
an entirely opposite principle. \ While a Confederation must
endeavour to obviate as much as possible any inequality
among its members, the German Empire, on the contrary,
is based on such an inequality, that is to say, on the fact
that there is one dominant State, which links and subordin-
ates the other States to itself by means of a Confederation.
What would become of Germany, if the Prussian State
ceased to be ? The German Empire could no longer continue
to exist. | (From this follows the to most people dis-
agreeable truth, which, however, really implies nothing at
all injurious to a non-Prussian, that, in this German Empire,
only one of the former States, namely Prussia, has preserved
her sovereignty. Prussia has not) lost her right of arms ;
nor does she need to allow her own prerogatives to be limited
by others. The German Emperor is at the same time the
King of Prussia. He directs the arms of the nation ; and
it would be indulging in unprofitable quibbling to imagine
cases in which the German Emperor and the King of Prussia
should come into conflict with one another. It is nothing
else but a feeble jest to say, ' I would not advise the German
Emperor to start a quarrel with the King of Prussia.' Talk
about a ' War-Lordship in time of peace,' of which our minor
kings could also boast, is the privilege of theorising German
professors ; and it is the laughing-stock of foreigners. In its
NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION 105
outward forms the change has been effected with the very
utmost consideration. Even the Prince of Reuss can boast
on paper that he has an army, and courtly mythology refers
to this battalion as the Reuss army. This complaisance has,
in fact, been carried too far ; but it does not alter the fact
that, in reality, in spite of political reservations, the King
of Bavaria is, just as little as the King of Saxony, in a posi-
tion to mobilise a single soldier for purposes of war. \ In
war, the German Emperor is War Lord. The right of arms
has been transferred to the Empire, and it is in the same
hands as the State of Prussia^
\. Further, of all the German States, only Prussia is able to
maintain her prerogatives undiminished./ After the founda-
tion of the Empire, suggestions for altering the constitution
were rejected if there were 14 votes against them in the
Federal Council, and hence Prussia's 17 votes were alone
sufficient to prevent any legal restriction of her prerogatives.
But, in the third place and, strangely enough, this is a point
which is generally passed over in silence the obedience of
the constituent states is insisted on in the Empire, as in any
other State. So we find in the Imperial Law, as an extreme
remedy, ' execution,' a shining sword, which has never yet
been actually drawn, only rattled once or twice in its scab-
bard. [ Fortunately, the sense of loyalty among the constitu-
ent parts of the Empire is so strong that this means has not
yet been employed. But it is there ; the rebellious State
may, by means of an ' execution,' be compelled to obey the
laws of the Empire. It is the Emperor, however, who per-
forms this ' execution ' ; and the Emperor is not likely to
inflict it on the King of Prussia. The possibility of any one
giving himself a box on the ear need not be seriously con-
sidered.j
(" The whole Empire is based historically and politically
on the fact that it is (as Emperor William once said to Bis-
marck) ' an extended Prussia,' that Prussia is the dominant
factor, both in fact and in formula. What is our German
io6 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
Imperial Army P^ Unquestionably it is the Prussian Army,
which, by the Army Bill of 1814, was developed into a nation
in arms, extending over the whole Empire. The German
Imperial Post, the Telegraph system, the Imperial Bank
(Reichsbank) are old Prussian institutions, extended to
the Empire. In all this there is no cause for complaint.
\Every Prussian must feel it to be quite right that the best
political institutions should be extended to the rest of
Germany ; and every reasonable non-Prussian must find
cause for rejoicing that Prussia has brought the name of
Germany into honour once again. The conditions are such
that the will of the Empire can in the last instance be
nothing else than the will of the Prussian State." 1 )
1 Politik, ii. pp. 343-6.
CHAPTER VI
THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR
CONCERNING international politics Treitschke had little to
say before the year 1870. (One reason which moved him
to champion the cause of German unity was a conviction
that the German nation would never develop to its full
stature until it could play a leading part among the great
powers, and use its power for the furtherance of foreign
trade and colonisation. ) Long before 1870 he was accustomed
to think of war as a sharp medicine for national disunion
and waning patriotism. J The Franco-German War, however,
led him to think more intently of the rights of the German
nation as a member of the European state-system. )
Needless to say that he rejoiced over the outbreak of the
war. " Who is so blind," he wrote, 1 shortly after the
outbreak of hostilities 'f Who is so blind that he cannot see
in the marvellous events of these latest days the divine
wisdom which constrains us Germans to become a nation ? " ]
The war, he said, had kindled a spirit of patriotism in the
North German Confederation which would do more for
national unity than a decennium of peaceful evolution.
The call to arms had dashed all parties into fragments. The
idea of nationality had proved stronger than those who
believed in it had ever dared to hope. The war had lifted
up the hearts of all patriots ; they felt that they were
engaged in a holy war, a war for the liberation of the world.)
1 Deutsche Kdmpfe, i. pp. 307 ff. (Die Feuerprobe des norddeutschen
Bundes).
107
io8 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
It had also forced even South German princes to recognise
the King of Prussia as the head of the nation. (For Germany
the war was indeed a blessed necessity ; it was ordained
to consummate the work of unificatipn which had been half
accomplished by the war of 1866. H The war was not only
beneficial to Germany ; it was also a blessing to the world.
In this iron age it was necessary for the civilisation of the
|vorld that one nation should emphasise the ideal significance
pf war ; that Germany should show how a righteous war
should be waged. France had embarked on a career of
plunder with the over-confidence of a bully. England had
degenerated into a shameful cowardice. There would have
been an end to European state-law and European liberty if
Germany had not come forward as a nation under arms,
ready for peace but also ready for war. Germany would
never complain that she had been left to fight the battle
of Europe single-handed.^
I Nevertheless Treitschke complains bitterly that England
has neglected her duty to Europe in deciding to stand neutral,
when she ought to be fighting for European liberty : )
" Where once was England there now gapes an immense
void in the life of the nations. We had hoped as who
would not that had any heart for freedom that this native
land of parliamentary life would be preserved from the
fate of all commercial nations. We had thought that the
great memories of a glorious past, the wisdom of a statesman-
like aristocracy, and the righteousness of a free people,
would have raised a solid dam against the invading flood
of that Manchester theory which threatens to sweep away
all faith in the moral values of life. That hope seems now
to have been proved deceptive ; the descent of the island
kingdom, down that precipitous path that was once the path
of Carthage and of Holland, seems already to have begun.
The plans which are now harboured in the Tuileries can never
be accepted by Germany or Europe ; for with the German
left bank of the Rhine, Belgium, too, would be irrevocably
THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR 109
lost. Is there not one among the British statesmen who can
perceive what a scornful contempt for England was implied
in the fact that the descendant of Napoleon even ventured
to embark on such a war a marauding expedition, such
as even the light-heartedness of a Palmerston would never
have tolerated ? They perceive it quite well, but the lust
of mammon has stifled every feeling of honour, every feeling
of right and wrong ; cowardice and sensuality take shelter
behind that unctuous theological rhetoric which, to us free
German heretics, is the most repulsive of all the defects in
the English character. We seem to hear that reverend
snuffle, when we see the English press turn up pious eyes
full of indignation against the unchristian and warlike
nations of the continent. As if almighty God, in whose
name Cromwell's Ironsides once fought, would enjoin upon
us Germans that we should allow the enemies of our country
to march unmolested upon Berlin. Oh hypocrisy ! Oh
cant, cant, cant ! To all appearances, the fight will go on
to its finish, without England once brandishing her trident.
The correspondents of the Times will rouse their readers to
pious indignation, as they describe, with sublime tranquillity
of soul, the memorable duel of the two big brawlers. The
London Benevolent Society will conscientiously send so
many pounds and shillings to Berlin, and exactly the same
number of pounds and shillings to Paris. The English
traders will, like the Mynheers of Amsterdam on a previous
occasion, sell powder, coal, and horses to France ; and, as
a compensation to ourselves, the officers in the military
clubs will stake large sums on the victory of the German
arms. When peace does at length ensue, the weight of
the wide world's contempt will lie like a mountain on
England's shoulders ; and a sympathetic European Congress
may perchance assemble which will pronounce the island
kingdom to be neutral like Belgium and Holland, and will
enable the mistress of the seas to sell her war-fleet, like
a discarded plaything, to the highest bidder." 1
1 Deutsche Kdmpfe, i. pp. 316-17.
no HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
At the end of August 1870, after the battle of Gravelotte
and before the crowning mercy of Sedan, Treitschke
published a second essay discussing the terms of peace
which in his opinion Germany was entitled to demand. 1
,i/His main object was to insist that the annexation of Alsace-
Lorraine was both legitimate and necessary ; and the
arguments by which he proves his point are interesting,
because they reveal his conception of the rights and duties
of a national State. The State has a right to " natural
' frontiers " ; and he suggests that Germany has on this
ground a right to annex not only Alsace-Lorraine, but also
Russian Poland as far as the Vistula. " This armed nation
of ours is not in a position to send forth its sons at any
moment to hunt down greedy neighbours. Our military
organisation is meaningless without defensible frontiers. . . .
We owe it to the continent of Europe to provide a permanent
guarantee for the peace of nations.'^
He then turns to consider the objection that the popula-
tions of Alsace and Lorraine have no desire to be reunited
with Germany :
" Who, in the face of this our duty to secure the peace
of the world, still dares to raise the objection that the people
of Alsace and Lorraine have no wish to belong to Germany ?
( Before the sacred obligation of these great days, the theory
of the right to self-government pf every branch of the
German race that seductive battle - cry of expatriated
demagogues will be ignominiously routed. \These pro-
vinces are ours by the right of the sword ; and we will rule
them in virtue of a higher right, in virtue of the right of the
German nation to prevent the permanent estrangement
from the German Empire of her lost children. We Germans,
who know both Germany and France, know better what is
for the good of the Alsatians than do those unhappy people
themselves, who, in the perverse conditions of a French
1 " Was fordern wir von Frankreich ? " in Deutsche Kdmpfe, i. pp.
321 ff.
THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR in
life, have been denied any true knowledge of modern Ger-
many. We desire, even against their will, to restore them
to themselves. Through the enormous changes which have
been accomplished in these times, we have discerned so
often, with glad astonishment, the undying influence of
moral forces in history, that it would be impossible for us
to believe in the absolute worth of a referendum. The
spirit of a nation embraces successive as well as contemporary
generations. Against the misguided wills of those who are
living now we invoke the wills of those who lived before
them. We call to witness all those strong German men,
who once impressed the stamp of our spirit on the speech,
the customs, the art, and the social life of the Upper Rhine ;
and, before the nineteenth century is ended, the world will
recognise that the souls of Erwin von Steinbach and Sebastian
Brandt are living yet, and,(that in disregarding the wills of
the Alsatians of to-day, we are only fulfilling an injunction
imposed by our national honour. ]
"^For two centuries, ever since the rise of the Prussian
State, we have been striving to free our lost German territory
from a foreign yoke. It is not the task of this national
policy to include within our new Empire every clod of German
soil which we surrendered in the days of our weakness) We
gladly suffer that the portion of our nationality contained
in Switzerland should develop in peace and freedom, inde-
pendently of the German State ; we are not counting upon
the decay of Austria ; nor do we desire to disturb the
separate existence of that German stock which has con-
stituted itself into an independent little nation in the
Netherlands. ( But we cannot suffer German nationality
to be systematically ravaged before our eyes and even sol
far degraded as to offer willing service against Germany. "^
( The Alsatians and the Lorrainers must be forced to be
free, both for the security of the German nation, and to
1 Deutsche Kdmpfe, L pp. 326-7.
H2 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
vindicate the natural rights of every German stock to
maintain and develop its own racial characteristics. J {' The
rule of Frenchmen over a German stock was at all times a
vicious state of things ; to-day it is a crime against the
intelligence which directs human history, a subjection of free
men to half-civilised barbarians. Sooner or later the hour
was bound to strike when the growing German State would
be compelled to demand securities from France for the
maintenance of the German nationality in Alsace."/
( Lastly, the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine will give new
strength to the centripetal tendencies of the German State :
[' If, by our united efforts, we win for the German State
this seriously endangered outwork, the nation will indeed
have dedicated its soul to the thought of unity. The
recalcitrant new province will strengthen the unitary trend
of our politics, and will compel all thoughtful men to flock
in loyal discipline about the crown of Prussia ; and this
gain weighs all the heavier, (since it is always a possibility
that a new republican outbreak in Paris may attract the
admiring gaze of German radicals towards the West.y(.The
horizon of German politics becomes freer and wider from
year to year ; if the nation once feels that the vital interests
of the German State already extend into the Slav, the
Scandinavian, and the Romance countries, that we are in
the very midst of the greatest and sternest revolution of the
century ; then our parties, too, will learn to rise above the
disputatiousness of faction, above the pettiness of a doctrin-
aire programme, to a great, strenuous, and positive conduct
of the affairs of the State." ^
L Finally, the possession of Alsace is necessary if Germany
is to develop her economic resources as befits a great
power :-4-
" There is also an important economic aspect of the
1 Deutsche Kampfe, i. p. 328. a Ibid. i. pp. 329-30.
THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR 113
question. Enthusiastic descriptions of Germany's rich and
favoured fields form an inevitable chapter in our patriotic
catechism, and will be found in every German school-book.
They are touching as a sign of loyal devotion to the land
of our fathers, but they are by no means true. [On the
contrary, a sober judgment will not deny that Nature has
been a hard stepmother to our country. The strikingly
diminutive proportions of our short North Sea coast, the
direction of most of the German rivers and mountains are
as unfavourable to political unity as they are to a world- "
commerce. Only a few tracts of German country can
compare in natural productiveness with fertile Normandy,
with England's luxuriant plains, or with the fat cornlands
of inland Russia. But here, in Alsace, we actually find a\
German district, the soil of which, under a genial sky, oozes ;
with a fertility equalled only in a few favoured spots,
in the Palatinate beyond the Rhine, and in the uplands of
Baden. An unusually favourable conformation of the
ground has here made it possible to conduct canals from the
Rhine to the basins of the Seine and the Rhone through
two gaps in the mountain ranges magnificent waterways,
such as the German soil very seldom renders possible. We
are by no means rich enough to renounce so precious a
possession." 1 I
Finally, it is not enough that Germany should take from
France those French provinces which are inhabited by
men of German descent. Though Belfort and Metz are
thoroughly French cities^ it is for military reasons essential
that they should be annexed.j The general rule that political
and racial frontiers ought to coincide must not be pushed
too far ; that would be doctrinairism. " Justice and,
common sense approve our claims as moderate, if we onlyl
demand the German lands of France, and so much Romance\
land as is necessary for their security."^ A Frenchman
might answer that, by such arguments, the original French
1 Deutsche Kdmpfe, i. pp. 330-1.
I
H4 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, which Treitschke denounced
as mere robbery, could equally be justified.^
The best that can be said of this reasoning is that it leads
Treitschke to much more moderate conclusions than his
disciples have reached from the same premises. He regarded
the independence of Belgium and Holland as necessary for
the sake of European peace. 1 He admitted that some of
the German lands which France had conquered in the
distant past no longer showed any trace of German speech
or German manners. He said that the historical claim of
Germany to the Rhone valley could no longer be seriously
entertained. He deprecated the idea of restoring the
German Weltreich of the Middle ! Ages. ( The German State
must be founded on the idea of German nationality. The
safe rule was to annex only those lands in which the
peasantry were still Germans at heart ; for in the end the
national sympathies of the peasant would ultimately
determine those of the higher social classes. J '^Every nation
is rejuvenated and renewed from below ; from the healthy
peasant class at the bottom of society are continually
welling up new springs of energy| while city populations
change rapidly and upper-class families either degenerate or
stray away into foreign countries. This is what we Germans
continually experience in the colonies of East Germany.
Wherever we succeed in Germanising the peasantry our
nationality stands unimpaired ; wherever the peasantry
remained un-German, our German civilisation still fights
for existence." 2 j
Treitschke has then a good, or at least a practicable,
working rule on which to base his policy of annexations.
But on the subject of international relations, the rights and
duties of nations inter se, his ideas are as chaotic and as
unhistorical as those of the Jacobins whom he so cordially
detested. ( At one moment he talks in the language of old-
fashioned statesmanship, appealing to international law,
denouncing the robberies of France, calling on his country-
1 Deutsche Kampfe, p. 333. * Ibid. i. pp. 333-4.
THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR 1 15
men and on Europe to vindicate the legal rights of Germany.
At another he appeals to principles such as " the right to
defensible frontiers," or " the right to unimpeded economic
development," which neither have nor can have any place
in public law. ) His desire to dismember France, so far as to
make her incapable of mischief, is perfectly intelligible ; it
may be even justified on the ground that he honestly believed
France to be the aggressor in the war of 1870. But, in
arguing that Germany has a right and a duty to take Alsace-
Lorraine, he commits himself to anarchical and inconsistent
doctrines. { These provinces are to be annexed in the name
of German nationality ; and yet he admits that their
civilisation is French. / Their inhabitants are to be liberated,
even though they have no desire to shake off French rule.
They are to be annexed because they were German in the
past ; and yet he admits that the Rhone valley, which stands
in the same case, ought not to be annexed. He would
annex in the interests of civilisation ; but it is a sufficient
excuse for annexation if the lower and less civilised classes
are prepared to welcome German rule. The opinion of the
educated classes is not worth taking into account ; they
must accept that form of culture which their uncultivated
inferiors would prefer.") After reading arguments of this
kind we shall not be surprised by the naked doctrine that
(Might is the sole test of Right which meets us in the more
formal and abstract discussions of the Politik. ) It is on the
side of international relations that Treitschke's political
philosophy is least considered and also most repellent} His
idea of public law was based upon a study of the two wars
of aggression by which Bismarck founded the German
Empire. For European history, as Ranke and the historians
of his school had conceived it, Treitschke had no liking. The
relations of States with one another filled him with tedium
or disgust, unless the fortunes of Germany were involved.
He was as " insular " as it is possible for a native of Central
Europe to be. In 1854 he had told his father :
n6 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
" These affairs of German politics interest me now a
thousand times more than the great European question.
This half-decayed Turkey ; .' . . this timid and perfidious
policy of France and England ; . . . this Tsar Nicholas to
whom, though he is as I believe most flagrantly in the
wrong, one cannot refuse a certain reluctant admiration . . .
there you have indeed a mixture of impotence and brute
force than which nothing can be more tiresome." 1
A youth who could write this, when the Crimean War
was in sight and the whole future of South-Eastern Europe
seemed to hang in the balance, was not likely to follow the
international complications of the next twelve years with
close attention, or to gain much insight into the true nature
of international relations. We need not be surprised to
find that the least satisfactory pages of the Politik are those
which deal with the subject of treaties and of public law.
1 Briefe, i. No. 97.
CHAPTER VII
" DIE POLITIK " (l) THE NATURE OF THE STATE
i. Origin of the " Politik "
lNli874 Treitschke quitted Heidelberg to take up a pro-
fessorship of history in the University of Berlin ; and at
Berlin he remained until his death in 1896. On the new
stage he did not cease to play an active part in politics. He
had entered the Reichstag in 1871, and he continued to sit
for the same constituency until 1884, first as a member of
the National Liberal party, afterwards as an independent
critic, but usually in agreement with Bismarck. In spite of
his deafness he attended the debates with regularity, learned
what was going on by looking over the shoulder of some
reporter, and not infrequently delivered a weighty speech.
As a pamphleteer and journalist he wrote much on current
topics, such as Socialism (of which he was a staunch op--
ponent), the Labour Question, and Universal Suffrage. But
the most important fruits of his work at Berlin are the twd
volumes of lectures on Politik^ and the five volumes on\
Deutsche Geschichte im 19 Jahrhundert.
It is with the Politik that we are specially concerned in this
and the two following chapters. The book is a compilation
from the note-books of pupils who heard him lecture at Berlin.
The lectures were delivered from fragmentary notes, and
consequently we have no right to expect a rigid precision of
language or absolute consistency at every point of the course.
But there was no course to which Treitschke devoted more
n8 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
labour, or with which he was better satisfied. He delivered
it annually, and regarded it as his chief opportunity for
instilling his political views into the minds of successive
generations of students. And it was far from being a series
of random effusions. It was founded upon a course which
he had delivered in his youth at Leipzig and Freiburg, and
which he had repeated at Heidelberg. Into it he wove
the best of the political ideas which he had elaborated in
his essays, from Die Freiheit onwards. These ideas did not
always benefit by transplantation from their original context
into an academic oration. Half-truths, which are salutary
I correctives to the equally one-sided views of a political
\ opponent, may become monstrous paradoxes when the
\original debate is forgotten. Not infrequently we must
refer back from the Politik to the essays in order to grasp
x Treitschke's meaning, or to understand how he arrived at
such a debatable conclusion. These lectures have the faults
which are common to all abridgments ; in particular they
are excessively dogmatic whenever they deal with the
ultimate problems of political science. Obviously they were
C swallowed as a gospel, not so much because they furnished
/reasoned proofs as because the lecturer voiced with extra-
/ ordinary aptness the views which were fashionable with
young Germany between 1874 and 1895 ; because they were
an eloquent defence of Prussia, of Bismarck, of the wars
against Austria and France ; because they expressed the
new ambitions of Germany for " a place in the sun," for sea-
power, for foreign trade, for a colonial empire. Germany
was strong in those days, and thought herself stronger than
was actually the case. Treitschke taught her that the
\ strong have the right to take what they desire by any means
they can.)
He was travelling far from the Liberalism of his youth,
and he might well write to his friend Overbeck, who twitted
him with repeating lectures of the Leipzig days : " You would
hardly recognise one stone in the old building." He was
becoming conservative, partly because he did not sympathise
" DIE POLITIK " 119
with modern social movements, which he regarded as the
offspring of sentimentalism and as a menace to the true
strength of the State. (Though he had reconciled himself
to universal suffrage as an unavoidable necessity, he was
now more insistent than ever that the constitution of the
State and of society itself must be aristocratic.) " The^
masses must toil at the plough, at the forge, at the carpenter's 1
bench so that a few thousands may be students or painters J
and poets." 1 He even went further, and maintained that the .
social aristocracy must be in the main a hereditary caste : /
fortes creantur fortibus et bonis. The State was bound to
interfere, by means of factory legislation and similar measures,
to prevent Capital from abusing its power over Labour.
But the Socialist was as great a danger to the State as the
Individualist of the Manchester School had been in the past. 2
He grew conservative because he held that the policy of
\Bismarck had not only been justified by success in the
immediate past, but offered the best hopes of promoting
national greatness in the future.)
2. Method of the " Politik "
At the same time, like many other conservatives, he re-
garded himself as an original and even a revolutionary thinker.
He believed that, in his lectures on Politik, he was laying
the foundations of a new political science. His admiration
for Aristotle was unbounded, and to a certain extent his
course was modelled on the Politics ; Machiavelli he revered
as the first modern writer to understand the true nature of
the State, and Rochau as the writer who had made Machia-
velli's ideas the starting-point of practical statesmanship.
But he maintained that hardly any one before himself had
thought clearly about the definition of Liberty, the con-
ception of private property, and the relation of politics to
1 Politik, i. pp. 50-2.
1 " Der Socialismus und seine Conner (1874) " in Deutsche Kdmpfe, ii.
pp. 112-222.
120 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
ethics. It is needless to say that his obligations to earlier
writers were more extensive than he admitted. (He owed
much to Savigny, to Herder and to Schleiermacher on the
philosophical side, to Gneist and Dahlmann as critics of
particular forms of government.^ His contempt for his
predecessors was often due to ignorance. He had paid
little attention to English political theory from Hobbes to
Austin ; he quotes Bentham and Mill, but shows no thorough
knowledge of their writings. His criticism of Rousseau is
perfunctory ; and though he admires certain aspects of the
political theory of Kant, he had not grasped it as a whole ;
the ideal human community, as Kant conceived it, was for
Treitschke a meaningless abstraction.
His claims to originality are stated in the introduction
to the first volume of the Politik ; and there is no part
of the book which shows more clearly his limitations as a
political thinker.
/[ First,(he proposes to bring his pupils back to the antique
/ conception of the State, as a being which is infinitely superior
to the individual, which exists to realise an ideal beyond
and above that of individual happiness. But he desires to
limit the authority of State in one respect. It must never
interfere with the conscience of the individual .) " Man cannot
be a mere member of the State." He has an immortal
personality ; he has the right to think freely about God and
divine things.
" Just as art and science recovered truth and greatness
by dipping in the youth-giving springs of classical antiquity,
we too at the present day must abandon the standpoint
I of modern society, in order to understand, as antiquity
understood it, the importance and sublimity of the State.
(Any one who wishes to acquire a true political sense must
bathe in the invigorating waters of that classical antiquity
which produced the great masterpiece of political philosophy
the Politics o^Aristotle4-in the light of which we all seem
mere bunglers. We must start again from the ancient
" DIE POLITIK " 121
conception of the State. In doing this we run no danger
of falling into the mistake of the ancients, that of over-
estimating the importance of political life./* We are secured
against that by the changed ^conditions of our lives, above
all by the recognition (which we owe to Christianity) that
a man cannot be a mere member of the State, the recogni-
tion of the immortal and individual soul in every man, and
of man's right to think freely concerning God and divine
things. We need not be afraid then that we shall sink back
altogether into the ancient mode of thought, and look upon
men as only so many citizens ; but we have so much the
more to learn from the purely political standpoint adopted
by the ancients, which led them in political questions to
consider in the first place the matter as a whole, and only
in the second place the interests of the individual.
" Political science in the old sense is the science of the
State pure and simple, its subject-matter being classified
under the headings of national economy and constitutional
law. The task of political science is a threefold one. In
the first place, it must endeavour, from a consideration of
actually-existing states, to discover the fundamental con-
ceptions underlying the State. It must then examine
historically the political aims, activities, and achievements
of the various nations, as well as the reason why they have
achieved what they have achieved ; and in the course of
this it will accomplish the third part of its task, namely,
the discovery of certain historical laws and the establish-
ment of certain moral imperatives. Considered in this way,
Political Science is applied History, and this fact sufficiently
explains why it lags so far behind other sciences at the
present day. On the one hand, the descriptive historian
shows little inclination to set up a system, and, on the
other hand, among jurists and philosophers the historical
sense has penetrated very slowly. It is for this reason that
any such exposition of Political Science as would in some
measure correspond to the demands of the historian, is
absolutely lacking at the present day. The best of those
122 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
that do exist is Dahlmann's Politik, which, however, is
more than fifty years out of date. But the proper syste-
matic study of Political Science, such as was perhaps
contemplated by Bluntschli, is still hampered by the
consequences of the old doctrine of natural right." 1
In other words the Aristotelean doctrine of the State
must be tempered with the root idea of Protestantism.
But how in practice are Greek and Protestant ideas to be
reconciled ? Who is to define the proper sphere of religion ?
The problem was one which Treitschke had encountered in
practical politics. He himself had written in defence of the
May Laws, by which Bismarck regulated the education of
Roman Catholic priests, and deprived them of the power
to inspect elementary schools. But Treitschke's solution
of the problem is superficial and contains a glaring
inconsistency. He proposes to define religion in the
Protestant sense, as a personal relation of the soul with
God. He admits that to most minds religion means
membership of an organised Church, founded upon prin-
ciples radically different from those of the State. He
sees the impossibility of a complete and lasting concord
between Church and State. He agrees that both are vitally
interested in such questions as the law of marriage and
the national system of education. None the less he contends
that the Church is bound to obey unreservedly the laws
which the State sees fit to make. (^Further, he is of opinion
that, while the State may tolerate such religious differences
as those which separate one Christian confession from
another^the unity of the State is impossible when its sub-
jects are divided between radically different religions.) Spain
could not have remained a single state if Moors and Christians
had lived side by side all over the peninsula. (The State is
purely secular ; but it has the right to enforce a certain
measure of religious unity.
1 Politik, i. pp. 1-3.
" DIE POLITIK " 123
" There never has been a nation without a religion, and
there never will be. We are a Christian nation ; for the
Jewish element in our population is too small to be of
importance. ^Without community of religion the conscious-
ness of national unity is impossible, (for religious feeling is
one of the primitive instincts of human nature.) It was
Jewish presumption which first undermined this truth, when
by a conjuring trick it displaced religion by denomination.
Denominational differences may, of course, be tolerated by
a great nation, though not without considerable difficulty.
(How much blood have they cost us in Germany !) On the
other hand, the coexistence within one nation of several
religions, involving totally opposed conceptions of the
universe, becomes unendurable for any length of time ;
and can only occur in a stage of transition. Spain was not
a nation until Christianity had triumphed and had thrust
the followers of the other faith into the background. (_ Our
State is the State of a Christian people, and therefore in
its civil administration it assumes the Christian religion to
be the national religion.)
"(In spite of this, however, we must not talk of a Christian
State. The State is by its nature a secular institution^ It
must administer justice to its subjects without consideration
for religion or denomination. There is no longer any ques-
tion of an established State religion, and for good reason.
If there were a State religion, if the State were to assume
a spiritual responsibility, it could not be just towards
adherents of other religious denominations. The designa-
tion, ' Christian State,' can only cause confusion, since it
gives rise to the mistaken idea that the State is founded on
the Church ; and it is rendered further inapplicable by the
fact that there is no longer a universal Christianity, but
only Christian denominations, i It would therefore be
necessary to go further still, and to demand that the
State should set up one particular denomination as the
State religion.)
" And yet the State and the Church are most intimately
124 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
connected, since both, after all, are educational establish-
ments for the human race. Our whole moral culture in
[Germany is based on a threefold inheritance of thought :
first of all, the early Hebrew-Christian ideas, the essence of
which was self-denial ; secondly, the ancient conception of
morality, which embodied the idea of self - control ; and,
finally, the old Germanic conception, which contained, in
addition to the idea of self-control, a very delicate sense
of honour.) We cannot take away any of these elements
without ceasing to be the Germans that we are." l
s* (^But, if this is so, can Treitschke seriously maintain that
the State will still be in the position of recognising the
sovereign claims of the individual conscience 1f\ The ultimate
obligation of the State becomes a bare duty not to enquire
about the faith of the individual so long as he refrains from
expressing his faith in action* ] As soon as individuals form
an organisation, worship in public, teach and preach, they
become subject to State censorship.
Secondly, Treitschke proposes to reconstruct political
science upon historical principles. 2 The historical method
starts from observation of the States which exist or have
existed in the world ; in classifying States, in formulating the
ideal of each several type, in judging the worth of a constitu-
tion or a principle of legislation, it is guided by experience,
not by a priori reasoning. But the historical method is
more than this, [it starts from the assumption that every
nation must make for itself a special code of morality and a
special form of government } both the one and the other
inust be a natural development of the national character./
/fiThere is no such thing as a universal moral law or an ideally
^best constitution. These conceptions are founded on the
doctrine that all States and all human beings must conform
*-*
^U to the Law of Nature (Naturrechtslehre) .
1 Politik, i. pp. 326-8.
2 In his Deutsche Geschichte, Bk. iv. 7, Treitschke gives Dahlmann,
his old master, the credit of being the pioneer of this method, but says that
he did not carry it out systematically.
" DIE POLITIK " 125
This doctrine of nationalism is not peculiar to Treitschke ;
it is much older than his time. It was the product of
Romanticism and it had been developed on the ethical side
by Herder, on the political side by Savigny. Further, it is
a doctrine which calls for careful exposition. (There is no
form of State which would be the best for every nation \ That
is a truth of which Aristotle was perfectly aware, and which
no political thinker of the first rank has disputed since the
time of Aristotle. (But there are general principles of politi-
cal morality to which every State must conform if it wishes
to preserve its existence and prosperity ] Naturrecht, in this
sense, is presupposed by every treatise on political science.
Without such a Naturrecht(ihere would be no possibility of
making any general judgment on a particular constitution
we could not even say that it was well or ill adapted for its
purpose, unless we had some general principles by which
to test it. In the same way, so long as nations have a com-
mon human nature, they must have in common a large stock
of moral principles. For morality is founded upon the
common characteristics of human nature ; it is a set of rules
for the right development of the potentialities which exist
in human beings as such. When we say that every nation
has its own type of moral excellence, we do not mean that
it has virtues which no other nation possesses, or that it
approves of conduct which every other nation reprobates.
IWe only mean that some of the common virtues of humanity
are more highly prized in one nation than another ; that
certain types of human activity are more useful in this place
than in that.") The scientific mind is more highly valued
in Germany than it is in England ; this does not mean that
the Englishman regards the scientist as useless or per-
nicious. The French value courtesy more highly than we
do ; but still we regard courtesy as a good quality.
Treitschke finds that the nationalist theory involves
him in considerable difficulties when he turns to discuss the
nature of progress. In what sense is it true that a nation,
or a society of nations, progresses ? This progress must
126 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
be relative to some ideal standard of political or ethical
development. If there is no such standard, then we ought
to speak not of progress but of change. Early in his career
he had been converted by Gervinus to the view that there
is a visible progress in European society. But in the Politik
he hardly knows how to justify his conviction. He confesses
that he has no intellectual proof of progress :
" The theoretical morality of the human race becomes
more refined in the course of history. We condemn at the
present day much that was formerly held to be permissible ;
but this abstract recognition does not help to bring about
any practical advance, any subjective improvement in the
individual. (^For men are governed not by their intelligence,
but by their will, to which the intelligence is subservient.)
(Jt is impossible therefore to take the intelligence as a
measure of man's moral progress.) Moreover, other spiritual
faculties in addition to the moral faculties for instance, the
imagination and the memory, very important factors in-
directly connected with the intellect are actually weakened
by civilisation, (jt is true of the life of nations as it is true of
human nature, that no new strength can be added to it with-
out a compensating loss on some other side.^ Plato himself
said that the discovery of the art of writing was a misfortune
to the human race, that the imagination and the memory had
suffered seriously in consequence. This is clearly true.
And this misfortune has still further been augmented by the
discovery of the art of printing and other similar discoveries,
which we superficially regard as blessings. For certain
faculties of the human soul there is a ne plus ultra which has
in many cases already been reached. The art of sculpture
reached its ne plus ultra in the days of Phidias. Human
history progresses not in a straight line but in a spiral.
Great advantages are purchased at the cost of great losses.
But the notion that progress consists in an increase in the
comfort of man's material existence is such a base and vulgar
error that it is hardly necessary to refute it. The validity
" DIE POLITIK " 127
of any conception of human progress is not capable of proof
by a process of abstract reasoning ; any more than the
existence of God or the validity of an optimistic or a pessi-
mistic conception of the universe can be proved by abstract
reasoning. Here conscience has the last word. The craving
of the individual conscience for individual perfection leads
to the conviction that humanity as a whole experiences the
same craving for perfection. And this proof, arrived at by
practical reasoning, is the only one of any importance." 1
3. Definition, Aims, and Structure of the State
Treitschke defines the State in the first instance as aV
People (Volk) united by legal ties to form an independent
power ; and defines (like Aristotle) the Volk as a group of X
families who are permanently united together. (Far from
being artificial, the State is a form of community which exists
from the earliest days of human history. The conception of
the State comes naturally to the human mind, while the
conception of Humanity arises comparatively late : )
" The supposition that the human race at its origin had
the sense of being one whole is the opposite of the truth.
The human race at its origin cannot be conceived of otherwise
than as divided into separate little groups, that is to say,
into small States of a primitive type. In the days of
classical antiquity every people looked upon itself as the
chosen people. The notion of the unity of the whole human
race was Conceived only by a few solitary thinkers ; and it
was not until the appearance of Christianity that it became
general. Even at the present day it is acquired only as a
result of instruction and education. (There is no doubt that
at the present day a man thinks of himself in the first place
as a German or a Frenchman, or whatever his nationality
may be, and only in the second place as a member of the
whole human race. ") History demonstrates this on every
1 Politik, i. pp. lo-u.
128 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
page. \lt is therefore untrue both physiologically and his-
torically that human beings came into existence in the first
place merely as members of the human race, and subse-
quently became members of a particular nation.) It was
only through the teaching of Christianity that it was brought
home to the individual that he must look upon all his fellow-
men as brothers. Vln the same way men differ from each
other from the beginning as regards their physical peculiari-
ties ; they resemble one another only in so far as they are
all human beings and all made in the image of God. They
are entirely different from one another as regards the material
conditions of their lives. ) This becomes apparent if we
consider that one individual human being is a different
person at different stages of his life. A grown man thinks
differently and takes up a different point of view from a boy.
If we pursue this thought further, it acts exactly like a
rat-poison on the theories of the radicals, who talk of a
\natural equality among all human beings. (^Rather the sup-
bosition of the essential inequality of all human beings forms
[the foundation of all political reasoning. Only in this
'way can we explain the fact that some groups are found in
subordination to other groups. 'O 1
It is of the -essence of the State that it should be a per-
manent institution ; for it is by reason of its permanence
that the State commands the loyalty of the individual.
No one would fight for the State, no one would sacrifice him-
self for the State, unless he thought of it as more enduring
than himself :
\1 Modern wars are not waged for the sake of goods and
chattels. What is at stake is the sublime moral good of
national honour, which has something in the nature of
unconditional sanctity, and compels the individual to
sacrifice himself for it. j This is a good beyond all price,
and cannot be valued in thalers and groschen. Kant says :
1 Politik, i. 18-19.
" DIE POLITIK " 129
' If a thing has a price, something else can be substituted
as an equivalent for it ; what is above all price, that for
which no equivalent is admissible, that has moral worth.'
(JThe sense of participating in the activity of the State, oT
standing upon the achievements of our forefathers, of
transmitting these achievements to our posterity, that is,
what is meant by a living consciousness of citizenship^' *
Treitschke is prepared to think of the State as a person,
in the moral as well as in the legal sense. In his eyes,
history is a great drama, and States are the actors in it.
(States, like individuals, have permanent characteristics, have,
in fact, a character] For example, from time immemorial
the German nation has been remarkable for exuberant
individualism and insubordination ; such characteristics
called for a strong central power, a power armed to the teeth ;
and the German Empire would cease to be what it is and has
been if it laid down its arms. The State is a person ; but
we are not to think of it as an organism. The analogy of
the organism is scientifically inexact, and it leads to a
fatalistic view of politics which is most dangerous. " Prattle
about the organic development of the State has often enough
served as a bed of idleness. Those who are unwilling to
have a will of their own content themselves with the phrase :
' All that must be left to develop organically.' " 2
If a State is a person, it follows that the existence of any
one State implies the existence of other States with which
it entertains relations. For no person can exist, or come
into existence, in a state of isolation. This is as true of
corporate persons as it is of individuals. LA State attains to
self-realisation by friendly intercourse, and also by conflict
with its fellows. )f Hence the ideal of a World-State, embracing
all humanity, is not a true ideal ; such a State would be
repulsive and unnatural. " It would be impossible to
realise all that is meant by civilisation in any single State.]
. . .(The rays of divine light reveal themselves in a broken
1 Politik, i. pp. 24-5. 2 Ibid. p. 28.
K
130 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
form in different peoples, each of whom manifests a new
shape and a new conception of the Godhead."^
This is the classical apology for a system of national
States ; and it constitutes a strong argument in favour of
any evolution which helps a " nation " to achieve political
unity and political independence. But the ordinary advo-
cate of nationalism supposes that, in a system of truly
national States, wars would become less frequent ; that
friendly competition and friendly co-operation in the further-
ance of common ideals would take the place of the old
immoral strife between armed States. (Treitschke, however,
regards warfare as a necessary and beneficial activity of the
State ; and he utterly rejects the teaching of Aristotle, that
war is but a necessary evil, a means to an end. Not content
with affirming that 'f every nation must fight to keep what it
possesses," that the struggle for existence is a permanent
feature of civilised life, he goes on to say :
"In this eternal conflict of separate States lies the beauty
of History ; the wish to do away with this rivalry is simply
unintelligent.') 2
We postpone for the moment the consideration of the
grounds on which he glorifies war. The assumption that
war is an essential function of the State leads him on to a
new definition : ^The State is the public power for defen-
sive and offensive purposes." 3 This does not seem altogether
consistent with his original definition of the State as anj
organised People. \lt now appears that the State is the
organised power which holds the People together and defends
it. ) The State is not to concern itself with every department
of social activity ; it will not, for example, interfere with
private opinions in any direct and inquisitorial fashion.
vOften the State will assume, in the eyes of the individual,
the character of an organisation external to himself, with
a will which contradicts and overrides his will, j {Though
-*V
1 Politik, i. p. 29. 2 Ibid. p. 30, 8 ibid. p. 32.
" DIE POLITIK "
spontaneous obedience, based upon reasoned approval of
the law, is what the State most desires, the State can exist
when the obedience which it receives is merely rendered under
compulsion. ) ^STor does the State express the whole of the
volonte generate. Its interests are narrower than those of
the society over which it rules, and there are limits to its
power as a moralising agency.) This point is brought out
sharply in the first of the following extracts. In the second,
which relates to the theory of punishment, it will be
seen that he regards the act of punishment as a moral act,
but repudiates the idea that the State should be guided, in
its punishments, by the desire to reform the criminal :
" We shall not, as Hegel did, declare the State to repre-
sent the national life pure and simple. Hegel looks upon
the State as the embodiment of a moral idea, capable of
achieving whatever it may desire. (_But the State, as we
have seen, does not stand for the whole life of the nation.
~~- Its function is merely protective and administrative.) In the
days when Hegel's philosophy enjoyed its highest repute,
a number of ingenious men endeavoured to prove that the
State must ultimately swallow up everything, like the Levi-
athan. At the present day a man would need to hoodwink
himself into believing this. No Christian can live for the
State alone, because he cannot abandon his divine vocation.
The theory developed by Richard Rothes, in his study of the
origins of the Christian Church, that the State will at some
future date take over altogether the civilising functions of
the Church and in the end become entirely merged in the
Church, was a mere folly of youth. That cannot and will
not ever come to pass, and no one can seriously wish that
it should. / The State can only influence by external com*
pulsion ; it only represents the nation from the point of \
view of power. ^JEven that implies a great deal. For in the
State it is not only the great primitive forces of human
nature that come into play ; the State is the basis of all
national life.) /Briefly it may be affirmed that a State which
132 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
is not capable of forming and maintaining an external
organisation of its civilising activities deserves to perish. V 1
"If we consider in the first place the nature of punish-
ment, we see that punishment ought not to be looked upon
as a revenge. The criminal is not punished in order that
he may suffer ; he must suffer in order that he may be
punished. The transgressions of a single individual cannot
disturb the majesty of the State, and it cannot therefore
be a question of the State taking revenge. This theory has,
in fact, been entirely abandoned at the present day, on
account of its utter absurdity. Another school of senti-
mentalists, who apply to the State the Christian theory that
it is wrong to do an injury to one's neighbour, even to a
malicious neighbour, are brought to the conclusion that
punishment is self-defence on the part of the State against
attacks on human society. From this weak-kneed theory
was developed our modern criminal law, notably at the
instigation of Lasker, who set forth this point of view with
an eloquence worthy of a better cause. Yet the absurdity
of this theory is at once apparent. What is self-defence ?
The need for self-defence arises when some outside oppression
compels its victim to commit for the sake of his own preserva-
tion an action in itself reprehensible. What an idea ! As
if the majesty of the State could be conceived as so embar-
rassed by the criminal as to be obliged in self-defence to do
him an injustice, for instance to cut off his head, without
any absolute right to do this. What a confusion of ideas !
All the majesty and all the moral earnestness of the adminis-
tration of justice is here lost sight of. This is what happens
to philanthropy when it gets its head in the clouds. Such
a theory as this does not allow of serious discussion.
" There is not much to be said for two other theories,
which likewise flatter the sentimentality and the mistaken
philanthropy of the present age. The notion of punishment
by the State rests fundamentally on the obligation of the
|State to protect civil society. But what aim has the State
1 Politik, i. pp. 62-3.
" DIE POLITIK " 133
in view in its punishment of individual cases ? Many reply,
with Holtzendorff : the reformation of the criminal. As
if the State were a shepherd of souls, and must search the
hearts of its citizens ! ^It is in the very nature of the State
that it only protects the external order of human society.
(_Jhe State is satisfied to have the external obedience of its
subjects ; it is under no compulsion to inquire in what
spirit this obedience is rendered.) This being so, we cannot
ascribe to the State a general obligation to reform its black
sheep. Besides, it is obvious that a number of punishments
cannot have the effect of reforming the victims certainty
not capital punishment. How can the notion that the aim
of punishment is reformation be reconciled with capital
punishment ? That the State should utilise its houses of
correction to endeavour, through the ministers of the Church,
to make an impression upon the hardened hearts of the
criminals, that is only natural and in accordance with the
Christian ideal ; but it is foolish to try to make out that refor-
mation, which at the most can only be sometimes a secondary
end of punishment, is the true end of all punishment.
" There is more to be said in support of the theory which
declares intimidation to be the true end of punishment,
but whether punishment will actually produce this effect
is always a matter of uncertainty. We all know that there
are men who are not deterred from crime by the fear of
punishment, men who come before the judge for committing
crimes which have been punished in others ; but who can
tell how many thousands have strangled an impulse to
crime merely through fear of the house of correction ? It
is very certain that there are numbers of men who are so
bestial that only the terrifying prospect of the house of
correction can have any effect on them. This intimidating
effect of punishment does then undeniably exist ; but,
since it is uncertain in its workings, it cannot be the true
end of punishment. Even in cases in which the State
knows quite well that a punishment will not have a deterrent
effect, it must inflict it just the same.
134 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
" This brings us to the conclusion that the absolute theory
of punishment, regarded with such supreme contempt by
all the enlightened people of to-day, is in reality the only
just theory. In regard to this, Hegel hit the nail on
the head. Our very German language, which makes it
possible for the ordinary man to say, ' Punishment has to
be ' (Strafe muss sein), has long ago accepted this as a fact.
The necessity for punishment follows directly from the
fact that-jQrder is essential to the nature of the State ; and,
'If'the State is under an obligation to preserve order in the
nation, it must keep crime within limits, and any disturbance
to the order of the State must be compensated and atoned
for by punishment. The criminal must be compelled, even
against his will, to recognise the moral majesty of the State.
Ihering pronounces this view of the nature of punishment
to be a learned whim. But is not the doctrine of intimida-
tion a mere theory, whereas the idea, ' Punishment has to
be,' is deeply implanted in the conscience of every man ?
Punishment contains its purpose in itself, namely, atone-
ment for a breach of the law. It may at the same time
serve the end of reform and of intimidation, and, if it does,
so much the better for the State ; but this does not happen,
and ought not to happen, by any means invariably." l
might seem from these quotations that the State of
Treitschke exists for nothing but police work and military
work, that it is bare force applied to the simplest and most
obvious of political objects.) It would however be strange
if so earnest an admirer of Aristotle entirely ignored the
moralising functions of the State, and Treitschke is not
open to this reproach, fit is true that, like Thomas Hobbes,
he lived in a time and a country where strength seemed to
be the attribute most needed by a government. Only a
powerful State could disregard the grumblings of that
provincial patriotism which was still so deeply rooted in the
German character, or could face with equanimity the
1 Politik, ii. pp. 421-4.
" DIE POLITIK " 135
international situation created by Bismarck's policy of
blood and iron. ^(Whatever else the German State might
choose to be and to do, it must store up reserves of force,
if it was not to be crushed by external enemies or disinte-
grated by domestic feuds. )(jBut, in Treitschke's mind, the
police state (Rechtstaat) was only a half-way house on the
road to the Culturstaat which he hoped to see in Germany.") \
In discussing the ultimate aim of the State he suggests
a new definition which is thoroughly in accord with Aristotle's
teaching :
State is a moral community ; it is called upon to
make positive efforts for the education of the human race,
and its final aim is that a people may shape for themselves
a real character in it, and by means of it.'l *
He is perhaps too cursory in his description of the CuUur-
staat. (jBut he has a satisfactory excuse. No state, in trA
past or in his own time, had taken on itself the mission of\
fostering culture for a long period of time or with greaj
thoroughness. JAnd he had made it his rule to treat his\
subject historically, to describe what had been done, not to V
speculate as to what might be possible. (^He contents himseU
therefore with enumerating certain tasks of a civilising\
kind which one State or another has actually undertaken
with some success : works of charity, elementary education,
the patronage of the fine arts. In general, he says, there is a
tendency in States to widen their sphere of influence as
civilisation progresses. But at the same time they exert
their influence more and more indirectly, as by controlling
education, and with more and more consideration for
individual liberty. The modern State gives opportunities^
for self-development without endeavouring to enlighten
man by force ; where it feels obliged to influence opinion
it does so by a gentle pressure which is hardly felt. 2 j
Finally, he is in some respects an obstinate individualist.
1 Politik, i. p. 81. 2 Ibid. pp. 81-6.
136 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
He did not expect the State to create a national commerce
or a new intellectual movement. ^Its business is to
organise the exuberant activities of a free people, to repress
harmful tendencies, to encourage those which are salutary ;
^t> foster, as he puts it, " the really vital energies of the
people." 1 It can regulate such energies, he said ; it is not
so likely to succeed in producing them. The best things in
the world are the result of free activity among the citizens
of a free sj:ate. )
/On the whole, then, he concludes, it is better to enquire
wheat are the absolutely essential and unavoidable duties of
the State, by resigning which it would cease to be a State.
^ These are the maintenance of military power and the
administration of justice./ Der Staat ist Mackt. lit may
be more than this ; but this at least it must be. The firsts
aim of the political theorist must be to discover how the J
State may be made strong.')
(,Some of his dicta concerning the sources of national
strength call for no remark. There must be among the
citizens a habit of loyal obedience to the State ; their
energies and thoughts must not be wholly absorbed in such
social activities as trade or intellectual studies. 2 The State
must have sufficient material resources for self-defence. It
must also have an absolute sovereign, who defines his own
powers without contradiction. I Treitschke is on more debat-
able ground when he attacks small States, not simply because
they are unable to protect their subjects against external
enemies, but also on the assumption that they do not
produce true patriotism or national pride, and that they
are generally (though not invariably) incapable of " culture
in great dimensions." All that he has to say on this subject
is coloured by his detestation of the German Kleinstaat.
True, Weimar produced a Goethe and a Schiller ; but, he
argues, they would have been greater still had they been
citizens of a German national State. 3 ^Finally, he goes out of
his way to court opposition by contending that the states-
1 Politik, i. p. 57. * Ibid. p. 59. 8 Ibid. pp. 48-9.
" DIE POLITIK " 137
man must accept the aristocratic principle as a law ofv
nature i-^
" If -we now study more closely this complex system of
mutual interdependencies which is termed a civil community,
it becomes apparent that (every society, by its very nature,
produces an aristocracy ^ The Social Democrats betray the
absurdity of their aspirations by their very name. Just as
there is implied in a State a distinction between ruler and
subject, a distinction which can never be abolished, so there
4s implied in the very nature of society, once and for all,
a difference in the social position and circumstances of its
members.} (To put it briefly, every civil community is a
system 01 classes. A wise legislation can ensure that this
class-system does not become oppressive, and that the
transit from a lower to a higher class or vice versa is made
as easy as possible j; but no power in the world will ever be
able to bring about the substitution of a new artificial class-
system for the natural division into social groups.
" On a closer examination, we see that it is a radical *"
necessity grounded in human nature itself that an immense
proportion of the energies of our race should be expended
in acquiring the primitive necessities of life. In the case
of savages the struggle for a bare existence is the chief
occupation of their lives. And so fragile and necessitous
is this human race of ours that, even in the better-educated
classes, the great majority must always give up their exist-
ence to worldly anxieties and toil ; or to use a trite expres-
sion : The masses will always remain the masses. There
can be no culture without its servants. It is self-evident
that/'if there were no men to perform the menial tasks of
life, it would be impossible for the higher culture to exist)
(We come then to realise that millions toil at the plough,
the forge, and the carpenter's bench in order that a few
thousands may be students or painters or poets. J
t^This sounds brutal, but it is true, and it will remain
true for all time, i It will not be altered by any groaning
138 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
or complaining. Such complaining indeed springs, not from
any real human sympathy, but from the materialism and
intellectual conceit of the age. (It is absolutely wrong to
' look upon intellectual development as the important thing
in history and above all to look upon it as the chief founda-
tion of human happiness.) What a monstrous assumption,
to maintain that women are less happy than men ! Does
the scholar merely by virtue of his scholarship rank above
the labourer ? I for my own part feel none of this learned
arrogance, and truly great men have never felt it. / 1 have
always felt a deep respect for the homely virtues of the
poor. (^Happiness in this life is not to be attained by cultiva-
tion of the mind ; it springs from those faculties of the
v heart which are within the reach of all alike in the power
of love and in a quiet conscience .1 These are bestowed on
small and great alike. As Goethe often asserted : It is by
his moral faculties that man is distinguished from other
living creatures :
Edel sei der Mensch,
Hilfreich und gut !
Denn das allein
Unterscheidet ihn
Von alien Wesen,
Die wir kennen ; *
and on another occasion he remarks tersely : ' The important
% thing is not that we should have grand ideas.'
"It is just in these class-distinctions that I can best
illustrate the moral wealth of the human race. In addition
to the virtues of the rich, there are the virtues of the poor,
with which we should not and cannot dispense, and which
by their rough strength and sincerity put to shame the man
of higher refinement who shows such a tendency to become
blase. There is, moreover, a healthy joy in sheer existence
which is only possible in the simple and natural conditions
of human society. Here we see a compensating advantage
1 Let a man be noble and charitable and good, for that alone dis-
tinguishes him from all other creatures that we know of.
" DIE POLITIK " 139
in what appears such a ruthless class-system. The notion
of poverty is relative. (It is the duty of the State to keep
poverty within limits and to make it endurable ; but to
expel it from the universe altogether is neither possible nor
desirable.) The niggardliness of nature has imposed certain
definite limits on the human race, and yet so great is man's
joy in existence that, if there be only space for more human
beings, in a healthy nation those human beings will certainly
be born." l
It might be supposed that he is here referring more
particularly to the economic structure of society, (and
vindicating the social utility of a class endowed with capital,
and therefore with the opportunities of assimilating culture.
But he is also an advocate of aristocratic government. ) He
finds the secret of the greatness of England in the complete
control of local government and of parliament by the great
landowning families. (^He rejoices that in Germany also
there is an aristocracy which interests itself in politics.
Such an aristocracy ought to be constantly recruited from
below ; but it ought also to be a hereditary order :-}-
" If we look nearer home, we see that in Germany also
the upper ranks of the nobility are in the highest degree
political. In a certain sense it may be said that no nation
in the world has such an illustrious nobility as Germany.
Since we have been an empire, the German princes have
naturally become only a higher rank of the nobility. Such
a nobility as this need fear no comparisons. The lower
ranks of the nobility, in so far as they count for anything
at all, are monarchical. It is for this reason that the
Prussian nobility has such a high moral standing. The
despised Prussian Junkers contribute, as a matter of fact,
the finest elements of the German nobility, as any one knows
who is a native of the small German States. In Prussia the
Junkers had to learn long ago to be subjects, whose chief
1 Politik, i. pp. 50-2.
140 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
glory was to serve the crown. They had first to be humili-
ated by the monarchy ; but subsequently they became
reconciled to it. The minor nobility of Saxony and Bavaria,
on the contrary, have always had something parasitic in
their nature ; their ambition is to raise themselves up by
means of the court, like the aristocracy of the French
court." *
" The old families of the lower nobility of the present
day are almost exclusively descended from an un-free class ;
for the original German nobility has either died out or else
risen into the ranks of the higher nobility. The ancestors
of the minor nobility have been almost exclusively serfs
(M inisterialeri) , who by their political activity have raised
themselves above the ranks of the ordinary freemen, until
they have gradually acquired a greater nobility and distinc-
tion than the rest of their class. Many of the good
aristocratic surnames, like Butler, Truchsess (Steward),
Schenk (Cup-bearer), bear witness to this origin. We are
constantly coming across a similar phenomenon at the
present day. Our modern aristocracy is recruited by
additions from middle-class families who have distinguished
themselves in the service of the State. That is a natural
process, and there is nothing to find fault with in it, provided
that it does not give rise to arrogance and folly. Out of the
nobility there rises up that vague notion of what we call
a ruling class. An order of aristocrats arises ; the members
of it habitually devote themselves to the civil and adminis-
tration of the State. We are a nation with monarchical
traditions. Our titles and decorations are very expressive
of this. With us the important thing is to occupy a position
in the State, whether it be real or only apparent. If a man
cannot be a councillor of State, he will at least aim at being
a member of a Chamber of Commerce. In England we find
a purely aristocratic ambition ; I in Germany, an ambition
to serve the monarchy as a State official. ^ In any case
tradition must have an influence on the government of the
1 Politik, i. pp. 309-10.
" DIE POLITIK " 141
State. Our ruling classes must spring from the great
families, who have handed down to their children certain
notions of honour and shame.^ The government has a great
inherited wealth of traditional notions of honour and morality.
The essential thing in governing is not knowledge, but the
power to rule, a power connected with self-control, a power
which, through education, may become a second nature." J
All this comes naturally enough from a professor in the
University of Berlin. But one cannot help remembering
how, in the outer darkness of Freiburg, Treitschke had
vituperated the Prussian Junkers, of whom he became the
apologist in his old age. [ It is not surprising that his new
predilection for a ruling class should lead him to desire a
well-drilled population for his State, and a set of statesmen
who are more distinguished by strength of will than by -
flexibility of intellect :
'/The State declares : ' It is quite indifferent to me what
your feelings may be in the matter, but obey you must.)
That is the reason why fragile natures find it so difficult
to understand political life ; of women it may be said that
generally speaking they only get what understanding they
have of law and politics from their husbands, in the same
way as the normal man has no instinctive comprehension
of the details of domestic life. ( That is perfectly natural,
for the theory of Power, in which the first and highest
obligation is push forward with one's purpose completely
and unconditionally, is a hard one. Hence the great
nations are not those who are specially endowed with
genius, but those whose strength lies in their character. The
history of the world in this respect reveals to the thoughtful
student a terrible justice. ) The sentimentalist may shed
tears, but the earnest thinker will recognise that it was
inevitable that the highly cultured Athenians should have
been in subjection to the Spartans, the Hellenes to the
1 Politih, i. pp. 310-11.
142 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
Romans, and in the same way that Florence for all her
refinement and culture could not hold her own in the struggle
with Venice. In all this there lies an inward necessity. \ The
State is no academy of the Fine Arts, (if the State neglects
its own essential power in favour of the ideal aspirations
of humanity, it is false to its own nature and brings about
its own downfall^ Such a renunciation of its own power
is on the part of the State nothing less than the sin against
the Holy Ghost ;) to attach itself to a foreign State out of
sheer sentimentality, as we Germans have often attached
ourselves to England, is really a deadly sin.
'( We see therefore that the influence of ideas in the State
is of only limited importance. The influence of ideas is very
great, but ideas alone do not promote political progress.
An idea must have some important practical bearing on
the everyday life of the nation, if it is to play an important
part in political life] It was not the ideas of the French
philosophers which overturned the Ancien Regime, but the
fact that they did actually describe existing class-condi-
tions. The result was that the old social structure was
destroyed, and there came into existence a middle class,
with the consequent disappearance of the old class-distinc-
tions ; and in bringing this about the notions of equality
of the philosophers did certainly play a part. \There is no
doubt that the true founders of the German Empire were
the Emperor William and Bismarck, and not Fichte, Paul
Pfizer, or any other pioneers. The great political thinkers
have their share of glory ; but it is the men of action, not
they, who are the true heroes of history. In order to exert
an influence on political life the prime necessity is strength
of will. I And so a large proportion of the men who have
founded States have not possessed remarkable genius. ( The
greatest gift of the Emperor William was not his genius, but
his calm strength of will a gift which is far more rare than
people commonly realise. This force of character was his
great strength." 1 )
1 Politik, i. pp. 33-5.
" DIE POLITIK " 143
Treitschke was preaching this doctrine to a Germany which
had become familiar with the idea of universal suffrage ; but
he was clear that, (so far as the effects of universal suffrage
were predictable, they would be injurious to. sound govern-
ment. )( Where all men have the vote, the demagogue finds
his opportunity and the natural leaders of society are likely
to retire from a degrading competition for popular favour.)
The best that can be said of universal suffrage is that it
need not be wholly incompatible with an aristocratic
government. (For good or for evil the masses are prone to
accept the guidance of the classes : j
" The democratic character of our century has given
rise to the theory that the active right to vote is a universal
human right. /As a matter of fact, the right to vote is not
an individual right, but rather a civic obligation, to be
exercised for the good of the community and the welfare
of the State] and consequently the question( Who is to vote ?
must be a matter to be decided by the State.) ^The indis-
criminate extension of this right is an absurdity J it is a sin
against the primary truth expressed by Aristotle, that it is
the greatest injustice to try to make unequal things equal.
(it has, in fact, only one advantage : that it is calculated
to cure the political madness of the extreme radicals by a
kind of homoeopathy.) It would be possible now to reply
to the most insensate radicalism : ' Very well, then, Vote !
all of you, without discrimination, and get together a
majority if you can ! '
" This, however, is the only useful characteristic of
universal suffrage. (Apart from this, its results have been
that the powers of stupidity, superstition, malice, and lying,
the powers of vulgar selfish interests and of turbid human
passions, play a disproportionate part in the life of the
State, and consequently infuse into it an element of un-
certainty./ ^ For it is manifestly false to assume that universal
suffrage will always work in the direction of radicalism. It
would be more correct to say that its effects are incalcul-
144 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
able. It depends entirely on the social conditions of a
province which social power benefits by universal suffrage .1
The suffrage will benefit the Roman Catholic Church, or the
great landowners, or the manufacturers, according to which
of these is really the most powerful, (in our eastern pro-
vinces, where there is an important landowning class, the
suffrage operates on the lines of ancient feudalism. It goes
without saying that the peasants vote in the same way as
their lord.J The lord leads hundreds of his labourers to the
ballot-box, and gives them the word of command. This
must inevitably happen, because it corresponds with the
actual distribution of power, tin manufacturing districts,
on the other hand, where a great rancour against the land-
owners has been fostered, no such social influence will come
into play. In these districts the most frenzied radicalism
will be let loose. f(j Any one, however, who imagines that the
external mechanism of the vote is capable of producing any
genuine freedom is a radical theorist | (On the contrary,
it must be clear that it conduces to the weakening of
parliament. In this chaos of ecclesiastical, economic,
and political groups it is impossible for any one group to
retain a majority and to exercise a decisive influence on the
Government.!
" A certain superficial consolation for the poor and the
oppressed may result from universal suffrage ; and, in any
case, when once it has been granted, it is almost impossible
to take it back. To do so would be to rouse such feelings
of mortification and indignation among the masses that the
disadvantages of the present state of things seem trifling in
comparison. The indiscriminate extension of the suffrage
is fatal in its effects, less as regards the immediate result of
the vote than as regards the whole character of political
life. IKVhere the masses vote, powerful lungs will play an
important part, and the peculiarly violent tone, the vulgar-
ising and brutalising of public life, which has become
prevalent at the present day, can no longer be disregarded./
That is a necessary consequence ; but, unfortunately, it
" DIE POLITIK " 145
reacts on the whole life of the people. If the elections have
accustomed men to violent abuse and lying, this will be.
reflected in their everyday life. ( Moreover, the danger is
growing that the upper classes, the really cultured classes,
will gradually withdraw themselves from a political life
which is assuming such forms. '1 1
4. The Individual and the State
Like every political thinker, Treitschke finds himself
involved in difficulties when he raises the question : ( Is
resistance to the State ever justifiable ? He states cate-
gorically that a revolution, and a forcible revolution, is
justifiable when the institutions of the State no longer
correspond to the grouping of social forces, and when it is
impossible to effect the necessary changes by peaceful
legislation. When the strongest party in the State is not
allowed to assert itself under the existing constitution, it
is entitled to overthrow that constitution.^ In a sense
every revolution is evil since it disturbs public order ;
but it may be the smaller of two alternative evils./ This
situation may arise in any State ; and so revolutions are part
of the natural order of things. ^They are justified or con-
demned by their ultimate results ; in themselves they are
neither good nor evil. 2 ) On the other hand, when he
discusses, (1 in a later section, the rights of the individual
citizen, he concludes that there is no right of resisting the
executive, even when it seems to be exceeding its lawful
powers : )
" There can be no question of a positive right of resistance,
and it is not to be found in any modern constitution. Not
even the Norwegians and the Roumanians have adopted
this position, f Yet some limitations must be imposed upon
the freewill of those in authority, and so we get the doctrine
of so-called constitutional obedience, of which we can say
1 Politik, ii. pp. 179-81. 2 Ibid. i. pp. 131-6.
L
146 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
that it is so firmly implanted in the average Liberal of the
present day that he would be amazed to hear it questioned.
The doctrine is as follows : If the government issues a decree
which is contrary to the constitution, that is to be considered
as an act of tyranny ; and must therefore be resisted by
every subjectJlMost people accept this doctrine without
questioning. I did so myself when I was a young professor.
In the days of the German Confederation we were all
Radicals, and at that time I believed like the rest that
resistance to unconstitutional measures on the part of the
government was an understood thing.) Then I went one
day to see the friend who was almost a father to me, Albrecht,
the Professor of Jurisprudence in Leipzig. He was one of
the Seven Professors of Gottingen, 1 and had forfeited his
income and made great sacrifices ; but when I frankly told
him my views, he said, ' Oh ! my dear young friend, if you
will only consider the matter, you will see that your argument
is nothing but a petitio principii.' And yet he had himself
exercised this right in practice.
" Nevertheless, I had to confess to myself that he
rejected this theory on good grounds. (The major principle
of the argument is of course correct, namely, that if a
government issues an unconstitutional decree it has com-
mitted an act of despotism ; but to conclude from this that
every individual ought to resist such a decree is evidently
inadmissible, for it does not follo-yy logically. The middle
term of the argument is missing. \ Who., then, is to decide
whether a decree is constitutional or not"? If this doctrine
of the right of resistance is admitted, it follows from it,
both theoretically and practically, that the conscience of
every single subject is set in authority over the government.
This is to turn the pyramid of the State upside down, and
to place the subject in the position of ruler.)
" It is clear, then, that this doctrine is radically unsound ;
1 Who lost their professorships because they made a protest when
King Ernest Augustus annulled the Hanoverian Constitution (1837). The
seven were Dahlmann, Jacob, W. Grimm, Gervinus, Ewald, W. Weber,
C. Albrecht.
" DIE POLITIK " 147
and this has been recognised in all the practical legislation
of the nineteenth century. Ever since the fatal experience
of its effects in France, men have ceased to admit a positive
right of resistance. ( The constitution of the National Con-
vention includes the following clause : ' If the government
should infringe the rights of the people rebellion is a most
sacred right and a most binding duty incumbent on the
whole nation and on every member of the nation.' Thus
every single individual of thirty millions of Frenchmen had
assigned to him the function of judging whether the govern-
ment had violated the rights of the people. This
constitution, however, only lasted three weeks, and then
came the practical lesson of the civil war, the war of all
against all.'^ 1
/It is hard to see how this can be reconciled with the
doctrine that revolutions are admissible. For, if the indi-
vidual never resisted the executive, there could be no
revolutions. Treitschke attempts to mediate between the
two apparently incompatible positions. " The power of the
rulers is based upon the consent of the ruled " ; when the
rule of a government is permanently hostile to the welfare of
the people, then we must apply the rule Solus populi suprema
lex. The greatness of Germany has been achieved through
the perception of this rule. There are considerations which
take precedence even of the duty of maintaining public
order. Only it is never possible to justify rebellion upon
legal grounds, though it may be justified historically, by its
results. The upshot seems to be that it is right for the
majority, or at all events for the stronger party, to do what
it is wrong for the individual to attempt./ Treitschke
speaks with confidence ; but he does not solve a riddle
which has vexed clearer intellects than his.
1 Politik, i. pp. 195-7.
CHAPTER VIII
" DIE POLITIK " (II.) THE RELATIONS OF STATE WITH
STATE
i. War
THE English view of war has, on the whole, been that which
is expressed by Carlyle in a memorable passage of his
Frederick the Great :
" Wars are not memorable, however big they may have
been, whatever rages and miseries they may have occasioned,
or however many hundreds of thousands they have been
the death of, except when they have something of World-
History in them withal. If they are found to have been
the travail-throes of great or considerable changes, which
continue permanent in the world, men of some curiosity
cannot but enquire into them, keep memory of them. But
if they were travail-throes that had no birth, who of mortals
would remember them ? Unless, perhaps, the feats of
prowess, virtue, valour and endurance they might accident-
ally give rise to, were very great indeed. . . . Wars, other-
wise, are mere futile transitory dust-whirlwinds stilled in
blood ; extensive fits of human insanity, such as we know
are too apt to break out." l
The praise of war for its own sake, as a school of patriot-
ism, and as a test of national ideals, is seldom to be found
1 Frederick the Great, Bk. XII. c. xi.
148
" DIE POLITIK " 149
in English literature. Tennyson, it is true, found in the
Crimean War the occasion for some stirring lines :
And hail once more to the banner of battle unroll'd !
Tho' many a light shall darken, and many shall weep
For those that are crushed in the clash of jarring claims,
Yet God's just wrath shall be wreak'd on a giant liar ;
And many a darkness into the light shall leap,
And shine in the sudden making of splendid names,
And noble thought be freer under the sun,
And the heart of a people beat with one desire. 1
But Tennyson believed that the war from which he
expected so much was to be waged in the cause of a moral
principle ; and it is wars of this kind that he approves as
a moral medicine.
Very different is the attitude of Treitschke towards war.
| He is inclined to welcome war, so long as it is waged to
secure some national interest, to treat it as essentially a
wholesome and elevating occupation^ Needless to say,
he only expressed, on this subject, theories which were
already fashionable among his countrymen, and which had
dominated Prussian policy for a hundred years before his
time) His personal character was one to which the idea of
life as warfare was thoroughly congenial. He was by nature
combative, and felt convinced, from his own experience,
that opposition and contradiction are needed to call forth
the moral and intellectual energies of mankind. He came,
too, of a soldier-stock on both sides of his family, and his
political career had brought him into close relations with
the Prussian military caste. V But his conversion to militafX
ism is typical of the change which came over the academic )
world of Germany after the victories of 1866 and 1870^
Men who would have been Liberals at any time between
1815 and 1848 were now carried off their feet by the splendid
success, in tangible results, of the very different ideal for
which Bismarck stood.^ German professors now began to
learn a new theory of politics, which started from the
teaching of theJPrussian Clanse.witz. War, said Clausewitz,
1 Maud : a Monodrama, Part II. vi. 4.
150 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
far from being a recrudescence of barbarous instincts, is
the necessary instrument of statesmanship ; { war means the
execution of a given policy by f orce-V-^ gewaltsame Fortset-
zung der Politik. 1
Treitschke, when he first approaches the subject of war,
handles it with more moderation than he afterwards displays.
( It is one of the two indispensable functions of the State,
not necessarily the highest. He does not suggest that every
policy must terminate in war.) (He is clear, however, that
war, when it comes, is good. It is always a means, though
not the only means, of training citizens to be true patriots :J
" War is political science par excellence. [Over and over
again has it been proved that it is only in war a people
becomes in very deed a people. It is only in the common
performance of heroic deeds for the sake of the Fatherland
that a nation becomes truly and spiritually united. But
what the drastic remedy of war can effect from time to time,
is effected in everyday life by a free political constitution ;
and it is a striking fact that, for the maintenance of this
equilibrium of political and social activity, self-government
is more important than parliamentary activity. As a
result of self-government, the better-class citizens are
enlisted in the every-day service of the State. In so far as
this is the case, self-government is absolutely invaluable.
A system of self-governing communities and self-governing
departments unites society, which would otherwise have
been consumed by the selfishness of the social round, in
common political service. 'J 2
He then proceeds to show that wars are necessary for
several reasons. ( It is through war that new States (he is
thinking of Germany) are created. War alone can settle
the quarrels which must arise between independent States
1 Politik, i. p. ^2. An adaptation of Clausewitz's own definition, which
is die fortgesetzte Staatspolitik mit andern Mitteln.
2 Ibid. i. pp. 60-1.
" DIE POLITIK " 151
when their aims disagree. War is the sovereign specific
against national disunion. War is the school of the manlier
virtues :-)-
"(The second important function of the State is warfare^
That men have so long refused to recognise this fact proves
how emasculated political science has become in the hands
of civilians. This sentimental conception vanished in the
nineteenth century, after Clausewitz ; but in its place there
arose a narrow materialism which, in the fashion of the
Manchester School, regarded man as a biped, whose chief
vocation was to buy cheap and sell dear. That this point
of view is also very much opposed to war is obvious. It is
only after the experiences of the last war that we find men
beginning to take a sound view of the State and its military
strength, (if it had not been for war, there would be no
States. It is to war that all the States that we know of owe
their existence. The protection of its citizens by strength
of arms is the first and foremost duty of the State. There-
fore wars must continue to the end of history as long as there
is a plurality of States.) Neither logic nor human nature
reveal any probability that it could ever be otherwise, nor
indeed is it at all desirable that it should be otherwise. ( The
blind votaries of perpetual peace fall into the error of either
mentally isolating the individual State, or else of imagining
a World -State, which we have already shown to be an
absurdity.]
'{ Since, moreover, it is impossible, as we have seen already, \
to imagine a higher judge set above the States, which by !
their very nature are supreme, it is impossible that the j
necessity for war should be driven out of the world by forcej
of argument.] It is a besetting fashion of our time" to
represent England as specially in favour of peace. But
England, as a matter of fact, is always making war. There
is scarcely a moment in modern history at which England
has not been at war somewhere^ It is only by the swor<i
that mankind's achievements in civilisation can be mainA
152 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
tained in the face of the hostile forces of barbarism and
unreason.^ ( And, even among civilised nations, war is still
the only form of lawsuit by which the claims of States can
be asserted.) The evidence which is brought forward in
these fearful international lawsuits is more convincing than
the evidence in any civil lawsuit. How often have we
endeavoured to prove theoretically to the smaller States
that Prussia must take the command in Germany ; but the
really convincing evidence had to be furnished on the battle-
fields of Bohemia and the banks of the Main. *War acts
,on the nations as a uniting as well as a dividing principle.)
lit not only brings the nations together in a hostile sense,
but through war the nations learn to understand and to
respect each other's special characteristics.!
" In considering war, we must of course realise that it
is not always an ordeal in which God decides the issue.
There may be temporary triumphs of this nature, but the
lives of nations are counted in centuries. VThe final judgment
upon them can only be discovered by the survey of vast
epochs. I A State like the Prussian State, the inhabitants
of which are by nature more independent and reasonable^
(than the French, might, as a result of temporary enervation,
incur the danger of extinction ; but even then it might rally
its native virtue and assert its pre-eminence. It must be
affirmed emphatically that war is the only cure for a sick
nation. | The moment that the State proclaims : ' Your
State and the existence of your State are now at stake,'
/selfishness disappears and party-hatred is silenced.^ The
individual must forget the claims of his own ego, and feel
himself a member of the whole ; he must recognise how
trifling is his life compared with the welfare of the State.
In that consists the grandeur of war, that trivial things are
entirely lost sight of in the great idea of the State. The
power of self-sacrifice for the sake of another is never revealed
more splendidly than in war. / In such times the chaff is
separated from the wheat. Every one who experienced
1870, will understand what Niebuhr said of 1813, that it
11 DIE POLITIK " 153
was then he felt ' the joy of sharing an emotion with his
fellow-citizens, learned and ignorant alike. Any one who
had that great experience will remember to the end of his
days the wonderful emotion of love and friendliness and
strength which filled his heart.'
"\It is political idealism that demands war, and it is
materialism that rejects war./ Is it not a perverted morality
that aims at eradicating the heroic spirit from the human
race ? The heroes of a nation are the figures that delight
and inspire the hearts of youth. In our boyhood and youth
we admire most of all those writers whose words sound like
the blast of a trumpet. Any one who does not feel this joy
in heroism is too cowardly to bear arms for his country.
Any reference to Christianity is here out of place. The
Bible says expressly that the rulers shall bear the sword,
and it says also : ' Greater love hath no man than this, that
he lay down his life for his friend.' (Those who propound the
foolish notion of a universal peace show their ignorance of
the international life of the Aryan race. The Aryan nations
are above all things brave. They have always been men
enough to defend with the sword what they have won with
the spirit.) (As Goethe once said: 'The North Germans
have always been more civilised than the South Germans.) l
Yes, indeed, for only consider the history of the princes of
Lower Saxony. They have always fought and defended
themselves, and that is the chief thing in history. Goethe's
statement is of course prejudiced, but it contains a kernel
of truth. (Our ancient Empire was great under the Saxon
dynasty ; under the Salian and the Swabian dynasties
it fell into decay. Thus the heroic spirit, the maintenance
of physical strength and moral courage, is essential to a
great nation. | 2
In any case even if wars were to become infrequent
it would still be wise for a State to maintain a citizen-army ;
1 Unterhaltungen mit dem Kanzler von Mutter.
2 Politik, vol. i. pp. 72-5.
154 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
ifor the army is a school of character,) and character is the
foundation of national greatness. In any case the hope of uni-
versal peace is chimerical, and the maintenance of a military
force is dictated by the instinct of self-preservation :
"It is an advantage to a nation to have a strong and
efficient Army, because the Army is not only designed to
serve as an instrument of Foreign Policy. I A noble nation
with a glorious past may long continue to employ it as a
resting weapon, and it forms, too, a training-school for the
true manly virtues of a nation, virtues so apt to decay in
an age given up to the getting and spending of wealth./
True, there are some sensitive and highly-strung artistic
natures, which cannot endure a military discipline ; and
these people frequently give currency to a perverted view
of universal service ; but, in these important questions, we
must judge not by exceptional natures, but rather by the
old rule : mens sana in corpore sano. Physical force is
especially important in times like ours. It is a defect of
English civilisation that it does not include universal service.
The defect is to some extent compensated by the strength
of the Fleet ; and, further, the continuous minor wars in the
numerous English colonies keep the virile energies of the
nation occupied and alert. Indeed, the fact that a high
degree of physical robustness does still persist in England
is in part the result of this continuous state of warfare in
her colonies. The unchivalrousness of the English character,
contrasting so remarkably with the simple loyalty of the
German, is connected with the fact that in England physical
culture is sought not in the exercise of noble arms, but in
sports like boxing, swimming, and rowing, sports which
have undoubtedly their value, but which obviously tend
to encourage a brutal and purely athletic point of view,
and the single and superficial ambition of getting a first
prize.
4{' The State is Power, and it is normal and reasonable
t a great nation should, by its physical force, embody
" DIE POLITIK " 155
and perfect this Power in a well-organised Army^ Moreover,
we have lived in a war-like age, and the over-fastidious and
philanthropic view of this question has receded into the
background, so that once more, like Clausewitz, (we look
upon war as the fulfilment of policy by force.) No amount
of smoking pipes of peace will bring it about that all the
political powers will find themselves of one mind ; and, if
they are not of one mind, it is only the sword that can
decide. Just where, to the superficial observer, war appears
as something brutal and inhuman, we have learnt to discern
its moral force. That, for the sake of their Fatherland,
men should stifle their natural human feelings, that they
should murder one another, men who have done each other
no wrong, who perhaps even respect one another as gallant
enemies at first sight this seems the revolting side of war ;
and yet herein consists its grandeur. [ A man must sacrifice
not only his life, but also the profoundly just and natural
impulses of the human soul. He must renounce his whole- ]
ego for the sake of a great patriotic idea. Therein lies the^
moral sublimity of war. If we pursue this thought further,
we recognise that war, for all its harshness and brutality,
is able to form ties of affection between men, and that, in
the face of death, all men are brothers.) Any one with a
knowledge of history realises that to expel war from the
universe would be to mutilate human nature. ( There can
be no freedom, unless there be a warlike force, prepared to
sacrifice itself for freedom.V>We must repeat that scholars,
in considering this question, are apt to argue from the quiet i
assumption that the State is merely intended to be an
Academy of the Fine Arts and the Sciences. That is one of
its functions, but not the most important. \ If a State 1
neglects its physical in favour of its intellectual energies,
it falls into decay.
" Above all,^we recognise that greatness, as it is seen in\
history, depends far more on character than on education) \
and that the driving forces in history are to be sought in the '
field where character is formed. Only valiant nations have
156 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
any true history. In a nation's hour of trial, the war-like
virtues are seen to decide the issue. An old saying justly
described war as the examen rigorosum of States. ( It is in
war that nations reveal their true strength, not only their
physical strength, but also their moral, and, to a certain
extent also, their intellectual strength.) There is a kernel
of truth in the trite and familiar saying that it was the
Prussian schoolmaster who won the victory at Koniggratz.
( The strength that a nation has amassed in peace is revealed
in war.) It is not necessary for an army to be always
fighting ; the silent work of preparation is continued in time
of peace. All that the government of Frederick William I.
meant for Prussia was not realised until the days of Frederick
the Great, when, all at once, the enormous force which had
been accumulating was revealed to the world. The same is
true of the year 1866." *
When he wrote this passage Treitschke must have
forgotten the weighty saying of Aristotle that success in
war merely proves that a nation possesses military virtue ;
and he might well have asked himself whether the modern
militarist State might not be open to the criticism which
the Greek thinker passed upon the Spartans when he said
that " war was their salvation and peace was their undoing,
because they did not know how to employ their leisure."
( It is not easy for a State which is permeated with the
military ideal, as Treitschke describes it, to become the
Culturstaat which he considered the highest form of political
development. J He seems to think that the struggle for
existence and for elbow-room between independent nations
must always be so fierce as to be the dominant preoccupation
of the statesman ; that the citizens will have no other choice
but to sacrifice all other concerns and the practice of every
other virtue to military efficiency-}-^ propter vitam vivendi
perdere causas.
if we adopt his ideal view of war and his extremely
1 Politik, vol. ii. pp. 360-63.
" DIE POLITIK " 157
crude view of international relations, it is obvious that the
army must be the first consideration of the State, the most
important of political institutions^ Warfare and military
organisation will become subjects of primary interest to the
political theorist. Treitschke presses this point and blames
his predecessors for regarding war as a rare and abnormal
contingency, which need not be seriously considered in
dealing with the details of the State's constitution. ( In his
eyes the army is not only the most essential, it may also be
the most civilising institution in such a State as the German
Empire. He is thinking, of course, of the citizen army based x
on universal military service : 1
T Old-fashioned Political Science made the mistake of
considering the Army as only an instrument of diplomacy J
and assigning to it a subordinate position in the system of
the State, under the heading of Foreign Policy. The Army
was, in fact, considered merely as an instrument of Foreign
Policy. Such a theory can no longer be maintained in this
generation of universal military service, i At the present day,
it is universally felt that the Army is not merely an instru-
ment for purposes of diplomacy, but that the constitution
of a State is based on the distribution of arms among the
peopled] (For the State is upheld by the organised physical
force of the people, which is nothing else than the Army.
If the essence of a State is Power Power both at home
and abroad then the organisation of the Army must be one
of the most important questions in regard to the constitution
of any State. Whether the State decides to have universal
military service, or a feudal militia (Lehensmiliz) , or con-
scription with exemption by substitution, determines its
inmost character.?
' |) From this fact, namely that the Army is the collective
physical Power of a nation, it follows further that the Army
is very intimately connected with the idea of the unity of
the State. ) It may, in fact, be said that there is no institution
which brings home so directly to the ordinary man the
158 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
notion of the unity of the State and of his membership in it,
as an Army organised in accordance with the actual status
of the nation.! Trade, Art, and Science are cosmopolitan ;
they pass beyond the limits of the nation. The common
participation in the exercise of the vote, or in service in the
unpaid magistracies, or on a jury, strengthens the feeling of
community in the State ; \ but parliamentary life has not
only the effect of uniting the citizens in a common political
work, it also has the effect of splitting them into factions,
and of rousing an inevitable hostility between the different
parties.^ ' Of all political institutions, a really national and
organised army is the only one which brings citizens together
as citizens. It is only in the Army that they are conscious
of being all united as sons of the Fatherland.! After the
experience that we have had in our modern German Empire,
there is not likely to be much more dispute on this head.
It has undoubtedly been the German Army that has been
the most real and effective bond of national unity, and, most
assuredly not, as was once hoped, the German Reichstag.
The effect of the latter was rather to rouse once again a
mutual hatred and abuse. The Army, on the other hand,
has educated us in the direction of national unity." l
s^'
-*( Finally, there is no danger so Treitschke thinks that
a nation in which every able-bodied citizen must be a soldier
will ever disturb the peace of other nations by schemes of
wanton conquest. This generalisation, which is not alto-
gether confirmed by the experience of to-day, he considers
abundantly proved from the facts of French history. When
the French army was professional, France was a Chauvinist
nation ; now all Frenchmen serve, and France is relatively
pacific :-j-
" In Carnot we see the organisateur de la victoire, who
did for France what King William and Roon were to do
later for Prussia. Before his time the French Army was
1 Politik, ii. pp. 355-6.
" DIE POLITIK " 159
composed of two elements : in the first place, the utterly
demoralised regiments of the old royal army wearing the
white coat of the House of Bourbon ; and, secondly, the
new National Guard of the Revolution. Carnot recognised
that these two elements must be blended into one ; and out
of their combination he formed a body of demi-brigades
which was the embryo of the popular army ; a democratic
army, founded on the principle that any member of it
might, with luck, rise to occupy the highest commands ;
and thus men of talent, like Hoche, did actually rise from
the ranks. Afterwards, under the Directory, the main
features of the new Army were stereotyped ; and the manner
in which the idea of universal service was now restricted and
perverted had an important significance for the French
bourgeoisie. The new Conscription Law declared that
every Frenchman should be liable for military service, but
that a man might purchase exemption from this obligation,
on condition of furnishing a substitute (remplacant) . This
gave rise among the oriental section of the citizen-body to
the noble profession of " soul-sellers " (as they were called
in our Alsace), who conducted this traffic in human flesh.
" Such an immoral system was bound to re-act upon the
character of the Army and of the whole nation, but no system
could be better adapted to serve a policy of pure conquest.
When Napoleon became a Dictator, he recognised that no
army could be more convenient for his purpose. A national
army of this type cannot be overthrown, because its losses
can always be made good. On the other hand, such an army
must lack almost entirely the moral force of a genuine national
army, founded on a system of genuine universal service.
The mass of the French Army was drawn from the lower
classes of the population. The more substantial men could
purchase exemption from military service; and the social
class which could influence public opinion through the
newspapers was only represented in the Army by the officers.
Hence, in the Napoleonic era, among the educated classes in
France, Chauvinism grew to be an obsession ; the enthusiasm
160 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
for war and the arrogance of the Parisians passed all
bounds. What could be more agreeable than to hear over
and over again how those poor devils over the frontiers
were getting themselves killed for the sake of the Parisians
and for the increase of their glory ? Now and then Paris
enjoyed a spectacle like one of those triumphal processions
of ancient Rome ; the long ranks of prisoners of war were
led past the column of the Place Vendome. No wonder
that the Parisians continued to exhibit such an eagerness
for war ! War was not considered as part of a matured
policy, but as an end in itself. Already at the present day,
we can clearly see the change which a genuine system of
military service has produced in the French point of view.
In words they are just as vainglorious as before, but their
boasting is no longer followed up by any action. Their
remarkable enthusiasm for war has really entirely vanished,
and for the simple reason that every Frenchman has only
one son, and that he trembles for the safety of this ewe-lamb
in the event of a war. But when it was permitted to hire a
substitute, Napoleon could be confident that public opinion
would not stand in the way of his lust for conquest." 1
It is Prussia, he continues, which, in the face of much
ridicule, has familiarised Europe with the system of universal
service. Prussia has solved the military problem which all
States have to face. Her system has produced soldiers at
least as good as those of France ; and it has educated
the nation. One great merit of the Prussian system is
that it implies political freedom and serves as a guarantee of
the continuance of that freedom.'
" The example of the German national Army has had an
irresistible influence on the rest of Europe. All the ridicule
formerly lavished on it has been proved in the wrong. It
was quite usual for foreigners to refer to the Prussian
Landwehr and the Prussian Kinderheer with a contemptuous
1 Politik, ii. pp. 392-3.
" DIE POLITIK " 161
shrug of the shoulders. What a difference now ! It has
been clearly proved that, in war, moral factors count for
more than technical training ; and it has also been proved
that the greater degree of technical experience acquired in
the barracks is invariably accompanied by a moral brutalisa-
tion. The old French sergeants did not, as the French had
anticipated, prove themselves superior to the German
troops. It must now be admitted that the problem of
educating and really turning to account the forces of the
nation for military purposes has been seriously taken in
hand for the first time by Germany. (^ We possess in our
Army a characteristic and necessary sequel to school educa-
tion^ For many, it is the very best form of education^
The drill, the enforced cleanliness, and the discipline are
absolutely invaluable to these men in an age like ours, which
unchains all the spirits of evil.) Carlyle prophesied that the
Prussian theory of military service would convert the world.
And, in fact, since the Prussian military organisation
emerged so triumphantly from the test of 1866 and 1870,
almost all the other great States on the Continent have
tried to imitate it.
"Yet, because the V Prussian army -system is actually
the nation in arms, and therefore gives expression to the
peculiar distinctions and subtleties of the national character,)
foreigners do not find this imitation as easy as they had
anticipated, fine organisation of this system demands in
the first place, as its very foundation, that the nation should
have a certain measure of political freedom ; it demands a
state of satisfaction with the existing government ; and it
demands a free system of local administration. Yet another
essential is that natural respect for higher culture without
which the institution of the one-year volunteers could not
have been thought of. ](This institution makes service with
the Army morally and economically possible for the more
highly cultured classes. \ In France, this volunteer system
is restricted by the demand for a superficial ' Egalite ' ;
and therefore, in France, the system has proved a failure.
M
162 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
In Germany, however, it is almost indispensable. Quite
apart from the consideration that the number of our regular
officers is not nearly sufficient to meet the demands of a war,
these young men of high culture who, after their one-year
voluntary service, become officers in the Reserve and the
Landwehr, and who in many respects are nearer to the people
than the corps of regular officers, form the natural connecting
link between the latter and the men in the ranks." x
2. International Law ; Treaties ; Foreign Policy
\The State is subject to no human superior ; if it loses
independence it ceases to be a State. MHence there is no law
to which a State is subject ; for laws are made by a sovereign
who can enforce them. There is then no such thing as
international law. /(True that States make treaties which
are analogous to contracts. But treaties last only so long
as it suits the contracting States to observe them. No
efficient tribunal has been or can be devised to adjudicate
between independent States. The only law which binds
them is the law of their own interest.)
'{ Every State will for its own sake limit its sovereignty
to a certain extent by means of treaties. When States
conclude agreements with one another, they do to some
extent restrict their powers. But this does not really alter
the case, for every treaty is a voluntary self-limitation of
an individual power, and all international treaties contain
the proviso : rebus sic stantibufy \ One State cannot hamper
the exercise of its free will in the future by an obligation to
another State. The State has no supreme judge placed
above itself, and therefore it concludes all its treaties with
that mental reservation.) This is confirmed by the fact that,
so long as there is an International Law, the moment that war
is declared all treaties between the belligerent nations are
cancelled. \ Now every sovereign State has the unquestion-
1 Politik, vol. ii. pp. 403-4.
" DIE POLITIK " 163
able right to declare war when it so desires ; and therefore
it is possible for every State to cancel its treaties. ) The
progress of history is bound up with this continual modifica-
tion of treaties ; every State must see to it that its treaties
retain their vital energy and do not become out of date ; or
else it will be forcibly awakened to the fact by a declaration
of war from another Power. For treaties which have out-
lived their purpose must be discarded ; and new treaties
corresponding to the new conditions must take their place.
"fHence it is evident that the limitations which inter-
national treaties impose upon the free exercise of the will of
a nation are not absolute limitations, but voluntary and
self-imposed limitations.] 1 From this it follows directly that
the establishment of an international court of arbitration
as a permanent institution is incompatible with the nature
of the State ; at the most the State could only submit to
such a court of arbitration in questions of secondary or
tertiary importance. In questions of supreme and vital
importance there can be no unbiassed alien power. If,
for instance, we were foolish enough to treat the Alsatian
problem as an open question, and to submit it to an arbitrator,
does any one seriously imagine that such an arbitrator
could be entirely without bias ? { Besides, it is a matter of
honour for a State to settle such a question for itself. ) Thus
a final international tribunal is an impossibility. ) Inter-
national treaties may become more frequent, but to the end
of time the right of arms will endure, and therein lies the
sacredness of war." l
Obviously this account of treaties contains a truth which
is too often overlooked. A State cannot be expected to
remain bound by a treaty which has become, by the lapse
of time, injurious to its vital interests. But Treitschke's
disciples have used his doctrine, that treaties hold good only
rebus sic stantibus, in a sense which he does not seem to have
intended. There is nothing to show that he recommended
1 Politik, i. pp. 37-9.
164 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
a policy of pretending to respect treaties until the opportune
moment for violating them should arise. A treaty may
fairly be denounced ; but ought it not to be denounced at
such a time and in such a manner that the other contracting
party has fair notice of the treatment which it may expect
in the future ?
This question is not actually discussed by Treitschke.(j He
does, however, discuss the wider question, which embraces
this, how far a nation is bound to observe the ordinary rules
of morality. He rejects, as a matter of course, the mediaeval
doctrine of a Law of Nature, a universal moral code which
claims th$ allegiance of the State no less than of the in-
dividual. \ But he criticises Machiavelli for supposing that
the State was exempt from any sort of moral obligation to
exercise a certain self-restraint. He concludes that, on
purely utilitarian grounds, it is unsafe to override ordinary
conceptions of honesty and justice. A State which does so
makes itself an outlaw, a caput lupinum :-
i
'[ In the first place, it is very obvious that, as a great
institution for the education of the human race, the State
must come under the moral law. j It is foolish to assert un-
conditionally that gratitude and generosity are not political
virtues. Think of that insolent and frivolous prince, Felix
Schwarzenberg. When Russia had again placed Hungary
under the feet of the Hapsburgs, 1 this brutal man said
mockingly : ' The world will some day marvel at our in-
gratitude.' This utterance was held up to admiration.
What was the result ? When soon after, in the Crimean war,
Austria proved the truth of the prophecy, and was actually
foolish enough to ally herself with France and England,
Russia was seized with a passionate hatred against Austria,
and has ever since opposed her everywhere with deadly
enmity. No State at the end of a brilliant campaign has
ever concluded a more generous peace than that of 1866.
We did not take a single village from Austria, although our
1 In 1849.
" DIE POLITIK " 165
Silesian countrymen wanted at least to have the road- junction
of Cracow. And yet has not this treaty proved wise from the
point of view of policy ? In case at some future date a union
between the powers should ever be effected, it would not
have been wise to add fresh mortifications to the defeats on
the battlefield. This was a foresight which went hand in
hand with generosity. Or if we consider the foundation
of the Zollverein, the confidence of the small States in
the upright dealing of Frederick William III. was a very
important political asset for Prussia. Looking at the matter
as a whole, then, we see that it is by no means true that the
decision of diplomatic questions is a matter of cunning.
(On the contrary, a sincere and honest policy builds up a\
national reputation which is a power in itself ; for neigh- \
bouring States come to feel that they can depend on the \
government of such a State, and the State acquires a certain J
moral authority.)
" Journalistic phrasemongers, to be sure, talk about
great statesmen as if they were a disreputable class of men,
and as if lying were inseparable from diplomacy. Just the
opposite is the truth. ( The really great statesmen have
always been distinguished for their candour. 1 Frederick
the Great, before every one of his wars, explained with the
utmost decision just what he wanted to accomplish^ He
did not scorn to use the weapon of cunning, but, on the
whole, truthfulness was a predominant trait in his character.
And how remarkable too, on the whole, was the massive
sincerity of Bismarck, for all his craftiness in single instances.
And for Bismarck candour was a most effective weapon,
for when he spoke out his intentions frankly, the inferior
diplomats always imagined that he intended to do just the
opposite. If we examine the various human professions,
in which of them shall we find the most lying ? Evidently
in the world of commerce, and so it has always been. In
trade-advertisements lying is a regular system. Contrasted
with it, diplomacy seems as innocent as the dove. And
between the two there is this vast difference. If an un-
166 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
principled speculator lies on the Stock Exchange, he does
it out of regard for his own purse ; (but if, in a political
negotiation, a diplomat is guilty of a misrepresentation of
facts, he has done it out of regard for his country} As
historians, then, whose task is to examine the whole of
human life, we must admit that the diplomatic profession
is a very much more moral profession than that of the
tradesman. (The greatest moral danger for the diplomat is
not lying, but the intellectual shallowness of an elegant
drawing-room life. )
"(The claim that politics must submit to the universally
accepted moral law is also recognised in practice. Injustice
and crime are not as a rule practised openly ; men try to
find excuses for their actions, and thereby indirectly recog-
nise the authority of the moral law.y In politics we seldom
find a case of a frank admission of a criminal action.] It is
the French who have particularly excelled in this barefaced
cynicism. When Napoleon III. received his generals soon
after he had effected his coup d'Etat, a marshal uttered these
significant words : ' Sire, the army is dull. When can we
strike the first blow ? ' But such an insolence and shame-
lessness as this is rare in political life. When Philip II.
expelled the Moriscos, in that ghastly persecution of the
Moors, he delivered assurances to all the courts that he had
employed only mild and humane methods for converting
the Moriscos." l
I None the less it remains true, for Treitschke, that self-
preservation is the first duty of the State ; not merely its
most elementary duty, as every one would agree, but actually
x its highest duty. The State has no moral right to immolate
itself upon the altar of an ideal :-4-
' If we apply the standards of a deeper Christian morality
to the State, and if we bear in mind that the essence of this
great collective individuality is power, we realise that the
1 Politik, i. pp. 95-7.
" DIE POLITIK " 167
highest moral duty of a State is to maintain its power.j t The
individual must be sacrificed for the sake of a higher com-
munity of which he is a member. But the State is the
supreme human community ; therefore, in the case of the
State, there can be no duty of self-sacrifice. The Christian
obligation of self-sacrifice does not exist for the State./ In
the whole history of the world there has never been any
authority set above the State, and it is therefore impossible
for the State to make sacrifices for the sake of any power
higher than itself. We applaud a State for perishing sword
in hand, when it finds itself faced with disaster. For one
State to sacrifice itself in the interests of another would
be not only immoral, it would be contrary to that principle
of self-preservation which is the highest duty of a State.)
" We see, then, that a distinction must be made between
public and private morals. (The relative importance of
various obligations must be quite different in the case of the
State from what it is in the case of private individuals.] A
great number of the duties incumbent upon private in-
dividuals could not possibly be held to be incumbent upon
the State. [The highest duty of the State is self-preservation.
Self-preservation is for the State an absolute moral obliga-
tion. And therefore it must be made clear that of all politi-
cal sins, that of weakness is the most heinous and despicable.)
The sin of weakness in politics is the sin against the Holy
Ghost. | In private life there may be excuses for moral
weakness. In the State there can be no question of any
excuse. The State is Power, and if it is false to its own
nature, no punishment can be too severe for it. Think of
the government of Frederick William IV. We have seen
that generosity and gratitude may be virtues in politics as
well as in private life, but they are only virtues in politics
if they do not militate against the main object of politics
the maintenance of the power of the State. In the year 1849
all the minor German princes were trembling on their
thrones. Frederick William IV. adopted a course praise-
worthy in itself. He marched Prussian troops into Saxony
168 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
and Bavaria, and restored order in these States. But now
we come to the heinous sin. Were these Prussians to shed
their blood for the kings of Saxony or Bavaria ? The
question was, how to secure a permanent gain for Prussia.
And here Prussia had these States in the palm of her hand.
All that remained to be done was to let the Prussian troops
stay there until the princes of Saxony and Bavaria had
become accustomed to the new German Empire. Instead of
this, the king simply let the troops march off again ; and
you may be sure that the Saxons and Bavarians made a long
nose after them when they saw them go. That was weak
and senseless. The blood of the Prussian people was sacri-
ficed for nothing." l
( Since the law of prudence only enjoins that the State
should respect the moral standards which its neighbours
hold in honour, it follows that a State which finds itself in
contact with relatively barbarous or unscrupulous peoples
may prudently and justifiably come down to their level.
Brutality may be met with brutality, and fraud countered
by fraud. In fact it would be folly for a statesman to
adopt any other rule of conduct in dealing with such
enemies : (
4' We have already seen that the power of sincerity and
candour in political life is much greater than is commonly
maintained. The modern theory is that there is no such
thing as an instinctive human craving for truth ; that
truthfulness is a conventional obligation imposed on men for
the purposes of the law. No ! humanity has an instinctive
craving for truth, which varies only at different epochs and
in different nations. Even among oriental nations, who
excel in mendacity, we find this craving for truth. The
elder brother of Wellington acquired an immense power in
India just because the Nabobs knew that he was a man who
always said what he thought.^ On the whole, however, it
1 Politik, i. pp. 100-1.
" DIE POLITIK " 169
is obvious that the political measures employed in dealing
with nations on a lower level of civilisation must be adapted
to their intellectual and emotional capacities. ) Any historian
would be a fool if he were to judge European statecraft in
Africa and the East by the same rule as in Europe^ In
dealing with uncivilised nations any one who cannot inspire
terror is lost./ At the time of the Indian Mutiny, the English
bound Hindus in front of the mouths of their cannon and
blew them to pieces, so that their bodies were scattered to
all the winds of heaven, and, as death was instantaneous,
we cannot blame the English for doing so. The necessity of
employing means of intimidation is obvious in a case like
this ; and, if we accept the assurance of the English that their
rule in India is moral and necessary, we cannot disapprove
this means of enforcing it.
" Thus the principle of relativity applies to place as well
as to time, (it must be considered that States very fre-
quently maintain through many decades a state of veiled
warfare ; and it is obvious that much diplomatic cunning is
justified by the very fact of this state of latent war. | Con-
sider, for instance, the negotiations between Bismarck and
Benedetti. Bismarck still hoped that a great war might
be avoided. Then came Benedetti with his unblushing
demands. Was it not morally legitimate for Bismarck to
put him off with half-promises and to imply that Germany
might possibly concede his demands ? Similarly with the
employment of bribery as a weapon against another nation
under such conditions of veiled hostility. It is absurd to
bluster about its immorality, and to expect that a State
in a case like this should do nothing without consulting the
Catechism. Before the outbreak of the Seven Years' War,
Frederick had a suspicion that a storm was gathering over
his little State. He therefore bribed two Saxon-Polish
secretaries in Dresden and Warsaw, and obtained from them
information, which happily turned out to be exaggerated.
Could it be expected of King Frederick, when the question
in his mind was, how could he save his noble Prussians from
170 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
destruction, that he should respect the official system of
the Electorate of Saxony ? It is tacitly recognised among
States that there is no State in the world which has not, at
some time or other, made use of rogues for the purposes
of spying. But the importance of such methods must not
be exaggerated. They play only a minor role. But that
the Foreign Office of a nation is justified in employing them
as a weapon against other States is obvious." l
( It may be objected that a resolute determination in the
State to behave no better than its neighbours will certainly
prevent any amelioration of international ethics, jf (it is
difficult again to see how any State can claim the right to
act as a missionary of civilisation, to subdue less cultivated
communities for their ultimate good, if it starts with the
intention of adopting their standards of conduct. 1| And this
second objection is the more cogent since Treitschke holds
that colonisation, besides being an economic necessity, is
also the outcome of a moral impulse, in so far as it means
the subjugation of the coloured races. 1 It is worth noticing
that he considers the tropical form of colony more advantage-
ous than the colonies of European population upon which
the mother-country cannot hope to impress her influence
for an indefinite period of time.
f His treatment of the question of colonies has an important
bearing upon international relations. He values colonies
because he holds that they, in various ways, enable the
mother-State to express her individuality and to save her
surplus population from being dissipated among other
/ States. He arrives at the conclusion that colonies are a
positive necessity, because self-preservation means self-
expression and the boundless accumulation of power. From
this belief it is only a short step to the further proposition
that the need of such a State as Germany for colonies is
" a necessity which knows no law. J Treitschke does not
take the step ; but he distinctly indicates the moral which
1 Politih, i. pp. 106-9.
" DIE POLITIK " 171
his pupils have deduced from his premises. In the face of
such a necessity the State which has secured the most desir-
able sites for colonisation is the arch-enemy.
The two following passages illustrate his views as to
colonial policy :
" All the great nations in history, when they have become
powerful, have felt an impulse to stamp their character on
savage nations. At the present day we see the European
nations engaged in establishing a vast aristocracy of the
white race all over the surface of the globe. (Any nation
that does not take part in this mighty contest will, at some
future time, find itself forced to play a very pitiful role.)
For nations at the present day it is a matter of life and death
to press on with their colonising activity.^ The Phoenicians
were the first nation in history to reap the glory of a world-
trade, and they too were great colonisers. Then followed
the colonisation of the Greeks on the easterly and westerly
shores of the Mediterranean ; then came the Romans ;
then, in the Middle Ages, the Germans, the Spanish, and the
Portuguese ; and, finally, Holland and England, after the
Germans had for a long time been entirely wiped out from
the number of maritime powers.
" It is the agricultural colonies that are undoubtedly
the most profitable to a nation. In regions, the climate
of which more or less resembles our own, and which permit
of a vast emigration from the mother-country, there may,
under favourable circumstances, ensue such a feverish
increase of population, as occurred for instance in America.
Yet with such colonies there is always the possible danger
that they will turn against the mother-country, and try to
shake off her yoke." l
" We realise now what we have missed. The results of
the last half-century have been appalling ; it was during
this period that England conquered the world. The con-
tinental nations, themselves devastated by perpetual warfare,
1 Politik, i. pp. 12 1 -2.
172 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
had no leisure to glance across the ocean, where England was
seizing everything for herself. The Germans could only
let it go on and shut their eyes, because their neighbours
and their own internal dissensions were keeping them fully
occupied. There can be no doubt that a great colonial
expansion is an advantage to a nation. The opponents of
colonisation in our own country show their short-sightedness
in failing to grasp that this is so. (And yet the whole destiny
of Germany hangs upon the answer to the question : How
many millions of German-speaking men will the future
have to show ?i
" It is nonsense to assert that the emigration from Ger-
many to America is of any advantage to us. What gain
can it have been for Germany that thousands of the flower
of her manhood, because they could not earn a livelihood
in the Fatherland, have turned their backs upon her ? They
are lost to Germany for ever. Even if the emigrant himself
is bound to the homeland by certain natural ties, as a general
rule his children, and in any case his grandchildren, are
Germans no longer. For the German learns only too easily
to discard his nationality. Besides, German emigrants to
America are not in a position to preserve their nationality
for any length of time. When the Huguenots immigrated
to the March of Brandenburg, though on the whole more
civilised than the Brandenburgers, they inevitably lost
their nationality, on account of the superior numbers of
their hosts. The same is true of the Germans in America.
Almost a third of the North-American population is of
German origin. How much precious strength have we lost
through this emigration, and how much are we losing every
day, without gaining the smallest compensation in return !
Both the working power and the capital of these emigrants
is entirely lost to Germany. Yet, if they went out as colon-
ists, what immeasurable financial gains these men would
procure for this nation." 1
1 Politik, i. pp. 123-4.
" DIE POLITIK
173
So far Treitschke has not described International Law
except by negatives, nor has he explained the nature of the
society of nations. We might derive a false impression from
his picture of the Volk in Waff en ; we might suppose that he
rejoiced in the prospect of a ceaseless war of all against all.
This impression, however, must be corrected by reference to
the more systematic discussion of International Law which
he gives at the end of the second volume of the Politik.
(Here he describes International Law as a set of rules framed
by the enlightened self-interest of nations, and predicts
that these rules will steadily obtain more and more respect.)
There are still some features in his developed theory which
call for criticism : ( as, for instance, the arrogant refusal to
admit that minor States or neutral States have a claim to
share in drafting these rules ; and again the assertion that
national honour cannot be too jealously upheld. His doctrine
of the nature of treaties still leaves a dangerous loophole
to the unscrupulous. I But, in the light of this passage, it
would be grossly unfair to tax him with an absolute contempt
for International Law, though it is fair to say that his
knowledge of the history of that law, and his appreciation of
its value, leave something to be desired :
" It is essential, then, to go to work historically, and to
consider the State as what it is as physical force, though
at the same time as an institution intended to assist the
education of the human race. ( In so far as it is physical
force, the State will have a natural inclination to snatch for
itself such earthly possessions as it desires for its own
advantage. It is by its very nature grasping. Every State
will, however, of its own accord, show a certain consideration
for neighbouring States. As a result of reasoned calculation,
as well as from a mutual sense of their own advantage, the
States will exhibit an increasing respect for justice. The
State comes to realise that it is bound up with the common
life of the States among which it is situated. Every State
will, as a matter of course, observe certain restraints in its
174 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
dealings with neighbouring States. From reasoned calcula-
tion, from a reciprocal recognition of self-interest, a more
definite sense of justice will develop with the course of time./
'The formal part of International Law for instance, the
theory of the inviolability of ambassadors, with all its
accompanying ceremonial developed comparatively early
and securely. In modern Europe the privileges of Am-
bassadors, with all that this entails, are absolutely secure]
It is safe to say that the formal side of International Law
is much more firmly established and is much less frequently
transgressed than are the rules of municipal justice in most
States. ( Nevertheless, since there is placed above the States
no higher power which can decide between them, the
existence of International Law is always precarious. $ It
always must remain a lex imperfecta. Everything depends
upon reciprocity ; and, since there is no supreme authority
capable of exercising compulsion, the influence of science,
and, above all, of public opinion, will play an important
part.) Savigny declared International Law to be no strictum
jus, but a law in constant process of evolution. This, how-
ever, by no means implies that International Law is void of
meaning. (This evolving law has indeed a palpable effective-
ness,! the consequences of which we can trace in their de-
velopments up to the present day. , There can be no doubt
that the development of modern International Law was very
materially influenced by Christianity.) Christianity created
a spirit of cosmopolitanism, in the noblest sense of the word ;
and it was therefore only reasonable and logical that, for
centuries, the Porte should not have come within the pro-
vince of European International Law. The Porte was not
in a position to profit fully by the benefits of European
International Law, so long as it was exclusively swayed by
Mohammedan ideas of morality. It is only in recent times,
since Christianity has become so strong in the Balkan
Peninsula as to thrust Mohammedanism comparatively into
the background, that the Porte has been invited to par-
ticipate in international negotiations.
" DIE POLITIK " 175
" History shows us that great States are continually
developing out of small States which have outlived their
vitality. (The great States must finally attain such a measure
of power that they can stand on their own feet, that they are
self-sufficing. | Such a State must desire that peace should
be maintained, for the sake of its existence and for that of the
treasures of civilisation which it has under its care. So,
out of this common sense of justice, there ensues an organised
society of States, a so-called political system j Such a system
is, however, impossible, apart from a certain at least
approximate equilibrium between the Powers. } The idea
of a balance of power in Europe was at first, as we have
seen, conceived very literally ; but it does contain a germ of
truth. We must not think of it as a trutina gentium, with
both scales on the same level ; | but an organised political
system presupposes that no one State shall be so powerful
as to be able to do just as it pleases without danger to itself.
Here we see very clearly the superiority of the European
system over the crude state-system of America. In America
the United States can do just as they please. It is only
because their ties with the small South American Republics
are still very slight that the latter have not yet suffered any
direct interference on the part of their great neighbour.
" Gortschakoff remarked with justice that the advent
of the last International Conference will not be promoted
either by the nations who are always fearing an attack, nor
yet by the nations who always feel themselves in a position
to make an attack. This was a remarkable statement, and
it has been illustrated by concrete examples. It is very
unfortunate for the science of International Law that coun-
tries like Belgium and Holland should so long have been its
home. These countries, because they are in constant fear
of being attacked, take a sentimental view of the subject,
and tend to make claims on the victor in the name of
humanity, claims which are unnatural and unreasonable
and contrary to the power of the State. The treaties of
Nimeguen and Ryswick remind us that, in the seventeenth
176 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
century, Holland was looked upon as the proper scene for
the drama of la haute politique. Switzerland, at a later
date, enjoyed the same reputation. And, at the present
day, few people trouble to think how absurd it is that
Belgium should fondly conceive herself to be the centre of
International Jurisprudence. As certainly as that public law
is founded on practice, it follows that a State which occupies
an abnormal position will form an abnormal conception of
International Law. \ Belgium is neutral ; it is by its nature
an emasculated State. Is such a State likely to develop
a healthy notion of International Law ?j I beg you to keep
this consideration firmly in your minds hereafter, when you
are confronted with the mass of Belgian literature on this
subject. On the other hand, there exists to-day another State,
which fancies itself in the position of being able to make
an attack at any moment, and which is consequently the
stronghold of barbarism in International Law. It is the fault
of England alone that the provisions of International Law
which relate to maritime warfare still sanction the practice
of privileged piracy. (So we are brought to realise that,
since reciprocity is the very basis of International Law, it is
of no use to hold up vague phrases and doctrines of humanity
as the rule of conduct for States to follow ; all theory must
be founded on practice J only then does an understanding
become genuinely reciprocal. That is a true balance of the
Powers. I
I i
I If we are to avoid misconception concerning the
significance of International Law, we must bear in mind that
all the International Law in the world cannot alter the
essential nature of the State. No State can reasonably be
called upon to agree to something which would amount to
suicidej Even in the State-system, every individual State
must still preserve its own sovereignty ; even in its inter-
course with other States, the preservation of this sovereignty
is still its highest duty. I The enduring provisions of Inter-
national Law are those which do not affect sovereignty, that
is to say, those concerned with ceremonial and with inter-
" DIE POLITIK " 177
national private law. In time of peace it is hardly probable
that these rights will be infringed ; / if they are, such in-
fringements will be immediately expiated, (j Any one who,
even superficially, attacks the honour of a State, challenges
by his action the very nature of the State. To reproach a
State for having a too irritable sense of honour is to fail to
appreciate the moral laws of politics. A State must have
a very highly-developed sense of honour, if it is not to be
disloyal to its own nature.^ Jhe State is not a violet bloom-
ing in the shade. | Its power must stand forth proud and
refulgent, and it must not allow this power to be dis-
puted, even in matters of forms and symbols. y If the flag
of the State is insulted, it is the duty of the State to demand
satisfaction, and, if satisfaction is not forthcoming, to
declare war, however trivial the occasion may appear ; / for
the State must strain every nerve to preserve for itself
that respect which it enjoys in the State-system.!
"^From this it also follows that the limitations which
States impose upon themselves by means of treaties are
voluntary self -limitations,/ and that all treaties are concluded
with the mental reservation rebus sic stantibus. There never
has been a State, and there never will be a State, which, in
concluding a treaty, seriously intended to keep it for ever.
No State is in a position to conclude a treaty (which neces-
sarily implies a certain limitation of its sovereignty) for all
time to come. ( The State always has in mind the possibility
of annulling the treaty at some future date ; and indeed the
treaty is only valid so long as the conditions under which it
was made have not entirely altered./ This idea has been
declared inhuman, but actually it is humane. Only if the
State knows that all its treaties have only a conditional
validity, will it make its treaties wisely. History is not
meant to be considered from the standpoint of a judge
presiding over a civil lawsuit. From this point of view
Prussia, since she had signed the Tilsit treaty, ought not to
have attacked Napoleon in 1813. But this treaty, too, was
concluded rebus sic stantibus ; and the circumstances (thank
N
178 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
God !) had fundamentally changed even in those few years.
A noble nation was given the opportunity of freeing itself
from an insupportable slavery ; and, as soon as a nation
perceives such an opportunity, it is justified in daring to
take advantage of it.
f We must never lose sight in politics of the free moral
forces of national life. No State in the world is to renounce
that egotism which belongs to its sovereignty. If conditions
are imposed on a State which would degrade it, to which
it could not adhere, these conditions will be ' more honoured
in the breach than in the observance.'] History reveals one
very beautiful fact : that a State recovers more easily from
material losses than from attacks upon its honour. The loss
of a province may be endured as a necessity imposed by
prudence ; but to endure under compulsion a state of slavery
is an ever-open wound to a noble people. Napoleon I., by
the constant presence of his troops on Prussian soil, infused
a glowing hatred into the veins of the most long-suffering.
When a State is conscious that its honour has been insulted,
the renunciation of a treaty is only a question of time.
England and France experienced this in 1870, after the
Crimean War, when they had arrogantly imposed upon ex-
hausted Russia the condition that Russian warships should
no longer be allowed in the Black Sea ; and, when Russia took
advantage of the good opportunity afforded by the Franco-
German War to renounce this treaty, with the tacit support
of Germany, she was doing no more than was morally
justifiable.
Y When a State realises that existing treaties no longer
express the actual relations between the Powers, then, if it
cannot bring the other contracting State to acquiescence by
friendly negotiations, there is nothing for it but the inter-
national lawsuit War) ( Under such circumstances, a State
declares war with the consciousness of fulfilling an absolute
duty. } No motives of personal gain are involved. / The
protagonists have simply perceived that existing treaties no
longer correspond with their actual relations, and, since the
" DIE POLITIK " 179
matter cannot be decided peaceably, it must be decided by
the great international lawsuit War. The justice of war
depends simply on the consciousness of a moral necessity .j
ince there cannot be, and ought not to be, any arbitrary
power placed above the great personalities which we call
nations, and since history must be in an eternal flux, war is
justified. War must be conceived as an institution ordained
of God./ A State may, of course, form a mistaken judgment
concerning the inevitability of war. Niebuhr says truly :
' War does not establish any right that did not already
exist.' Individual acts of violence are expiated in the very
moment that they are performed. It was thus that the
unity of Germany and of Italy were achieved. On the
other hand, not every war has an inevitable result, and the
historian must therefore preserve an open mind ; he must
remember that the lives of States are counted in centuries.
The proud saying of the vanquished Piedmontese ' We
begin again ' will always have its place in the history of
noble nations.
" War will never be expelled from the world by inter-
national courts of arbitration, jt In any great question which
concerns a nation's life it is simply impossible for the other
members of the State-system to remain impartial. 1{ They
must be partial, because they are members of a living
community, mutually bound together or held apart by a
diversity of interests. / Supposing that such a foolish thing
were possible as that Germany should allow the question of
Alsace-Lorraine to be decided by a court of arbitration, which
of the European nations would be capable of viewing the
question impartially ? Such a thing is not to be dreamed of.
Hence the well-known fact that International Congresses
are able to formulate the results of a war, and to decide upon
it juridically, but that they are powerless to avert a war that
is threatening, fit is only in questions of the third rank
that* a foreign State can possibly be impartial. f 1
1 Politik, ii. pp. 546-53.
CHAPTER IX
" DIE POLITIK " (ill.) CONSTITUTIONS
I. Standards of Judgment
FAITHFUL to the rule that every constitution must be judged
with reference to the people for which it is intended, Treitschke
never attempts to describe, even in outline, the ideal State.
He contents himself with mentioning one or two general prin-
ciples which any State, under whatever conditions it exists,
must observe, and one or two tests by which the historian
may measure praise or blame.
<Thus he tells us that, " since Staat ist Macht, the State
which unites all power in a single hand and asserts its own
independence " corresponds most nearly to the ideal.)
Montesquieu's doctrine, that the best State is one in which
the legislature, executive and judicature are independent of
each other, is altogether false, judged by the test of un-
divided sovereignty, a theocracy (such as we find in Asiatic
States) is at once ruled out of the catalogue of civilised
constitutions :
"It is clearly impossible to arrange the three forms of
State 1 in order of moral rank. But one thing can be
affirmed, namely, that a theocracy implies a bondage to a
primitive moral code, which could not be tolerated in any
free and progressive nation. Only where the assump-
tion reigns that the gospel is in itself a power for coercion,
only in such a dark confusion of religious and political
1 Theocracy, Monarchy, Democracy.
180
"DIE POLITIK" 181
ideas, can a theocracy flourish. Therefore a theocracy
must be looked upon as the most immature form of State.
This becomes evident if an attempt is made to set it up in
an emancipated nation. Then it is seen to be in the highest
degree grotesque. The history of the Papacy affords ex-
cellent proof of this. On the other hand, we must refrain
from making a moral comparison between a republican and
a monarchical system of government. The historian must
be content to ask, ' Which form of state and of law was best
suited to a particular nation at a particular time ? ' (.He will
thus admit a republic to be moral, where it corresponds with
the moral conditions of a nation. With reference to the best
form of State, all that the historian can assert without pre-
sumption is that, since the State is primarily power, the form
of State which will take the government into its own hands
and make itself independent best fulfils this idea. ) With
reference to the constitution of the Church, on the other
hand, it may be asserted with equal confidence that the ideal
form is a republic. { The power of the Church is based on the
consciences of all its members. Therefore, a constitution
which encourages the exercise of the individual conscience,
and which establishes the Church as the living expression
of the faith that is to say, a republican constitution
best corresponds with the intrinsic nature of the Church. By
the same reasoning, a monarchically constituted Church is
furthest removed from the ideal." l
(I Again, a State which sets before itself a practicable ideal
is superior to those which pursue the unattainable. Judged
by this test a democracy must be held inferior to a monarchy
or an aristocracy./ For a democracy is founded upon the
assumption that men are by nature equal, whereas they are
fundamentally unequal : /
" However unpopular it may sound to-day, in this age
of democratic culture, it is none the less true that the same
1 Politik, ii. pp. 10-11.
182 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
applies to a democracy. For the very word ' democracy '
contains a contradiction in terms. The notion of ruling
implies the existence of a class that is ruled ; but if all are to
rule, where is this class to be found ? (A genuine democracy,
logically carried out, aims at a goal which, like that of a
theocracy, is impossible. 1 ; Both have in common the con-
vulsive effort to attain an idea which by its nature is un-
attainable. We see this in all radical democracies. All
natural human differences must be forcibly set aside, until
finally we come to the notion that distinctions of race also
must be swept away. (For the sake of a principle the up-
holders of democracy would bludgeon out of existence every
single distinction between members of the human race."] 1
( But if equality is impossible, liberty of a truer kind can
be obtained ; and we have already seen that Treitschke
finds the distinctive characteristic of a civilised State in its
ever-growing respect for individual liberty.) It is worth
while to collect the passages of the Politik which bear upon
the definition of liberty :
(" Liberty is based upon reasonable laws, and their observ-
ance ; accordingly the authority of the laws is an indispens-
able condition of liberty." z
" Liberty consists in reasonable laws, which the individual
can obey with the approbation of his moral conscience, and
in the observance of these laws." 3
" It is a false conception of liberty to seek for liberty not
in the State, but from the State. '? 4
" Concerning the nature of liberty Aristotle has expressed
a profound truth, which holds good for all time : One prin-
ciple of liberty is for all to rule and be ruled in turn. Another
is that a man should live as he likes. 6 To translate the first
proposition in a more general form, one part of liberty is
1 Politik, ii. p. 15. * Ibid. i. p. 150.
8 Ibid. p. 156. * Ibid. p. 157.
5 Aristotle, Politics, 13x7 b 4\evdeplas S 2v p.lv rb iv /xfy &pxeff6ai Kal
" DIE POLITIK " 183
the participation of the citizen, in any kind of way, in the
management of the State, and this is political liberty ;
the other part is that the individual should be restricted
as little as possible in the activities of private life. This
antithesis between political and personal liberty runs
through the whole of history. ... In antiquity the political
conception was so predominant that one is surprised to find
Aristotle, a man of the antique world, describing personal
liberty at all. The modern world, on the other hand, pays
attention, in the first place, to private liberty . . . the
modern man desires, first and foremost, free scope and pro-
tection for his economic activity." J
"It is a fashionable political folly of the present age to
seek for political liberty in a particular form of constitution,
in constitutional monarchy, for example, or in a republic. . . .
Why should we stigmatise as unfree such a powerful military
State as that of Philip of Macedon ? There you have a
voluntary obedience. Or are we to call the State of the
Great Elector unfree ? . . / If we look for a law that can
be verified from history, we can only say that wealth and
education, the two attributes on which the capacity for par-
ticipating in government are really based, diffuse themselves
with the development of civilisation over wider and wider
areas ; and therefore we can perceive that the constitution
of the State tends to become democratic.) The qualification
for an active part in politics is extended over wider and
wider areas. If this extension is confined within reason-
able limits, every historian must regard it as justifiable." 2
'I The exercise of the franchise is not in itself a political
education ; political liberty depends much less upon the
right to vote than upon a serious and conscientious partici-
pation in administrative work.V 3
"fThe rule of the majority, which must exist in a demo-
cracy, gives no secure guarantee for political liberty. In form
every one is permitted to participate in framing decisive
1 Politik, i. p. 158. 2 Ibid. pp. 159-60.
3 Ibid. p. 161.
184 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
resolutions ; but if he is not hi the majority, he must obey
against his will.') 1
" Further, it is a peculiar fact that, while democracy pre-
serves absolute freedom of competition in its economic life,
spiritually-minded demagogues meddle most recklessly with
private morals and family life. What a contrast between
the unlimited political liberty and the monstrous temperance
laws of many states in the American Union ! " 2
( When we piece these and some other utterances together,
it is evident that this liberty, which Treitschke regards as
the highest good that can be realised within the State, is only
possible in a few forms of State./t It will not be found where
the majority exercise an absolute sway./ It will not be found
in an enlightened despotism, such as that of the third
Napoleon. ( It implies, in its highest form, a wide diffusion
of culture and material prosperity.) I It implies free local
government, and a central government which is susceptible to
public opinion, though not subservient to it. Treitschke, in
fact, has gone further in building up a positive ideal of the
best State than he is himself aware.
Besides stating his own ideal, he criticises those of others.
In his own time there were two influential schools of German
politicians who offered two easy nostrums for the cure of all
political diseases, both in Germany and in every other
European State. The one school held that all would go well
if the State became a National State in the fullest sense of
the word ; the other sang the praises of Parliamentary
Government coupled with the English Party system.
2. The Nostrum of Nationalism
It will be observed that Treitschke's definition of the State
does not contain any reference to the national principle. ^ His
definition is based upon the facts of history '{ and historical
experience has proved that a strong State may be formed out
1 Politik, i. p. 255. 2 Ibid. ii. p. 270.
" DIE POLITIK " 185
of a fraction of a nationality, and even out of fragments of
several nationalities. But, apart from history, he was not
prepared to make the national principle his guiding-star.
He held that a State which is exactly coextensive with a
nationality is the stronger on that account. ( But he attached
more importance to community of interests and to a central-
ised government than to the sentimental ties of common
descent and a common mother-tongue.) He preferred the
North German Confederation to the Greater Germany of the
Confederation of 1815, because a Bundesstaat was politically
more centralised than a Staatenbund. He dismissed as
chimerical all plans for the incorporation of Belgium and
Holland in Germany ; the fact that many of the Belgians
and all the Dutch were of German origin seemed to him a
consideration which ought not to influence German policy :
" Our century is thus filled with national antagonisms ;
and it is not surprising, therefore, that there has been talk of
setting up a principle of nationality. Yet, if we refuse to
allow ourselves to be taken in by these Napoleonic phrases,
we see that as a matter of fact there are two strong forces
working in history : 1 firstly, the tendency of every State to
amalgamate its population, in speech and manners, into one
single unity ; and, secondly, the impulse of every vigorous
nationality to construct a State of its own.] It is apparent
that these are two different forces, which for the most part
oppose and resist one another. The question is to discover
how a settlement may be arrived at. The natural tendency
is that the conceptions ' Nation ' and ' State ' should co-
incide with one another. That is the instinct of all great
nations, but history shows us how remote this has been from
actuality. The pre-eminence of western culture is due to
the fact that Western Europe has larger compact and uniform
ethnological masses, while the East is the classical land of the
fragments of nations. Thence it follows directly, apart from
other causes, that the oriental State can hardly be a moral
unit. It must be content with an administration that is
186 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
only surface-deep ; the ruling nationality will only insist on
tribute and external submission. Russia and Austria are in
this respect in a stage of transition from western to eastern
nations. Already we see in them a preponderance of
oriental over European population, and this affects the
whole life of the State.
" Hence it appears, in the life of nations, there are two
great forces, which may act either in opposition to or in
union with one another. It is clear, moreover, that the
idea of nationality is the more active, and that it influences
i
the whole course of history. ^Almighty God did not put
the various nationalities into separate glass cases, like a
collection of biological specimens ; and we can see for our-
selves what transformations have been effected among them
in the course of history. Nationality is not a settled and
permanent thing.} There are examples of great nations
whose original character and native genius have never quite
been lost, but we see how these may become alloyed. The
Greeks and the Germans were instances of two primitive
peoples whose idiosyncrasy could never be subdued. The
iron strength of the Roman Empire was powerless over them.
Military colonies might be established on German soil, but
to Romanise the Germans was an impossibility. When,
however, our ancestors marched as conquerors into the
Roman Empire, there was a reversal of the ethnographical
process ; the superior civilisation revenged itself on its
conquerors. The Lombards retained their German speech
for a comparatively lengthy period ; the Ostrogoths pre-
served it always, but their kingdom was of shorter duration.
In far the greater number of the other Germanic States
which were founded on Roman soil, we see the conqueror
fairly soon adopting the language and customs of the more
highly civilised race of the conquered. The Visigoths
become Spaniards. The Burgundians become Gauls." 1
^ The State, he argues, is a work of art ; and the statesman
1 Politik, i. pp. 270-72.
" DIE POLITIK " 187
may succeed in fusing together the most intractable nation-
alities to form a new community with distinctive character-
istics, s Racial differences are harder to overcome than
those of nationalities j; this is illustrated by the case of India,
and of the southern States in the American Union. { Where
such differences exist a free State cannot be founded ; there
must be a ruling race if there is to be a State at all.? It is
otherwise when the differences are national not racial. In
fact the conception of nationality is elastic ; it is hard to say
what is the essence of a nationality. The case of the Irish
proves that a nationality may persist when it has lost its
language ; the case of the Swiss that national feeling may
become extinct where the national language still remains in
use. f A nationality is always in a state of flux, always
changing in character ; and it is quite possible for a dominant
nationality to absorb the minor nationalities over which it
rules.} We must, however, bear in mind here Treitschke
returns for a moment to the ideals of his youth, the ideals of
the Romanticists that the greatest things in literature and
politics are the product of national sentiment. Except for
this one qualification, the following passage forms a striking
contrast to those parts of Die Freiheit which glorify the
national principle and insist upon the fundamental character
of the differences between one nation and another :
" It is then impossible to arrange the facts of history
genealogically in a kind of family tree. On the contrary,
it must be recognised that even nationalities are subject to
the flux of history ; and it is equally instructive and diffi-
cult for the historian to trace out these ethnographical
processes. Frequently he encounters what appears to be a
miracle. Think of England, and how, out of the Anglo-
Saxons and the Normans, after a violent struggle, there
emerged one nation. We can see the completed process,
and we can imagine, from our observation of individual
instances, how this fusion of races takes place. The normal
fact, however, is that the unity of the State should be based
i88 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
on nationality. The legal bond must at the same time be
felt to be a natural bond of blood-relationship either real
or imaginary blood-relationship (for on this point nations
labour under the most extraordinary delusions). Almost
all great nations, like the Athenians, label themselves
autochthonous, and boast (almost invariably without founda-
tion) of the purity of their blood. Yet it is just the state-
forming nations, like the Romans and the English, who are
of strikingly mixed race. The Arabs and the Indians are of
very pure blood, but no one can say that either of these races
has been a successful state-founder. Their strength lies in
quite other spheres.
" If we consider the map of Germany, the inhabitants of
large portions of Hesse, of Hanoverian Lower Saxony, as
well as East Friesland, Westphalia, and (possibly also)
Northern Thuringia, are of quite unmixed Germanic blood.
In the regions farther west and south there is a strong
admixture of Roman blood. This can be discerned even at
the present day. Wherever the women carry their burdens
on their heads, we may be mathematically certain that at
some time there have been Romans. Wherever burdens are
carried on the back or in the hands, there have never been
Romans. But no one would venture to maintain that it
was in these unmixed Germanic stocks that the creative
political forces of Germany originated. The great upholders
and pioneers of civilisation in Germany have been, in the
Middle Ages, the South Germans, who are partly Celtic, and,
in modern times, the North Germans, who are partly Slav.
The same is true of Piedmont in Italy. In France pure
Celtic blood is only to be found in Brittany. The Bretons
have always been a sturdy little people ; they contribute its
best soldiers to the French army, since the loss of Alsace.
But it is a region of bigotry. The people lead a peaceful
idyllic life, but the aptitude for state-building could never
be ascribed to them. ' In the great process of attrition which
a nation undergoes when it is mixed with other nations the
gentler virtues perish, but the power of the will is strengthened. ]
" DIE POLITIK " 189 t
(So it is ; and it must be added that there is no such thing
as a purely national history. Life as it is recorded in history
is mostly a process of give-and-take and of cosmopolitan
forces.] | On the other hand, all true heroism, whether in
literature or in politics, must be national ; otherwise it will
be without moral effectiveness.) Taking these two great
contradictions together, it becomes obvious that nothing
is to be gained from barren talk about a right of nationality.
lEvery State must have the right to merge into one the nation-
"alities contained within itself ; and, on the other hand, the
impulse will exist in every nationality to make itself politic-
ally independent."! 1
3. The Nostrum of Parliamentarism
The Parliamentary system (Parlamentarismus] meant,
in German politics, a literal copy of the English party
system. It meant the control of the executive by a Cabinet,
all chosen from one party, and that the dominant party in
the Lower House ; it meant the collective responsibility (in a
political sense) of the Cabinet to the Lower House in all
questions of policy. Finally, it meant the reduction of the
monarchy to a mere shadow, to a symbol of national unity.
This had been the ideal of many Liberals in 1848 ; and some
leading politicians had desired to endow the North German
Confederation, and the German Empire itself, with this sort
of Parliamentary government.
We have already seen some of the objections which
Treitschke offered when Parlamentarismus was in the field
as a programme of practical reform. In the Politik he
restates his objections in a more general and a more compact
form.
First he objects to the very principle of party :
" As the sand on the dunes blows to and fro, so new
parties form themselves. They are the ephemeral products
of free political life, the outcome of antagonism of a social,
1 Politik, i. pp. 278-80.
190 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
a national, or a religious character. They are necessary in a
free people, to shape an average will out of many individual
wills ; but to overvalue them is a proof of spiritual barren-
ness. To devote oneself entirely to a party means a conscious
narrowing of the self ; natures which are really free have
always a certain distaste for the one-sidedness of party spirit.
Of every kind of party one may say that, under certain
conditions, it is a destructive force. Social parties may lead
to civil war, since they are guided by the basest passions.
National antagonisms may secretly lead to the complete
disintegration of the State. . . . How religious parties may
destroy the civic sentiment is proved by the grisly annals
of the Thirty Years' War. Social interests are always the
first incentives to the formation of a party. But many other
antagonisms co-operate in the work ; and one can only say
in this place that strong disruptive forces in a nation have
the right and the duty to express themselves in the form of
parties." 1
A party system is necessary and natural when it repre-
sents actual interests within the nation. It is intolerable
when the parties live on reminiscences of feuds which are now
absolute, f But parties always need to be kept in check by a
moderating power which is above them J
" From this follows logically the old dogma that it is the
duty of a government to stand above party, and also, as
Bismarck said, to find the resultant of the various party
forces. If the State is an organisation for administering
justice, it must be un-partisan in nature. Herein lies the
superiority of a well-ordered monarchy over a Republic, that
in a monarchy the supreme power rests on its right, and,
even if it is not always impartial in practice, is capable of
being so. In Republics, on the contrary, the members of
some party will always have charge of the helm of the State,
and hence it will be much more difficult to secure an impartial
1 Politik, i. pp. 153-4.
" DIE POLITIK " 191
administration than it is in the case of a monarchy. Out of
all this for and against and in and out of parties there
emerges what we are accustomed to describe as public
opinion. What public opinion demands from the State and
from the government is freedom. What is meant by this ?
It is merely an empty word. We must ask : Freedom from
what ? The answer can only be : Freedom from unreason-
able compulsion. Freedom, as we know already, is secured
by reasonable laws, which individuals can obey with a sense
of moral approbation, and by the upholding of these laws.
The notions of legal authority and legal freedom are not
opposed but correlated to one another. A freedom which is
not assured, which is not expressed in common obedience
to the laws, cannot be lasting. And so in great nations the
idea of service service of the fatherland is always held in
honour." 1
" If, in a monarchy, the supreme power is vested by right
in the person of the monarch, it follows that the King will
elect his own advisers, and that these will execute his will.
Only in this way will the monarchy fulfil its vocation, which is
to stand above parties. It has been asserted, in opposition
to this, that the Ministers must be independent of the King,
because, otherwise, they could not be held responsible before
the Chambers, for no one can be answerable for things which
he has not done by his own initiative ; but that, as a matter
of fact, very frequently there occurs a discrepancy between
the will of the Chambers and that of the King. Mohl, in par-
ticular, has developed this theory. If we consider the
developments which occur in all monarchies, which are more
than monarchies in name, we shall answer that such a
discrepancy does certainly exist ; it is not to be denied that
the will of the King is frequently at variance with that of
the representatives of such diversified interests. But the
existence of our State demands that this discrepancy shall
be reconciled, however inconvenient this may be for the
Ministers concerned. The theorists who simply propose
1 Politik, i. p. 156.
192 -HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
to decree this discrepancy out of existence overlook the fact
that the Ministers are not only responsible to the Chambers,
but also to the King.
"If we consider the matter impartially, we are forced
to recognise that here is a question involving the very
existence of the monarchy. If it belongs to the nature of
monarchy that the supreme power should be vested in the
monarch, it becomes evident that this nature is belied if
the King is placed under the obligation of choosing his
advisers in accordance with the will of the Parliament.
Therefore the statement that the ultimate ideal of a con-
stitutional monarchy is a pure Parliamentarism on the
English pattern, a government by the party which has a
majority in the House at the moment, is in contradiction to
the idea of the monarchical state. And where is it written
that Germany, with her glorious history, shall be obliged to
follow the example of an island state, concerning which it
may be asserted on the whole that, wherever it finds a source
of strength, we find a source of weakness, and vice versa ? " 1
| It may be objected that, in England, the party system
has worn a more ideal character, that English parties stand
for principles of permanent value which are not so much
antagonistic as complementary the one to the other. But
history shows that English parties, successful as they un-
doubtedly have been, have represented conflicting interests
in the English aristocracy. Now that these interests are
broken, the virtue has gone out of the English party
system :-f-
" The struggle between the two great English political
parties has never been, as Macaulay maintained, a dispute
over principles. It has always turned on the question,
who should control the government of the State ? Both
Whigs and Tories were aristocratic parties, and always
voted for or against everything, according as they were
1 Polilik, ii. pp. 150-1.
" DIE POLITIK " 193
in or out of power. The great changes in English political
life have for the most part been brought about by the
Tories. It is in no sense true, then, that these two
aristocratic parties, both of which were in favour of the
control of Parliament over the Crown, were divided in any
deep matters of principle. It is the struggle for power which
produces parties. Tories and Whigs were originally sup-
porters of the Stuarts in the one case and of the Guelph
usurpers in the other case. This cause of dispute gradually
disappeared, but there remained the hereditary factions of
the great families of the land.
"It is only in aristocratic States that it is possible for
parties to endure so long. There arises a narrowness of party
feeling against which the liberal-minded average man rebels.
When Wellington was chief Minister, he perceived that
Catholic emancipation was a necessity ; but when he resolved
to take this step, it was regarded by the members of his
party as a deadly offence. A German would consider it
deserving of admiration that a man should sacrifice a tradi-
tional party prejudice for the good of his country. The
English, however, say : ' It may perhaps have been necessary,
but it was a severe blow to the ethics of party.' Here the
word ' ethics ' is used in the same absurd sense as with us
in Germany at the present day. This is what happens to a
nation in which party feeling has entered into the very
blood of the people. Both parties completely approved of
the principles of the new constitution ; both were capable
of governing ; and yet when the English crown, as a result
of the ' glorious revolution ' and the wholly illegitimate
summoning of the Guelphs to the throne, had been reduced
to a cipher, parliamentary party government was found
necessary.
" The English Parliament in its great days was a worthy
counterpart of the Roman Senate. England was then an
aristocratic republic in the grand style. The crown played
only the part of ' a costly, but on the whole harmless capitol
to the pillar of the State.' In conjunction with this must be
o
194 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
taken the hereditary intellectual nullity of the four Georges.
The necessity for an aristocratic party government was
based on the whole history of the State. And this party
government accomplished great things. It raised England to
the position of the leading commercial power ; but it could
only endure so long as the aristocracy was really the first
class in the land, and was recognised as such. Now, after the
beginning of the nineteenth century, this state of things began
gradually to change. In 1832 came the first Reform Bill,
which enlarged the numbers of the parliamentary electorate.
From this time onward a quarter of the members were really
elected. Before this time every great landowner had his
member in his pocket. At the present day all this has been
altered ; a portion of the House of Commons does really
represent the people ; and the new interests of the middle
classes are beginning to penetrate into the House of Commons.
The suffrage was subjected to several further reforms, and
now the terms ' Tory ' and ' Whig ' are rarely heard.
There are now no longer two parties, but six or eight (they
change even more quickly than with us) . Since this approxi-
mation of the House of Commons to a national representative
assembly, England has no longer only one aristocratic
governing body. It presents the same variegated system
that we see on the Continent, except that for all these
parties there are only two leaders, and the members of
the various parties support the one or the other of these,
according to circumstances. It is obvious that such a
division into two traditional parties would be impossible
for us. We lack the pre-requisite conditions for it. And
above all, it is contrary to the German nature. We are
distinguished from other nations by an uprightness and
sincerity, which makes it essential for us to speak out
our convictions, and this disposition is entirely opposed to
a stereotyped partisanship. We decline with thanks ' the
holy bonds of friendship,' which have kept the English
parties together. We desire that offices of State should
be distributed according to deserts. That is exceedingly
" DIE POLITIK " 195
difficult, but it is the ideal which hovers before the mind of
every German." *
In the second place, Treitschke argues that Parlament-
arismus is a plant of English growth, which has been fostered
by the peculiar social conditions of England. Admirably
suited to the England of the eighteenth century, it is for
that very reason unsuitable for transplantation. In par-
ticular it is unsuited to Germany. He explains his reasons in
the following passage, which, though it is little more than
an expansion of a shorter statement which we have quoted
above (Chap. V.), deserves to be translated in full :
"If we extract the sum of all these circumstances in
connexion with England, it becomes conceivable, as Montes-
quieu might have said, that the ruling idea in a constitutional
monarchy must be mistrust ; a horrible doctrine, which would
presume to base a noble State on one of the meanest instincts
of mankind. But, even at the present day, this is actually a
dogma with all Radical parties, though they may not venture
to express it in so many words. Even my own dear teacher,
Dahlmann, observed that, possibly, in constitutional govern-
ments, political freedom ran less danger from the mediocre
kings than from a king of genius. Thus a noble and gifted
man could speak as if genius, which is never anything but a
heaven-sent blessing, were to be regarded as a public danger.
" It would obviously be undesirable, even if it were
possible, that a monarchical system like the English, which is
the product of peculiar historical circumstances, should be
adopted in its entirety by other States. Common sense
tells us that the best political institutions are those which
are most effective in the ablest hands. To assert, then,
that the kingly office must be so constituted as to preclude its
being held by any one of more than average distinction, at
the best, is to turn the world upside down. It is true that
the whole education of the English princes has been based
1 Politik, i. pp. 150-3.
196 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
on this assumption, and that it has been remarkably success-
ful in ensuring the continuance of the hereditary insignifi-
cance of the members of the House of Guelph. Not one of
those princes who has any hopes of succeeding to the throne
is a soldier in the full sense of the word. And without being
prophets, we are justified now in asserting that the hereditary
characteristic of the Guelphs will be preserved in the next
two generations of the House of Coburg. This accords with
the character of the English State ; but we Germans have no
intention of forsaking our simple common sense, or of sug-
gesting to our nation that it should have a sound limb
amputated for the sake of receiving in its place a cunningly
wrought but artificial member. We have learnt by experi-
ence that our constitutional monarchy is so constructed as
to be most effectual in the hands of a great monarch ; and
our constitution has no intention of depriving the kingly
office of all significance. Rather it aims at preserving the
life and vigour of the monarchy, and that in a nation of very
high political development. With us, kingship is almost the
only strong political tradition which links our present with
the past. Could we desire to exchange our glorious House
of Hohenzollern for the English Georges ? The annals of
our dynasty are such a food for pride that a Prussian might
well say, ' The best monarch is quite good enough for us.'
According to our constitution, the monarch is the sole and
supreme head of the State ; and any one who asserts the
contrary is forced to base his argument on alien and peculiar
historical circumstances.
" Thus a feeble and illegitimate royal family is the most
striking feature of the English State. The second point to
be noted is the existence of a nobility possessing great power
and great political ability. The English peasant class was
completely bought out in the sixteenth century. Conditions
similar to those found with us in Mecklenburg and in parts
of Hither Pomerania, are the rule in England, even at the
present day. In the agricultural districts the population is
in a state of serfdom. We find the great landowners living
" DIE POLITIK " 197
in their beautiful country houses ; under them, and to a large
extent dependent on them, the farmers ; and, finally, the
labourers, who are dependent for their whole existence on
the landowner. In England, that peasant class, which is
the great strength of Germany, has been swallowed up by the
aristocracy, and consequently the parliamentary system
has developed in the direction of an entirely aristocratic
government. Although, since the days of the elder Pitt, the
great debates have always taken place in the House of
Commons, it would be quite incorrect to assume that the
House of Lords has been powerless since that date. Who
elected the members of the House of Commons ? No one
else but the Lords. The House of Commons was composed
in the first place of the younger sons, cousins and nephews
of the peers (who themselves represented the elite of the
State in the House of Lords) , and, in the second place, of the
mere creatures of the peers, who were elected according to
the orders of the great landowners. Every lord had in
his pocket a number of electoral districts, the members for
which he himself selected.
" Hence it was inconceivable that there should be a dis-
agreement on any matter of principle between the Upper and
the Lower House, and such a disagreement never actually
occurred in the eighteenth century. Hence this powerful
nobility, which so outshone the court that the latter no
longer was nor is the central point of good society, deter-
mined, by its party organisation, the whole development of
the State. The two great parties of the Tories and the
Whigs were fundamentally agreed as to the principles of
government. The only cause of contention was the applica-
tion of these principles in a particular case. The important
thing was the struggle for power for its own sake. The
party struggle was therefore comparatively mild ; often,
in fact, it seemed absolutely meaningless ; but it was just
this fact that prevented it from ever threatening the existence
of the State. The fact that these party contentions did not
disturb the peace of the administration and the maintenance
198 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
of justice and order in the State was also connected with the
old English system of local government. The great land-
lords, in the capacity of justices of the peace, managed the
whole everyday local administration in the country districts
in a clumsy, unskilful manner, but as free men. It was a
point of honour for a young man of good family, when he had
completed his travels and his studies, to have his name
enrolled on the lists of justices of the peace ; and this
privilege was never denied to a landowner. These justices
of the peace were drawn from both parties ; and, as their
authority extended over the whole country, they were
able to exercise a restraining and moderating influence
on one another. They occupied at the same time such an
independent position, that a change in the ministry did not
affect them at all. So matters took their course slowly,
but without perversion of justice.
" Set above this aristocratic local administration we
find a small number of parliamentary ministers about
sixty-four. These were the heads of the various government
departments, and they forfeited their position with every
change in the ministry. Yet their position was such as to
satisfy the most exalted ambition. Below them we find a
Government Civil Service, the members of which are desig-
nated ' clerks.' These clerks have absolutely no scope for
the exercise of their own will, but are simply there to execute
the orders of the parliamentary officials ; and they are
precluded by their office from entering Parliament. Now
it has been proved by experience that, in any class of which
the members are precluded from pursuing their highest
ambition, there will be a certain loss of social and political
status. If we formed such a notion of our staff of officers
as necessitated that the generals should be selected from
another class, everything would be changed. But that is how
the case actually stands in England. The clerks of the Civil
Service are excluded from the highest offices, and are thus
subordinates in the most literal sense of the word, about as
subordinate as the Councillors of our German Chancery
" DIE POLITIK " 199
(Kanzleirdthe) . They know, too, that they can never
participate in the real work of government ; that they will
never be anything but tools. Such a class is made up of
other social elements than those which compose the ruling
class. This affords a very striking illustration of the aristo-
cratic character of the English State. In every govern-
ment, no less than in every army, a distinction must be
drawn between the subordinates and those actually in com-
mand ; but the level at which this distinction is drawn is a
most important point. In Germany it is drawn much lower,
with the result that our whole social life has a much more
democratic character than the English.
"To crown this singular and wonderful English State-
machine, there now took shape, little by little, a genuine and
actual government the Cabinet made up of the King's
official advisers. These became also the advisers of the
Parliament, and so there came into being a Cabinet Govern-
ment, which, even at the present day, is not so much as
alluded to in the law of the land. The law recognises Her
Majesty's Privy Council, to which the members of the
Cabinet properly belong ; but nowhere is it laid down that
this Council should be the supreme governing body. This
Cabinet is composed of the leaders of the parliamentary
majority. It may be described, in fact, as a committee of
this majority. Its office, therefore, is not simply to represent
the Government. The government is in the hands of the
Parliament. The ministers sit, as peers or as commoners,
on the front bench of one of the two Houses. Those of
them who are peers must only speak in the Upper House ;
those of them who are commoners must only speak in the
Lower House.
" What a complete contrast to the state of things with
us ! Only try to imagine Prince Bismarck precluded from
ever speaking in the House of Representatives because he
was a member of the Upper House. In England, however,
no one may speak in the House of Commons, except he be
a member of the House. Such an institution as that of our
200 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
Government representatives (Regierungscommissare) would
thus be impossible in England. This shows very clearly
the entirely different relation of the Civil Service to the
Parliament in England and Germany respectively. In
Germany the Civil Service is an independent administrative
body composed of servants of the King, who come before
Parliament and speak in the name of the Government. In
England the Civil Service is subordinate to Parliament.
Any civil servant may be summoned before the bar of the
Upper or the Lower House.
" All this does indeed show a marvellous form of State,
but one as little democratic as the House of Commons is a
democratic national assembly. One is always astonished
to hear the English House of Commons described as a
national assembly. Up to 1832 not a single member of it
owed his seat to the free choice of the people. Not only
had every great peer a number of constituencies, of which
he disposed as he liked. Even in the large towns, in which
the corporations made up their numbers by co-optation
(just as in Germany in the eighteenth century), only a small
number of the town councillors had the full parliamentary
vote. Thus, in Portsmouth, which before the first Reform
Bill was already a town of nearly a hundred thousand
inhabitants, there were about sixteen parliamentary voters.
" It is absurd to regard such a Lower House as a national
assembly. The merits that it possessed were of quite
another nature. The purely aristocratic character of the
House rendered it possible for the nobility to introduce its
younger members to parliamentary life at an early age ; and
this made it possible for the younger Pitt to become Prime
Minister at the age of twenty-three. Thus the ruling
aristocracy were able themselves to educate their political
posterity. So does the Prussian Civil Service educate its
posterity by getting them appointed as Referendars. But
with us it is the Civil Service which undertakes this political
education of youth ; in England it is the Parliament. It
stands to reason that, in England, no one can hope to main-
" DIE POLITIK " 201
tain his influence in the Government for any length of time,
unless he have a majority in his favour in both Houses.
And yet, in such an eminently aristocratic State as this, the
Continent has been able to find a sort of hash of democracy,
aristocracy, and monarchy. The truth is that there is not
a trace of democracy, only the shadow of monarchy, and,
in fact, nothing but a well - ordered and powerful aristo-
cracy.
" Of course, if we look more closely at these political
conditions, it would not do to apply the standards of a
moral censor. Such a peculiarly aristocratic Parliament
could only be persuaded by two means, and both were often
employed simultaneously by the same Cabinet. Either a
man had to establish an intellectual supremacy over Parlia-
ment (hence the enormous power of the great orators of
the House of Commons) ; or else, as Robert Walpole said,
he had ' to grease the wheels of the parliamentary machine.'
Enormous bribes were necessary in order to secure the
maintenance of a majority, and this practice was regularly
incorporated into the parliamentary system ; so that, even
at the present day, one of the Secretaries of the Treasury
bears the picturesque title of Patronage Secretary. If it
had not been possible to rely on this method of milking the
cow of the State, such an aristocratic regime could not
possibly have continued, and few people know how calmly
the English themselves allude to it. There is a character-
istic English verse, the gist of which is : Other States govern
by the stern force of the law ; but with us the State is
held together by the gentle bonds of friendship. To live
under such conditions may be very pleasant ; but it is absurd
to hold it up as an example to the stern justice of the German
State. Moreover, in Germany, we fill up subordinate
positions with retired non-commissioned officers (Unter-
offizieren] , that is to say, with men who have already rendered
their modest service to the State. Surely, this is acting
more justly than the English, who allow such positions to
be given to the lackeys and servants of the peerage.
202 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
" So the old English State, with its marvellous internal
mechanism, moved on its way ; not a wheel could be re-
moved from the machine, without bringing it to a standstill.
But, gradually, after the close of the eighteenth century,
we begin to see the rise of the middle classes. We see the
development of the great industries, with their new social
classes and their entirely new interests. Finally, these begin
to knock at the gates of Parliament. The younger Pitt
perceived very early the importance of these new social
developments. At the beginning of the French revolution
he was on the point of making such a reform in the suffrage
as would bring about that at least a portion of the House of
Commons should consist of national representatives. Then
came the great struggle against France, which taxed all the
forces of England ; and Pitt had to postpone his plans for
Reform. So long years went by. The old order persisted,
until finally, at the time of the July Revolution, the social
movement had become so strong that a change was inevit-
able. The democratic forces had become so powerful that
they necessarily asked for a few representatives in Parlia-
ment. In the year 1832 the first Reform Bill was carried,
and it has since been followed by three others. The number
of the voters was doubled, and in about half the electoral
districts the casting vote lay with the middle classes." *
\ When we compare this English parliamentary system
with the constitution of the German Empire it is obvious
that English party government would be impossible in
Germany : |
"If we consider our Reichstag as it exists to-day, how
absurd it seems to think of setting up in Germany a system
of party government ! In the first place, it is in contradic-
tion with the whole imperial constitution. Our Imperial
Chancellor, the sole responsible official, has only to execute
the decrees of the Federal Council (Bundesrath) , the members
1 Politik, ii. pp. 135-43.
" DIE POLITIK " 203
of which are the representatives of the twenty-five govern-
ments. He is thus obliged to support opinions with which
he may be sometimes entirely out of sympathy. These
opinions from the twenty-five Crowns are put before the
Reichstag. The imperial constitution further provides that
no member of the Federal Council may be a member of the
Reichstag. On the other hand, the heads of all the great
departments of the imperial administration are, ipso jure,
members of the Federal Council. / Hence the nature of the
constitution renders a parliamentary government impossible.
I hope that you will meditate over these things a little in
silence, so that you may convince yourselves that there is
an absolute contradiction in the idea of wishing to mould
German conditions to an English pattern .|(| We have all
reason to congratulate ourselves that we do possess a vigorous
monarchical Civil Service, which, in virtue of its own services,
of its social position and also of the authority of the Crown,
has a real and absolute importance. L We have no ground
whatever for wishing that it should be otherwise." l
4. Monarchy
We have already, in a previous chapter (Chap. V.), found
Treitschke contending that a constitutional monarchy is
the form of State best suited to Prussia, f In the Politik he
goes further and, forgetting his own doctrine of the relativity
of constitutions, argues that such a monarchy is the ideal
form of constitution! Not even content with this, he
maintains that the monarch, as being " legitimate," a ruler
by hereditary right, is and ought to be irresponsible for the
exercise of his very considerable powers :}
'f\ On the other hand, the idea of a monarchy is opposed
to tnat of a Republic. While in a Republic the will of the
State is an expression of the will of the people, in a monarchy
the will of the State is an expression of the will of one man')
1 Politik, ii. pp. 162-3.
204 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
who, by virtue of the historic right of a certain family,
wears the crown, and with whom, though he may have
advisers possessing a greater or less degree of authority, the
[ultimate decision always restsjl It would be idle here to
trifle with illustrations. (The essence of monarchy is the
idea that nothing can be done contrary to the will of the
monarch. That is the minimum of monarchical power.
\We find ourselves, then, confronted with the contrast
between unity and plurality] (and that the monarchy
excels any other form of government as a visible expression
of the political power and unity of a nation is proved by
long experience. \ It is for this reason that monarchy seems
so natural, and that it makes such an appeal to the popular
understanding. We Germans had an experience of this
in the first years of our new empire. \ How wonderfully the
idea of a united fatherland was embodied for us in the
person of the venerable Emperor I 1 ] I How much it meant
to us that we could feel once more : This man is Germany ;
there is no gainsaying it ! )
'( A second important feature of a monarchy is that the
will of the State is represented by one single individual.
What is more important, this authority is not transmitted,
but rests on its own right.)! (To borrow a scholastic expres-
sion, we may speak of the self-dependence of the monarchical
authority. The power of a monarchy is inherent in itself,
and it is due to this fact that a monarchy can and does
exercise a higher social justice than any republican form of
government, jftlt is much more difficult for a republic to
be just ; because in a republic there is always party govern-
ment. We actually see in history that monarchies have
always shown more justice than republics. ( It is not hatred
of the monarchy, but hatred of a higher social class which
unites the masses in social revolutions!) It is indeed to the
monarch that the masses will appeal to restrict the power
of individuals. A king who is a king indeed stands so high
above all private concerns that he can look down, as from
a high altitude, upon the various classes and parties.) The
" DIE POLITIK " 205
French who, in their great days, had a very deep and earnest
conception of the monarchy, had the legal rule that, at the
moment that he ascended the throne, the king incurred a
loss of status in the eyes of private law. His private estate
fell in to the Crown." 1
(A monarch, Treitschke says, is the best head of a State ;
because under him all power is concentrated in the hands
of one person, and that person is above all parties. J The
monarch is normally supported by the aristocracy, because
he represents the hereditary principle ; and at the same
time he normally becomes the protector of the masses.) His
exalted position gives him a wider mental horizon than that
of ordinary men. He will understand foreign politics
better than any republican cabinet ; and he will also be
more far-sighted, j " The policy of Prussia before 1866
could only have been carried through by a great king and a
great minister. We were a small house, in Freiburg there
were five of us, who held by Bismarck in those days. That
is the public opinion which is supposed to have supported
Bismarck." 2 1^. dynasty has political traditions which are
in the blood ; and so its policy will be consistent from
generation to generation./ There are special dangers in
the hereditary principle ; but it is a mere superstition that
election finds out better rulers. American Presidents, on
the average, are no more remarkable than the Hohenzollern
Kings of Prussia. (| And the parvenu, however able, has no
political traditions to steady him. Monarchy gives us the
best chance of seeing a great individuality at the head of
the State : )
9
't Throughout history the essential thing in a monarchy
is the living power of personality. Monarchy is based on
the profound theory, ridiculed by all the Liberal word-
mongers of the present day, that men make history./ Any
one, then, who imagines that perpetual motion, which
1 Politik, ii. pp. 52-4. Ibid. p. 56.
206 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
is inconceivable in the physical world, can exist in the
spiritual world, will have republican instincts, and will
imagine that things have been brought about automatically.
Any one, on the contrary, who starts with the assumption
that it is strength of will and strength of personality which
impel history forwards, will be in favour of a monarchical
form of government. Gervinus is the chief representative
of the idea that public opinion or universal conditions
evolved themselves without assistance, and that these
alone moved events forwards. Some even pushed this
folly so far as to maintain that it was a sign of the strength
of a movement, if it originated from the people, and if no
distinguished individual had taken part in it. 1 This was,
on the contrary, the very reason why nothing came of it.
TThe more deeply we study history the more firmly shall we
become convinced that it is an academic abstraction to
speak of an evolution of circumstances. The power of
personality must be involved.| We must not try to construct
history. What is described by subsequent generations as
a historic necessity was a combination of favourable and
unfavourable circumstances ; ^ but there must always have
been first the men who could take the thing in hand.) I
should be very far from wishing to depreciate the efforts of
economic history, but they only take into consideration one
side of history. And if the impression is conveyed that
events take place of themselves, the historian is led astray.
^ The monarchical State is based on the idea that it is
the conscious will of individuals which makes history, and
not the mysterious brainless power of public opinion. ^ fThe
significance of personality of that incalculable force,
which cannot be subdued by any human art is greater in
monarchical history than in any other form of State.]
Frederick the Great said : ' A monarchy is the best or worst
of all forms of State, according to the personality of the
monarch.' That is exaggerated, but it contains a profound
truth. \ Infinitely much depends on the personality of the
1 Cf. Deutsche Geschichte, v. 340.
" DIE POLITIK " 207
ruler. Less depends on the possession by the ruler of some
exceptional talent. That is always a good fortune, but it
is not absolutely necessary. The important thing is the
capacity to take a just view of things." *)
| Finally, the existence of a monarchy is useful, because
it puts the highest positions of authority out of the reach
of adventurers ; and because no one is jealous of the King's
supremacy ; it is no stigma to serve, in the army or elsewhere,
as the subordinate of a hereditary ruler}
1 Still Treitschke admits that such a monarchy, admirable
as it is, could not flourish in every State./ If it is to succeed
there must be public confidence in the dynasty, and in the
monarchical form of government ; the dynasty also must
be capable of discharging its high responsibilities with credit.
There must be a sound parliamentary system, but parlia-
ment must not be so strong that it can prevent the monarch
from exercising his veto upon legislation, from choosing his
ministers without regard to party considerations, and from
shaping the policy of the State. 2 I
Of despotisms based upon the popular suffrage Treitschke
says little in the Politik which he had not already said in the
essay upon Bonapartism. But he makes the generalisation
that such a despotism is always a mere half-way house to
a more constitutional form of government, if it is established
in a progressive country :
.j" For suppose an absolute monarchy of a good kind,
an enlightened despotism ; suppose that the man at the
head of it, with his extraordinary powers, is there only to
promote the welfare of the people with greater energy even
so the necessity will soon appear of governing not only for
the people, but through the people, of allowing the popula-
tion some sort of share in the government of the State. The
golden age of absolutism i$ therefore short. This we can
see in the case of Prussia." ^
1 Politik, ii. pp. 59-60. 2 Ibid. pp. 160-67. * Ibid. pp. 107-8.
208 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
He points out that the older absolutist monarchies, such
as that of France under Louis XIV. or of Prussia under
Frederick the Great, were much weaker in fact than a modern
constitutional State, for instance in the point of ability to
impose taxation. And the whole weight of opposition to
such a government is directed against the person of the
ruler. Even a Bonaparte could only maintain his prestige
by great feats in war and an imposing domestic policy. In
the Bonapartist State the ruler depends in the last resort
on his good luck ; Loyalty and Law count for nothing. 1
Sooner or later the Bonapartist system must give way to a
republic.
5. Democracy and Popular Liberties
What Treitschke has to say about democracy mainly
takes the form of a destructive criticism. { In his eyes the
typical democracy is that which revolutionary France
extolled as the ideal constitution ; a democracy founded on
the dogma of Equality, in which there is manhood suffrage,
and the policy of the government veers and shifts with the
whims of the majority. | Such a constitution makes a strong
appeal to the imagination of the average man, but is wholly
unpractical :
" Just as a theocracy is the most torpid, a monarchy the
most many-sided, and an aristocracy the most systematised
of the various forms of government, democracy is the most
popular and the most universally comprehensible. The
fundamental conception on which it rests is the idea of the
natural equality of all creatures wearing the likeness of man.
This idea has a certain sublimity, and it is not surprising
that it often exercises such an intoxicating effect. We know
very well that it is only half true ; that it can never quite
be realised ; yet it is rooted deep in human nature. ( That
the idea of inequality is just as true, that, though we are
all equal when regarded as human beings, we are all unequal
J Politik, ii. pp. 202-6.
" DIE POLITIK " 209
when regarded as individuals, is not intelligible to the
vulgar understanding. ) The vulgar understanding conceives
an absolute equality. At a certain stage of national civilisa-
tion a democracy may assist the progress of culture. Suffi-
ciently well carried out, it is the most popular form of State,
and, in countries where it prevails, will be taken so much
as a matter of course that any other form of govern-
ment will be regarded as an absurdity or else as a brutal
despotism. But however different the character it may
assume under varying social conditions, it must, by its
very nature, always retain one feature, namely, that its
ideal is the 77/409 /ioz/a/r^o?. fThe people must be the
absolute monarch, and the rights of the people must be
extended, until finally an absolute equality is reached, at
any rate on paper. That is the goal of democracy. '\ 1
\ It goes without saying that this extreme democracy is
foredoomed to failure. The outward forms of it may be
kept for a considerable time, but only when they serve as a
disguise for the rule of an aristocracy or a plutocracy : \
" Artificial democracies are comparatively frequent as
compared with artificial monarchies and aristocracies. A
nobility cannot be manufactured if it does not exist already,
and it is equally impossible to call into existence a dynasty
at will. On the other hand, it is quite possible that an
over-precipitate revolution may introduce democratic forms,
where they can have no natural basis in the national customs
nor in the prevailing inequality of social relations. And
these democratic forms may continue, because they are very
elastic, and because they are quite compatible with an
aristocratic element. This is what we see at the present
day in Berne. I Or consider present-day France. Under
a purely democratic constitution, we find, in point of fact,
a consummate plutocracy, the oligarchic power of a few
great banking-houses, which quietly avail themselves of
1 Politik, ii. pp. 249-50.
p
210 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
democratic institutions, in order to exploit them for their
own purposes." 1 \
He admits that there are exceptional cases in which an
extreme democracy shows some vitality : small city-states
like ancient Athens and medieval Florence ; modern county-
states, like Switzerland before the age of railways, in which
there are no great contrasts of wealth and poverty. A
democracy may be relatively stable if the citizens have a
profound respect for the law, or if they are by nature
conservative ; ( and democracies naturally incline to con-
servatism : f
" The reproach of an excessive instability is by no means
invariably applicable to a democracy. ( {lt may happen that
an urban democracy is characterised by a certain restlessness,
both because it lacks a strong public service, and because
a class of professional politicians, with inherited political
traditions, is formed with difficulty in a democracy./ And
where these elements are missing, the incalculable caprice
of accident or fortune may, of course, produce an excessive
instability. On the whole, however, the remark of a French
historian has always proved true : that there is nothing
less liberal than the people. The people is peculiarly
susceptible to every kind of direct and unsophisticated
emotion, both good and bad. It may be carried away by
clever demagogues, but, as a rule, it clings to the old things
from sheer force of habit. We are not justified in speaking
unreservedly of the restless instability of a democracy. [ In
genuine democracies there are very apt to spring up party-
antagonisms, which are handed down from generation to
generation ; and, owing to the indifferent education of
the electors, certain catchwords may acquire a magic
effect, and may continue to operate through generations.]
Switzerland may be described as the most conservative as
well as the most parsimonious country in Eujope. If we
* Politik, ii. pp. 251-2.
" DIE POLITIK " 211
consider the seven cantons of the Federation, we are
astonished when we realise that it was here that the Borro-
maus League was concluded in 1586, for the glory of the
Catholic Church. Nor could it be said of the Americans
that they are radical in their politics, though they are
radical in their social life. On the other hand, certain
democratic principles are guarded with a reverence, which
would be impossible in the more turbulent civilisation of
the Old World. Such ideas as that of the infallibility of the
voice of the people persist with a vigorous tenacity. But
the populace in New York is arch-reactionary, and a barrier
in the way of all far-reaching reform. It concluded with
the Tammany ring a compact of reciprocal connivance, for it
feels perfectly happy under the thumb of the brothel-keeper.
" In spite of the conservative disposition of the people
at large, it cannot be denied that the influence of political
demagogues, who know how to flatter the mob and work
on its feelings, may be a great danger in a democracy. The
average demagogue, too, stands on a lower moral plane than
the court - flatterer. A man who lavishes extravagant
praise on the virtues of a prince, may actually believe in
those virtues ; but a demagogue, when he flatters the
populace, knows that the real intelligence of the people
resides in their horny fists ; and he lies knowingly. That is
why demagogues are among the most repulsive figures
in political history. Especially contemptible is their
hypocrisy. In fact, the most endurable are the brutal
blusterers like Danton, whose bloodthirsty vociferations at
least smacked of nature. He is himself a beast, and there-
fore strives to wake the beast in others. On the other
hand, what hypocrisy we find in Robespierre ! Yet he was
extremely popular. Every woman of the market-halls was
prepared to take her oath that he was a paragon of all the
virtues. Such natures have the power to utterly confuse the
course of statesmanship ; and their influence on the nerves of
an excitable people may give rise to. incalculable decisions." 1
1 Politik, ii. pp. 264-5.
212 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
\But these conservative democracies only prove how
easily men may be misled by catchwords. They arise
because the citizens are under the delusion that equality
means true liberty, and that there is something divine in
the opinion of the majority. They are only able to survive
while they can dispense with a large standing army an
army is always monarchical with an efficient Civil Service,
and with centralised government : I
" The organisation of the Civil Service and the army
presents peculiar difficulties in a Republic. The United
States, for instance, are not in a position to set up a good
and responsible Civil Service, because the very name of
politics has with them acquired an evil significance,
just as at one time in Germany the word ' political '
(politisch) implied much the same as ' Machiavellian.'
In the United States, therefore, the State cannot assume
as many responsibilities as it can in Germany. Great
social legislation is impossible, because the best elements of
society move outside the sphere of the State. As a result,
the service of the State loses its halo and its dignity ; and
this fact alone accounts for the difficulty experienced in the
matter of the supreme power. | In connection with this, there
is a further question, a terribly difficult question in every
Republic, namely, how the supreme power is to be
organised. A single man, elected by the popular vote, like
Louis Napoleon in France in 1848, has such an enormous
power that republican institutions can scarcely offer any
resistance to it. Napoleon could truthfully say to the
National Assembly : ' I alone have more votes behind me
than all of you together.' What anxious deliberation was
given to the question of founding the presidentship of the
modern French Republic. It was felt that there must be
one man at the head, but that he must not be too powerful.
He must, therefore, be chosen, not by the all-powerful people,
but by the Parliament, that is to say, by a matter of
a few hundred votes. And then was added the amusing
" DIE POLITIK " 213
inconsistency to which I have already referred, namely,
that this President was not himself held responsible for his
actions as President, with the single exceptions of a coup
d'etat or a breach of the constitution ; but he was to govern
through the medium of responsible ministers.
" In the United States, where the Republic has been
taken very seriously, the President is at the same time
an official, who must accept responsibility for the actions
of himself and his ministers. Advisers cannot, there-
fore, be forced on him against his will, as they can be
under certain circumstances on a monarch, who is not
responsible. Government by parliament, therefore, is
rendered quite impossible. The American President, just
because he is responsible, is a far more powerful man than
a King of England. It must be remembered in this con-
nection that the first colonists in New England had a very
long monarchical past behind them. Thence originated
the custom of placing a single official a governor at the
head of every colony. This governor became later on a
mere official of the Republic. Thus the occupation of the
highest positions by one man became the rule, and, as a
logical consequence, one President was placed at the head
of the whole Union. The danger of his great power is
diminished, in the first place by the fact that he is placed
over a Federal State, and, in the second place, by the fact
that the sphere of his activity is very much restricted.
Foreign policy, the coinage, and the Post Office constitute
the whole extent of his activities. Therefore, in spite of
this apparent power, he cannot really become a danger to
the Democracy. The powers of the Governors are also
very limited, because the individual State has very little
governing power, and its life is in fact more like that of a
free community.
" Under different circumstances, however for instance,
in a centralised State like France the power of a single
ruler may present a serious danger to the democratic republic.
On the other hand, the appointment of a Committee at the
214 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
head of a Democracy involves the danger that the Govern-
ment itself may be split up into parties, which will be at war
with one another. An instructive instance of a Government
by Committee is presented in the Directory of the French
Revolution days, which came to an end with the i8th
Brumaire. Such a despicable Government as this Directory
has seldom been seen in history. The ancient customs of
the State also count for a great deal in this question. In
Switzerland, for instance, ever since she has been a Confedera-
tion, government by Council has been the rule ; and many
party differences have here been quietly overcome for the
sake of peace." l
Treitschke notices, however, that in a Federal State
democracy seems to be comparatively efficient, and that it
makes the smooth working of the Federal government an
easier matter to secure. Switzerland and the United States
have been the most successful of Federal States just because
they are composed of democratic communities ; whereas in
a monarchical federation, like the German Empire, the
monarchies of the constituent States feel that their dignity
and power are impaired by the union.
| These observations do not carry us very far towards
solving the question : What is the right amount of influence
to give the people in a well-ordered State ? Roughly,
Treitschke accepts the rule of Aristotle, that the people
should be allowed to criticise, but not to originate measures)
No laws should be made without their approval (expressed
through a representative body), and they should have the
power of arraigning the heads of executive departments for
illegality though, in a monarchy, this power should not
be applicable to the King, but only to his Ministers. /|fBut,
like Burke, Treitschke holds that good government is only
possible when the people leave a considerable discretion
to their representatives ; and he uses the word representa-
tives in a wide sense, to cover both a constitutional king and
1 Politik, ii. pp. 276-8.
" DIE POLITIK " 215
a permanent official. j (He thinks that it would be disastrous
if the people or the popular assembly should push the right
of criticism to the point of obstructing the executive in its
daily work (as, for instance, by refusing supplies). The
people should have patience ; they should give a fair trial
to a policy which it is their first inclination to reject.
He does not attach importance to the old specifics by
which political theorists had imagined that the liberties of
the subject could be guaranteed. He values trial by jury,
for instance, simply as an institution which, if reformed,
might lead to the better execution of criminal justice : 1
" Trial by jury has greatly developed in England since
the thirteenth century. It is closely interwoven with the
customs of the nation, and is looked upon as a corner-stone
of English freedom. Two important factors have contri-
buted to this end : in the first place, the peculiarly exalted
social and economic position of the English Bench. There
are only a handful of judges, but they enjoy a princely
esteem. They travel about the country and hold trials by
jury, and the legal instruction which they impart to the
jury has an immense influence. The extent of their power
is very great. The presiding judge can send back the jury
to the consultation-chamber without ceremony, if they have
found a verdict which he considers absurd. On the other
hand, the presiding judge is in England compelled to
practise the self-restraint which befits the dignity of his office ;
whereas in France the judge attacks the accused as if he
were an enemy, and uses every endeavour to extort from
him a confession of guilt, a proceeding wholly inconsistent
with the disinterestedness proper to a judge.
" That unanimity is required of the jury in England is
due first and foremost to this far-reaching authority of the
judge, whereas in France, though the English trial by jury
was adopted there after the Revolution, verdicts were
admitted which had been carried by a majority only.
Here it is quite certain that the English practice is
216 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
the only just one. The verdict of a majority is just as little
conclusive in a question of the guilt or innocence of a prisoner
as it would be in the case of a religious or a scientific problem.
The question : ' Did A murder B ? ' cannot be decided by
the vote of a majority. The demand for unanimity, despite
its rigour, is on the whole fully justified. It may afford an
illustration of the dynamic influence of character. How
often it happens that a single juryman decides those who
are wavering, because he is inwardly convinced of the justice
of his opinion ! The English have clung to this principle
up to the present day, with an energy which does them
honour. \In Germany, on the contrary, we have far too
much regard for the moral cowardice which plays such an
important part in the system of trial by jury. / Many men
are only too pleased to let themselves be out-voted. Such
natures are to be found everywhere, and especially among
the class of people who call themselves liberal-minded.
With us, these liberal-minded individuals are just the type
of men who will let themselves be out-voted. The juryman
is particularly exposed to this moral temptation to say ' No ! '
in the silent hope of being out-voted. Hence the rigorous
English practice of unanimity is entirely to be commended.
("It has been these two considerations the powerful
influence of a highly esteemed Bench of Judges on the lay
assessors, and the principle of unanimity, which have
ensured the traditional respect enjoyed by the English trial
by jury.) We Germans, unfortunately, have not adopted
this institution directly from England, but only a distorted
copy of it through France. We have endeavoured to adapt
it to some extent to our own conditions ; and we are beginning
to forsake the French model, and to work out a procedure
for ourselves in criminal cases, which will be more in accord-
ance with English methods. (We have also come to realise
that it is not a matter of political freedom that we have to
do with here. \ Honest men can only remember with shame
that the old-fashioned German Liberalism even adjudged to
the jury a right to suspend the law.
" DIE POLITIK " 217
" The only question is whether the co-operation of the
layman is necessary or dangerous to the course of justice.
The arguments in support of co-operation are at once
apparent. The opinion of the average man is that, if laymen
co-operate in a judicial decision, the verdict is more likely
to be a fair one ; and, further, that the finding of a verdict
necessitates a certain practical experience of life, which a
judge is very apt to lose. That is undeniably a bright side
of the system. But it has another and a very dark side.
In the first place, the jury are over-susceptible to the prompt-
ings of the emotions ; and, in the second place, there is the
danger of insufficient knowledge. / As far as the first point is
concerned, it is not correct to assert that jurymen are on the
whole more inclined to give an acquittal than a learned
judge. In the majority of cases this is true, but there will
always be some cases in which the jury are too severe in
their judgments, because they feel themselves threatened
in their social relations. The Social Democrats are, in
particular, likely to be the victims of this tendency. Think
of the famous Socialist case of 1870. In this case, the
Social Democrats were condemned without any real proof.
This would scarcely have been done by a learned body of
judges ; but laymen, confronted with such a party, and
trembling for their own purses, feel their own party
prejudices rise up." 1
" On the whole, we are brought to the conclusion that
the present form of co-operation of the jury in criminal
justice is not very satisfactory. In one respect, too much
power is given them, and in another too little. The jury
alone decide the nature of the offence and the prisoner's
guilt or innocence ; but, in the apportioning of the punish-
ment, they have no voice. /This must be fixed by the learned
judge. So what ought to be one process is divided into
two. In practice, an attempt is made to compensate for
this by giving the Judge very far-reaching powers of in-
structing the jury concerning the law, so that in this way
1 Politik, ii. pp. 437-40.
218 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
he has some power to influence the verdict on the nature of
the offence and the prisoner's guilt or innocence. 1 The fact
remains that the co-operation of the jury extends at once
too far and not far enough, and, on the whole, it is obvious
that our present mode of procedure in criminal cases is quite
unsound ; that in every way it is only a provisional arrange-
ment without any guiding principle. This question first
came up when the regulations were made which are still
in force. They are the result of various parliamentary
compromises. We have but to recollect the part played
by Lasker's proposals. It is only serious offences that are
tried with the co-operation of a jury. The majority of
minor offences are judged by the Provincial Court (Land-
gericht), by a purely learned Bench, without any lay
co-operation. Again, in the case of quite small transgres-
sions, we have a single Justice, and in addition, to avoid
the establishment of a despotism, a number of unpaid
assessors. That is a purely provisional arrangement. There
is no reason why the majority of offences of the middle class
should be judged without, and the heavy and light offences
with, the co-operation of the layman.
" We shall finally adopt everywhere a form of trial by
judge and jury, in which the practical experience of the
judge shall co-operate in the decision on the nature of the
offence and the guilt or innocence of the accused. But, on
the other hand, the laymen shall have a voice in the appor-
tioning of the punishment. There is no fear that these lay
assessors will allow themselves to be browbeaten by the
judge. Experience has shown that the opposite is generally
the case, and that they exhibit a very healthy and stubborn
(sometimes too stubborn) self-reliance. But, if these
lay assessors unite in consultation with the judges,
their activity will be kept within the normal. In their
deliberations they will associate with the judges on an equal
footing ; not as one authority pitted against another. This
may lead to a mutual interchange of benefits ; the judge
contributing his learning and his knowledge of law, and
" DIE POLITIK " 219
the layman his knowledge of the world and his practical
experience ; and in this way the layman will co-operate
in the apportioning of the punishment. The superiority
of technical knowledge will, however, undoubtedly show
itself in the consultation chamber, even if in these courts
the number of laymen slightly exceeds that of the Judges." l
( His own pet safeguard of liberty is, as we have already
seen (Chap. V.), a system of local self-government./ But
in the Politik, which represents his final attitude on this
subject, we find that this self-government is not to give the
average man much scope for educating himself in practical
politics, or for shaping the destinies of his own neighbour-
hood. Local government, we are told, must be either
aristocratic or bureaucratic ; and in some respects a bureau-
cratic system will more nearly correspond to the ideal
which the average citizen has before his eyes : f
'f It is only natural that all local government should be
aristocratic in character. It is impossible to entrust to the
masses as such those official functions which are performed
by the citizen and the landowner./ It is quite natural
that these functions should be entrusted to the more powerful
and influential citizens. )To be sure, the border-line with
us is always placed very low ; but local government must
always by its very nature be aristocratic. That is why the
extreme Radical parties have very little taste for it. It is
also apparent from this fact that universal suffrage is absurd
in the case of municipal elections. ^The result of universal
suffrage would be that the classes which now control the
administration would be completely thrust into the back-
ground. If, however, such a system is irrational in the case
of a municipality, it cannot be good for the State. tyThe
immense advantage of all local government is that, by its
means, the sense of personal responsibility, and a certain
1 Poliiik, ii. pp. 443-5.
220 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
measure (if only a small measure) of practical knowledge of
politics is propagated over a widening circle.) Where, as in
France, there is no true local government, the citizen only
confronts the State as a critic. Honest peasants and citizens,
by collaborating in local administration, are able to realise
something of the difficulty of governing and of the responsi-
bility of those whose task it is to govern. ^In fact, a man
who is not a government official can, as a rule, only acquire
a practical knowledge of politics in this practical school of
local government. ]
"{The dark side of local government is that it appeals
to the social selfishness of the ruling classes. The danger of
social injustice arises ; the danger that the special interests
of the class which controls the local government will be
too exclusively favoured. The average government official
will often err through ignorance of the facts of a situation.
But, on the other hand, he has no class interests to serve in
his relations to the great social powers. He will preserve
the authority of the government ; he feels himself a part
of it ; and, moreover, our German Civil Service is composed
of elements so various in class and culture that we may
safely predict that, in the generality of cases, this monarchical
Civil Service will avoid a social injustice. Why should a
civil servant in Germany prefer a nobleman before a
labourer ? j Local Government, however, is controlled by
the influential, land-owning classes. Hence it is natural
that the ordinary man should place his trust in a Police
Superintendent (Amtsvorsteher) rather than in a royal Sub-
Prefect (Landrath).) This is the danger of all local govern-
ment. It is this that has caused the downfall of the proud
English institution of Justices of the Peace. It had become
too exclusively aristocratic. The ordinary man felt that
he could no longer get justice against any one of exalted
position from these aristocratic Justices of the Peace. So
at the present day this institution scarcely exists, more than
in name, in England.
\" A second defect of local government is the danger of
" DIE POLITIK " 221
dilettantism. We may count on a government civil service
having at least a theoretical knowledge of its business ; but
in local government there is always the danger of amateurish-
ness and of a crude naturalism. That is the reason why
the people, who invariably consider the material side of
things, are so prejudiced against local government.} The
genuine Manchester man, who believes that we are all solely
destined to buy cheap and sell dear, argues quite correctly
from this hypothesis that the government civil service
would manage the affairs of local administration much
better than these local government officials ; and, technically,
there is much to be said for this point of view. It cannot be
denied that such a bureaucrat as Baron Haussman under
Napoleon III. may technically render very important
services, and that this energetic man's organisation of the
Paris streets was executed with a skill and a rapidity which
would have been impossible to a wrangling Municipal
Council. ^ But the most important question at issue here
a question at once moral and political is the political
education of the nation. ) There can be no doubt that the
habitual administration of everyday business has had a
very educative effect on the German people. For the
exercise of parliamentary activity a certain theoretical
knowledge is especially needed ; but, with us, the great
political force of the nation has been found in those men
who, in the towns and in the country, have acquired a real
acquaintance with practical conditions." 1
In 1888 the English Parliament sanctioned a new type
of local self-government, of which the characteristic organ
was the County Council elected by the ratepayers. This
was an attempt to do what Treitschke had pronounced
impossible, to make local government really democratic.
But he would not admit that the problem had been solved ;
these local parliaments did none of the work of administra-
tion, which was left to paid officials. The County Council
1 Politik, ii. pp. 493-5.
222 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
only served to conceal another step in the direction of
bureaucracy :
" Such a council has no real and vital authority. We
have here the beginning of a new and far more democratic,
but at the same time far more unemancipated period of
English administration. An administration which does not
actively administer is indeed one only in name. England,
then, in spite of her brilliant national history, may ultimately
find herself endowed with a bureaucracy comparable to that
of France. Experiences are still too recent to enable us to
dogmatise on this point, but one thing we can assert : that the
democratisation of England, which began with the Reform
Bill of 1832, was enormously accelerated by the institution
of the County Councils ; and, in view of the very limited
outlook of English Radicalism, it is impossible to say what
the future may not bring. Appearances are not favourable,
but they are very instructive, for they prove that democracy
and freedom are not identical, but very often antitheses.
"It is manifestly the example of the French that has
influenced England in this matter. Otherwise, English
history is thoroughly insular ; though, since the middle of
this century, it has developed in ways which point to a
continental and especially a French influence. It is as
certain as that the Reform Bill would never have been
passed without the July Revolution that certain bureau-
cratic notions, which have found their way into England, had
their origin in France. France has a system of local govern-
ment which, judged by our German notions, is wholly
unworthy of the name. We may illustrate the position
by pointing out that here Germany, as so often happens,
occupies a middle place between France and England.
In England some time ago the Civil Service was entirely
excluded from all but the most important offices ; France
has its bureaucracy, with a semblance of local government ;
Germany, on the other hand, has a combination of state
civil servants and of local self-government, which is in
" DIE POLITIK " 223
conformity with our actual conditions, and the value of
which had been proved in practice." 1
(But the system which he preferred, the system of the
Prussian municipality, bears a strong resemblance in
principle to the English scheme of 1888. In both there is a
representative element and an expert element ; the main
difference seems to be that the Prussian system leaves the
municipality a large sphere of action over which the central
government has little or no control : )
\It is Germany's pride that no other country has
attacked the problem of local government with such intel-
ligence as herself. In the Middle Ages the civic freedom
of the towns developed to extravagant proportions. Some
of our towns were subject to the Emperor alone, which
meant that they exercised all the functions of an independent
executive. This led to a period of remarkable prosperity
for the German towns ; and it may be seriously questioned
whether the magnificent development of the municipal
police at the end of the Middle Ages is to be considered as
the supreme achievement of the old communal life or as the
beginning of the modern State. Either view is in a certain
sense justified. The authorities in these little autonomous
communities began to exhibit in all directions a consciousness
of their educational responsibilities, and to display such a
many-sided activity as had never before entered into the
natural economy of the State. Then came the reaction.
The old French saying, which had already been proved true
in France at the time when it originated, proved true in
the case of the imperial towns. By striving for too great a
freedom we fall into too base a slavery. The new strength
of the modern State could not tolerate the existence of
such autonomous communities. So there began a time
of oppression ; and in the eighteenth century we see the
once flourishing German towns become completely torpid
1 Politik, ii. pp. 500-502.
224 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
and paralysed. The wretched conditions of our decaying
imperial towns in Germany, the geniessenden Familien of
Nuremberg, only find a counterpart in England. Then
Frederick William I. laid in Prussia the foundations of such
a new freedom as he himself neither dreamed of nor desired.
Nothing lay further from his thoughts than the intention of
giving greater freedom to the Prussian towns. His first
object was to establish order. He sent his royal function-
aries to make a thorough investigation of municipal
affairs and to do away with nepotism ; and it was these
reorganised municipalities which afterwards showed the
greatest readiness to come under the new laws for municipal
government, because in these towns, at any rate, an external
order and justice had been restored.
" These new Prussian municipal statutes were the work
of that great man, of whom my teacher, Dahlmann, remarked
that he was, in a deeper sense than King Henry the Fowler,
the builder of German cities Baron vom Stein. The
magnificent prosperity of the German municipalities in
the nineteenth century is beyond dispute. (^This striking
development is essentially the result of freedom, of a genuine
self-government under a monarchical control?\ The sureness
of intuition by which Baron vom Stein discovered the point
at which pressure must be applied is only another evidence
of his practical genius. It was impossible at that time
to begin by reorganising the rural communes (Land-
gemeinden) and circles (Kreise), because the emancipation
of the peasantry had then only just begun ; and these newly
emancipated serfs still regarded their former lords so mis-
trustfully, that any co-operation on their part was practically
out of the question. In the towns there were not the same
harsh social contrasts ; but, even in the towns, it needed the
hard apprenticeship of the War of Independence before the
collaboration of the citizens in the administration became
fully practical. During the War of Independence in whole
districts not a single Government official was to be found ;
all were fighting with the colours ; and therefore the munici-
" DIE POLITIK " 225
palities had to look after their own administration. On the
whole, it may be said that Stein's plan was the right one,
since either directly or indirectly it has ultimately been
adopted by all the German municipalities. Before 1848
there was a regular cult of local government. In the thirties,
municipal government was called Prussia's political bible ;
and the great towns vied with one another in the noble
ambition to have the best government.
" Stein was entirely original in his work. He had only
a few experiences in his County of Mark to work from.
'\The principles of these municipal statutes of 1808 are
the simplest conceivable. They start from the assumption
that the town should have an absolute control over the
administration of its own revenues, as well as over its
police force for the purpose of public safety ; and that these
functions should be discharged through a co-operation
of the magistrature with representatives of the town.}
The Town Council (Stadtrath] and the representatives partici-
pated directly in the administration by a system of com-
mittees and boards (Korporationen) , and were not merely
intended to be a court of appeal beside a Burgomaster.
In organising the magistrature a very happy notion was
hit upon the combination of unpaid and paid officials.
This combination has proved thoroughly workable. The
conditions of the larger municipalities are so complex that
they necessitate the employment of a regular staff of expert
officials. One result followed, indeed, which the legislator
had never anticipated. As a result of the ease of modern
locomotion and of the constant traffic from one district to
another, there developed inevitably a kind of vagrant
municipal bureaucracy, such as Stein could never have
foreseen. Consider our municipal notabilities : Herr von
Forckenbeck was mayor of Elbing, then of Breslau, then
of Berlin. That has become a common occurrence. If,
however, we look at the actual results, we see that the
existence of this vagrant municipal bureaucracy has not
impaired that healthy spirit of citizenship which the exercise
226 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
of municipal administration has aroused in our nation.
Every municipality has an individuality of its own, even
though it may include a number of men who did not originally
belong to it." l
This Prussian system has been highly praised by com-
petent observers ; it may well serve as a training in practical
politics, and as a field for the political ambitions of the
ordinary man. Treitschke, however, does not seem to ask
himself the very natural question whether it will always be
possible to base the two halves of government on radically
different principles ; to make self-government the rule in
local politics, and paternal government the rule in national
affairs. This contradiction existed in the Prussia that he
knew. Did it follow that the contradiction would always
be accepted as natural and necessary ? True he would
tolerate free criticism of the central government, and only
objected to giving the critics a weapon by which they could
compel the Government to justify itself or else to yield. In
this way he hoped to secure stability for the State. A less
optimistic theorist might be inclined to ask whether such a
system would not lead directly and inevitably to revolutions.
f A paternal government becomes too confident of its own
wisdom ; a populace which is tired of merely airing its
grievances becomes bitterly hostile to the Government. )
1 Politik, ii. pp. 509-12.
CHAPTER X
TREITSCHKE ON ENGLISH HISTORY IN THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY
TREITSCHKE'S Deutsche Geschichte im Neunzehnten Jahr-
hundert only extends to the year 1848, and covers the dullest
period of German history in the century. None the less
it is probably the best known, among German readers, of all
the great histories written by German historians. It has
taken, in Germany, the rank which forty years ago was held
by Macaulay's History in England. There is no doubt that
it has done a great deal towards shaping the current German
view of the nineteenth century. It is therefore not uninter-
esting to put together some of the chief passages of the book
which are devoted to English institutions and to English
policy. They are the more significant because they were
written before England and Germany had become open
rivals for sea -power and colonies. They show that the
policy pursued by Germany in the last fourteen years is the
natural outcome of ambitions and resentments which were
simmering in the minds of Prussian politicians as early as
1879, when Treitschke published his first volume. For the
outlines of the German case against England are clearly
sketched there. More striking still is the firm conviction
that England had been decadent since 1832 a conviction
which nothing ever seems to have shaken, though he admits
that British power had grown enormously in the course of
the nineteenth century. To the extracts from the Geschichte
are added ( 14) three from political essays of 1876-77 ;
227
228 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
these extracts deal principally with the question of Turkey,
but incidentally with England's position as a world-power.
i. The Congress of Chdtillon-sur-Seine, February 1814.
This Congress was held at a moment when the Allies
believed that the way to Paris was open, and that they had
only to decide what terms of peace should be imposed upon
Napoleon. The Emperor was represented by Caulaincourt ;
the principal powers with whom France had to deal were
Austria, Prussia, Russia, and England. Napoleon found the
terms of the Allies too hard and broke off the negotiations.
But the Conference had the effect of bringing the Allies more
closely together ; it was followed by the Treaty of Chaumont
(March 9, 1814), in which they bound themselves not to treat
separately with Napoleon :
"\
" At the very beginning of the Congress of Chatillon, N
England took advantage of the pecuniary embarrassments
of her allies to effect a master-stroke of commercial policy.
If there was any one of Napoleon's plans which was justi-
fied, it was certainly his struggle for the freedom of the sea.
That balance of the powers, craved for by an exhausted world,
was not secure, so long as one single State governed all the
seas according to its own whim and fancy, and naval war-
fare, to the shame of humanity, still bore the character of
a privileged piracy. Prussia and Russia, ever since the
league of armed neutrality, 1 had always stood for the prin-
ciples of a humane maritime law, which should not hamper
the trade of the neutral countries. They hoped now to see
these theories of Frederick and Catherine recognised by the
unanimous decision of all Europe. England, however, felt
1 The First Armed Neutrality was an alliance formed (Feb. 1780)
between Russia (under Catherine II.), Sweden, and Denmark to maintain
the rights of neutral vessels in time of war ; it was subsequently joined by
Frederick the Great of Prussia. The Second Armed Neutrality, a league
between Russia, Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark, was formed in 1800 with
the same object.
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 229
that this would threaten the very foundations of her power.
Lord Cathcart 1 declared frankly : ' If we had ever admitted
the principles of the Armed Neutrality, French trade would
never have been overthrown, and Napoleon would be
ruling over the world at the present day ' ; Great Britain
would never admit any other law in regard to the sea than
the general rules of international law. As it happened,
other and very much more urgent questions were claiming
the attention of the three continental powers just then ;
moreover, all without exception lacked fresh supplies of
money for the war ; and their rich ally was prepared to pay
another five million pounds sterling. Thus England insisted
in the first sitting, on the 5th of February, that there should be
no debate on the question of maritime law. Caulaincourt 2
did not protest ; he had more pressing cares. Hence it was
that, through all the long peace negotiations at Chatillon,
Paris and Vienna, nothing was done to remove the foulest
stain on modern international law ; and public opinion,
blindly enthusiastic as it was for glorious Albion, found in
this no cause for vexation.
" Once having started, Lord Castlereagh 3 attempted im-
mediately to realise a second favourite ambition of British
politics, and to secure for the Netherlands a sufficient com-
plement of territory. No one protested, although it had
already been resolved that all claims for indemnification were
to be postponed until the conclusion of peace ; for no one
could afford to quarrel with the great moneyed power ; and
all were agreed concerning the European necessity of a united
Netherland State. On the I5th of February, at the head-
quarters at Troyes, a draft of an agreement was put forward,
providing that the old Dutch republic should be placed
under the hereditary rule of the House of Orange and should
be expanded to include Belgium, as well as a portion of the
German bank of the Rhine with Cologne and Aix. Even
1 British representative.
2 The French representative at Chatillon.
3 British representative at Chatillon.
230 HEINRICH VON TRE1TSCHKE
Hardenberg * agreed to this in principle, only making a
reservation in favour of the German north-west frontier ;
even he was unwilling that the Dutch should encroach quite
so far upon purely German territory." 2
2. The Character of Wellington
The following character-sketch occurs in Treitschke's
chapter on Waterloo, or, as he calls the battle, La Belle
Alliance. Incidentally Treitsckhe appraises the strong and
the weak points of the British " mercenary " army :
" Wellington is one of those rare instances of men who,
without creative power, almost without genius, have risen
to the heights of historic fame merely through force of
character, through power of will and self-control. Who
would have prophesised a world-wide fame for this slow-
witted boy, who was never really young, and whose brothers,
Richard 3 and Henry, 4 far outshone him in talent ? A son of
one of those High Church Tory families, who had settled down
as conquerors in Ireland, and, in the midst of the hostile
Celts, preserved only the more inflexibly the pride of race
and class, the manners and want of manners of the English
mother-country he had, in accordance with the old English
aristocratic custom, rapidly passed through subordinate
positions in the army by dint of money and influence, and,
at the age of twenty-five, was in command of a regiment
in the Revolutionary War. Next he learnt the art of govern-
ing in India, under the supervision of his brother Richard
Wellesley, that gifted man who established the position of
Great Britain as a great power in the East. Exacting with
1 Prussian representative at Chatillon.
a Deutsche Geschichte, i. pp. 547-8.
3 Richard Colley Wellesley, Marquis Wellesley (1760-1842). He was
appointed Governor-General of India in 1797, and held this office until
1805. In 1809-1812 he was Minister for foreign affairs. In the years 1820-
1828 he was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.
4 Henry Wellesley, Baron Cowley, was the British Ambassador in Spain
(1811-1822), at Vienna (1823-1831), and at Paris (1841-1846).
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 231
himself and with others, unswervingly obedient and devoted
to duty, just and honourable, always cold, steadfast and
intelligent, Arthur Wellesley proved himself completely
equal to all the difficult military and political tasks imposed
upon a military commander in India. With what boldness
this prudent man, who carefully weighed every contingency
in advance, could seize his luck at the right moment, was
evidenced in the brilliant victory at Assaye * over a sixfold
superior force of Hindus, and by the bold charge into the
mountains of the Mahrattas. Returned to Europe, he took
part in the notorious marauding expedition to Copenhagen,
valiant and capable as ever, but also completely indifferent
to the sad fate of the feeble opponent who had been so
wantonly attacked. For never was a son of Britain so
completely impregnated with the old-fashioned national idea :
' My country, right or wrong.' Subsequently he assumed
the chief command in Portugal ; filled from the outset with
the calm confidence of victory, he remarked drily : ' I
will hold my own.' The theatrical magnificence and pomp
of the new French warfare made no impression on this cool
intelligence. He never entertained any doubt concerning
the ultimate downfall of Napoleon. During the six years
of the Peninsular War he trained his mercenaries to a con-
summate skill in all the arts of old-fashioned warfare.
" He paid no attention to innovations and far-reaching
reforms ; he never rewarded a service ; he never favoured
a promotion from the ranks. He disliked self-reliant and
active-minded generals, and, while his large-hearted brother
Richard allowed an unrestricted freedom of action to gifted
subordinates, Arthur employed merely reliable and efficient
tools and showed a keen intuition in discovering them. His
adjutants were for the most part young peers, who, mounted
on the best horses in the world, punctually executed the
orders of their commander, and obediently renounced any
opinions of their own. He knew his own worth ; he said
1 On September 23, 1803 ; a victory over the Mahrattas, not over
Hindus.
232 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
frankly to his friends in the Tory Cabinet : ' You have no
one but myself ' ; he demanded an extraordinary and
unrestricted authority, which he never abused, and which
enabled him to suspend any officer and send him home
without further ceremony. During a battle his generals
had to do what they judged best in the positions assigned to
them ; but to deal with the opponents immediately in front
of them was the limit of their authority, and to exceed it
was to incur the penalties of martial law. The officers had
little affection for this stern figure, who never thawed into
any friendly geniality, or betrayed a trace of good nature
or generosity, even when this would not have been detri-
mental to the service. The penetrating gaze of the cold eyes,
the proud features with the aquiline nose and the tightly-
closed, inflexible mouth, the stern commanding ring of the
voice, forbade any familiar intercourse. But all obeyed,
and all felt a pride in satisfying one so hard to satisfy. His
officers never ventured, even in friendly conversation, to
blame or even to criticise the orders of their commander.
They followed his commands blindfold, like inscrutable
decrees of fate ; on rare occasions he condescended to address
them, and then his exposition of his plans was slow, ponder-
ous and inelegant, but resolute and clear.
" Such an absolute independence was only possible in the
small armies of the old days. Wellington was, in fact,
happiest when, like the mercenary leaders of the sixteenth
century, the Frundsbergs, Emsers, and Leyvas, he himself
stood in person at the centre of his army, and had his regi-
ments assembled about him in serried ranks, so that he could
almost survey them with his own eyes. Placed far below
the highly aristocratic officers, who obtained their com-
missions by purchase, and separated from them by an im-
passable gulf, was the crude mass of the common soldiers
the dregs of the English people, as Wellington said himself.
Generous pay and good food, with an adequate amount of
flogging, held these hirelings together. These men of
athletic physique, with their old English pugilistic training,
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 233
their muscular strength and their endurance, could accom-
plish marvels, after the drill sergeant had had them in hand
for a few years ; the bayonet attacks of the gigantic guards-
men, or the weighty impact of the heavy cavalry mounted
on their magnificent chargers, was irresistible. But woe to
any town, which, like unhappy Badajoz, 1 had the misfortune
to be stormed by these troops ! In the intoxication of
victory the cat-o'-nine-tails lost its terror ; the bonds of
discipline were relaxed, and the lust of murder, robbery and
every bestial craving raged unchecked. The army, then,
was like a great mechanical apparatus, working with extreme
accuracy ; and at the same time it was more than a machine ;
for the officers' corps still preserved that chivalrous bearing
and national pride of the English nobility ; and even the
brutal common soldier, after so many brilliant victories,
was entirely devoted to the commander who had never
known defeat, and gazed with pride on his glorious flag.
" Wellington had husbanded his little army in Spain
with a thoughtful prudence, only at times, when everything
pointed to success, venturing a bold attack, but never hazard-
ing the existence of his army. The Emperor himself he had
never yet encountered on the battle-field ; and the grandeur
of Napoleonic warfare, the huge mass-attacks which com-
pelled victory at a single onslaught, remained unknown to
him. Perfectly unmoved, he still maintained that old-
fashioned method of warfare which had procured him so great
a success under the exceptional conditions of the Spanish
campaign to be the only right one. He looked down on
the national armies with the immense contempt of the pro-
fessional soldier ; they seemed to him without exception no
better than the Spanish guerillas, who had so often proved
their uselessness on the battle-field ; and he always refused
to admit that the success of the Peninsular War would have
been impossible without the fanaticism of those undisciplined
bands, who harassed and weakened the enemy in the rear
1 Taken in the Peninsular War (1812) after an investment of nineteen
days.
234 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
by the terror of petty warfare. ' Enthusiasm,' he wrote
in his awkward style to Castlereagh, ' never as a matter of
fact helped to accomplish anything, and is only an excuse
for the disorder with which everything is done, and for the
want of discipline and obedience in armies.' These mili-
tary views express at the same time the anti-revolutionary
temper of the high Tories. In his later years, when his
more expert military judgment recognised the absolute
necessity for reform, Wellington several times had the
courage to separate himself from his political friends, and,
heedless of the fury of his party, himself carried through
with a firm hand what he had hitherto resisted as a dangerous
innovation. 1 In his old age, crowned as he was with glory,
he stood high enough to face all alone, to follow alone the
bidding of his pure patriotism : ' I would willingly give my
life,' he said once, ' if I could thereby save my country from
one month of civil war.' In the year 1815 he was still a
staunch adherent of the extreme conservative party ; and
the world-war of those days seemed to him merely a contest
of legitimate authority against revolution.
" The national passions which surged in the nations of
the continent he regarded half with suspicion and half with
contempt. The greater part of his life had been spent
among the Irish, the Hindus, the Spanish, and the Portuguese;
and these experiences had bred in him the firm conviction
that there was no other nation which could even distantly
compare with Great Britain. The old English vice of
depreciating foreign nations was exhibited in this dry, un-
amiable hero in such a cold, offensive, and arrogant manner
that even the Spanish, who had so much to thank him for,
hated him from the depths of their hearts. Like his
friend Castlereagh, he held to the opinion that parliamentary
freedom was an exclusive possession of the favoured English
race, and that it was unsuited to the less civilised nations
of the continent. As he had already combined political with
military activity in India and Spain, he acted as ambassador,
1 Especially Catholic Emancipation in 1829.
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 235
after the conclusion of peace, at Paris and at Vienna ; and
he enjoyed so completely the confidence of the ministers,
that he was regarded as practically a member of the Cabinet.
He shared the Tory mistrust of the rising powers of Prussia
and Russia, was far more deeply conversant with Cabinet
secrets than were the Headquarters Staff of Bliicher, and he
took over the command with a firm and clearly-thought-out
political plan to restore the legitimate king to the throne of
his fathers." *
3. The Turning-Point at Waterloo, June 18, 1815
This passage gives the ordinary German version of the
effect produced by Bliicher's arrival on the field of battle :
" Silent, unmoved, with marvellous self-control, Welling-
ton surveyed this vast confusion. Not only was his army
utterly exhausted, but its whole tactical formation was
entirely broken. As a result of the long struggle, the
divisions of the troops were all at sixes and sevens ; out of the
remnants of the two magnificent cavalry brigades those
of Ponsonby 8 and of Somerset 3 all that could be collected
was two squadrons. It was out of the question to risk a
decisive battle with such troops. The Duke knew well that
only the advent of the Prussians had saved him from a certain
defeat ; his repeated and urgent appeals to Bliicher place
this beyond doubt. Yet he owed one last satisfaction to the
military honour of his brave troops ; and he foresaw with a
statesmanlike intuition that, when the time came for peace
negotiations, the word of England must weigh very much
heavier in the scale if it could be made to appear that the battle
had practically been decided by British troops alone. There-
fore, when he saw that the French right wing had succumbed
to the Prussian attack, he ordered all the available fragments
1 Deutsche Geschichte, i. pp. 729-33.
2 The Union Brigade (Royal Scots Greys and Inniskillings).
3 The Horse Guards and Life Guards.
236 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
of his army to make a slight advance. In this last advance
the Hanoverian Colonel Halkett drove before him two
several squares of the Imperial Guard which were still hold-
ing together, and took General Cambronne prisoner with his
own hands. But the energies of the exhausted troops soon
gave out ; they only got a little way beyond Belle Alliance ;
and Wellington, having saved appearances, abandoned all
further pursuit to the Prussians, 1 who were at close grips with
the enemy." *
4. Great Britain and the Holy Alliance, 1815
It is characteristic of Treitschke that he contrives, in the
following passage, both to represent the Tsar Alexander I.,
who was the originator of the Grand Alliance, as a crafty
hypocrite, and at the same time to reflect on the British
Government for refusing to join the Alliance. The latest
English historian of the Holy Alliance sees no reason for
doubting the Tsar's sincerity ; he defines the object of Castle-
reagh as a concert of the powers " which was to be directed
solely to guaranteeing rights defined by treaty " ; he objected
to " a union with vague and indefinite ends." 3 Treitschke
says :
" That mysterious providence which contrived that
these emotional outbursts of Alexander should always take
1 Wellington's official report admits the decisive effect of Bliicher's
appearance, but does not admit that the final English charge was in-
effective. " I should not do justice to my own feelings, or to Marshal
Bliicher and the Prussian army, if I did not attribute the successful result
of this arduous day to the cordial and timely assistance I received from
them. The operation of General Billow upon the enemy's flank was a
most decisive one ; and, even if I had not found myself in a situation to
make the attack which produced the final result, it would have forced the
enemy to have retired if his attacks should have failed, and would have
prevented him from taking advantage of them if they should have unfortun-
ately succeeded."
* Deutsche Geschichte, i. pp. 760-61.
3 W. Alison Phillips, The Confederation of Europe (London, 1914), pp.
148-56.
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 237
the direction of his own advantage, presided, too, over
this outpouring of his most sacred inspirations. All the
powers of Europe might accept this brotherly invitation,
with the exception of those two who were regarded as the
irreconcilable enemies of the Russian policy of old times.
The Pope must stand aside, because the representative of
Christ must only admit over the civitas dei the rulership of the
crowned priest. Finally, the infidel Sultan was, as the Tsar
openly declared, for ever excluded from the great confra-
ternity of Europe. To the sensible mind of Frederick
William these oracular sentences, which the Tsar propounded
to him with a solemn earnestness, appeared very strange, but
why refuse to an old friend a courtesy which, after all, laid
the Prussian State under no obligation whatever ? The King
obligingly copied the official document with his own hands,
as his friend requested, on the 26th of September. The
Emperor Francis was not so easily persuaded ; he foresaw
how painfully this Holy Alliance would affect his faithful
friend in Constantinople ; but when Metternich smilingly
characterised the pious document as empty prattle, Austria,
too, assented on the same day. Then by degrees all the
European States joined the Holy Alliance, most of them in
order to please the Tsar, but a few of them because these
pious utterances from a paternal and royalist government
corresponded with the ultra-Conservative tendencies of the
dawning age of restoration.
" Only three held back : Russia's two old enemies
and England. The Prince Regent, as ruler of Hanover,
signed without demur, but Castlereagh declared in a caustic
speech that Parliament consisted of practical statesmen, and
could therefore subscribe to a political contract, but not to
a declaration of principles which would plunge back the
English State into the days of Cromwell and the Roundheads.
The true motive of the high Tories, however, was not any
regard for Parliament, which they already knew how to
outwit, but mistrust of Russia, and concern for the Sultan,
who was in fact seriously perturbed by the conclusion of the
238 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
Holy Alliance. This extraordinary episode is not without
a certain interest in the history of civilisation, since it
reflects the romantic temper of the age, and its real senti-
ment of European unity. A political significance the Holy
Alliance never had, though such a significance was imputed
to it by the opposition press of all the nations ; these journal-
ists soon contracted the habit of referring to ' the system
of the Holy Alliance ' and directed their complaints against
the politics of the Eastern powers to this imaginary address." 1
5. Character and Policy of Canning
In the following passage Treitschke explains the foreign
policy which Canning put in action, as Secretary for Foreign
Affairs, in the years 1822-27 :
" At this fateful moment a momentous catastrophe
occurred at the English court. Shortly before the meeting
of the Congress of Verona, on the i3th of August, the
Earl of Londonderry 2 committed suicide in an attack of
melancholy ; and it was with sincere distress that Metternich
mourned for his irreplaceable ' other self.' Lord Liverpool
had long been feeling that the deplorable mediocrity of his
Cabinet needed the infusion of new life, and that the obdur-
ateness of the extreme Tories called for some mitigation.
He resolved therefore to nominate, in Londonderry's place,
George Canning, who possessed the most brilliant and
original intellect of all the Tory party, and was suspected
both by King George and by the court of Vienna. So, at
length, while all the other great powers could only oppose
to the doctrines of the Revolution an equally barren Con-
servative doctrinism, a determined representative of English
interests and English commercial policy entered once more
the halls of Downing Street. From his youth Canning had
lived for the one idea of increasing the might of old England.
Already, in the war against revolutionary France, he had
1 Deutsche Geschichte, i. pp. 790-1. . * Castlereagh.
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 239
failed to discern, as Burke did, a war for principles, and saw
only a struggle for the British command of the sea ; it was
only as a means to an end, that, in the columns of the
Anti- Jacobin newspaper, he expended his dazzling wit in
ridiculing the ideas of the Revolution. Without any scruple,
he subsequently, as member of the Portland ministry, ordered
in the midst of peace the marauding expedition against
Copenhagen, 1 because the interests of English trade de-
manded this act of violence ; and just as unscrupulously
he promised the Spanish Juntas his support against Napoleon.
As a result of unfortunate misunderstandings and of private
incidents, he had been thrust out of the Cabinet 2 at the
very moment when his ambition was passionately craving
for power, and forced to look on resentfully while men less
able than himself reaped the fruits of his energetic policy
and Castlereagh represented victorious England at the
Peace Congress. Now at last, after long years of tedious
waiting, fortune gave Canning the satisfaction of restoring
the half-lost independence of English politics, of scattering
the stubborn league of the great powers, and of bringing his
political career to a glorious close with five years of brilliant
success.
" In his home policy he always remained a Conservative,
for, although he saw far beyond the prejudices of the rigid
extreme Tories, although half Irish himself, he worked
energetically for the emancipation of the Catholics, and also
supported the modification of the existing harsh Customs
laws, he none the less rejected absolutely the new doctrine
which was beginning to form a fresh rallying-point for the
Whig party the doctrine of parliamentary reform. Nothing
seemed to him more calculated to jeopardise the striking
force of British policy than a genuine popular representation
in the lower House. But, for every other nation as well as
for England, he claimed the right to live in accordance with
1 In 1807, to forestall the plan of Napoleon and the Tsar for seizing the
Danish fleet and using it against England.
* In 1809, owing to his differences with Castlereagh.
240 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
its own individuality, provided only that this did not inter-
fere with English trade. And the prosperity of this trade
was best assured, if peace were never established on the
Continent, if the economic forces of the continental nations
were exhausted by civil wars. With so much the greater
freedom could the fortunate island extend that command of
the sea, which she regarded as her natural right. To the
cosmopolitan doctrine of a legitimate royal prerogative,
Canning opposed with firmness and decision the calm state-
ment, that the harmony of the political world is as little dis-
turbed by a variety in the forms of States as the harmony
of the physical world is by the diverse dimensions of the
planets. Towards the Spanish he observed the principle
which Londonderry had expressed in a posthumous note :
that England must never allow the court of Paris the right
of entry into Spain, or a permanent influence in the Iberian
Peninsula. But how'much more favourable was England's
position now than it had been a year ago.
" At Troppau and Laibach 1 Castlereagh had fought alone,
with his left arm, since he himself was strongly in favour
of the intervention of Austria in Italian affairs, and only dis-
approved the doctrinaire manifestoes of the Eastern powers.
In regard to the Spanish question, 2 on the other hand,
Canning could pronounce a cold and unconditional negative ;
and he was all the more firmly resolved on this point, since
he judged the great European alliance with complete open-
mindedness. Londonderry never had the courage to formally
break away from the great Alliance. His successor regarded
it as a fetter on England, especially as England, departing
from her original purpose, was only as yet concerning
1 At the Conference of Troppau (1820) Austria, Prussia, and Russia
combined together, ignoring England and France, to prevent revolutions
in the minor European States from becoming a menace to the stability of
other States. At Laibach (1821) the debates of Troppau were continued ;
the three Eastern powers hoped to obtain for Austria a mandate to deal
with the Neapolitan revolution. Castlereagh (then Lord Stewart) resisted
the Eastern powers at both conferences.
4 A military revolt had broken out in Spain in 1820, under General
Quiroga. The rebels demanded the restoration of the Constitution of 1812.
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 241
herself with the police supervision of Europe. While his
predecessor had looked up to Metternich with a friendly awe,
Canning was the first statesman of his age to penetrate the
triviality of the great magician of Vienna. After he had
followed the sinuosities of Metternich's policy for a little
time, he roundly declared him to be the greatest liar and
knave on the Continent ; and henceforth he set aside with a
dry jest all the unctuous moral dissertations on politics from
the Imperial Palace. He fully realised that England's
little army could scarcely risk an armed encounter with the
French in Spain. Therefore he kept another weapon at
hand, with which he could severely chastise England's
neighbours, in case they hazarded an entry : If England were
the first to express formally that recognition of the inde-
pendence of South America, which was in fact already
partially ratified, the British flag would win the lead in the
newly opened market, 1 and might possibly secure for herself
in the West another greater Portugal and the commercial
and political exploitation of a vast territory.
" Just as thoroughly English was Canning's judgment on
the Eastern complications. As a student he had been dis-
tinguished for his rich classical learning, and years ago he
had even written Philhellenic poems ; so that now he did not
refuse the Greek rebels his human sympathy. But, for all
that, he had no intention whatever of mitigating the oppres-
sive despotism, which his England exercised over the Hellenes
of the Ionian Isles. 2 Like the vast majority of his com-
patriots, he looked upon the preservation of the Turkish
Empire as a European that is to say, an English necessity,
because the economic helplessness of the slumbering Balkan
1 In 1824 Canning recognised the independence of the Spanish South
American colonies ; France and Spain had suggested that their future
should be settled by an international congress. Canning feared, at this
time, that Spain would become a dependency of France. But the colonies
were at least as effectually helped by the promulgation of the Monroe
Doctrine (1823).
8 The British Protectorate was recognised by the Convention of Paris
in 1815. In 1864 the Ionian Isles were surrendered to the kingdom of
Greece.
R
242 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
peoples offered such a convenient market to the British
merchant. In order not to weaken these most faithful sup-
porters of old England, he desired never to grant the Greeks
more than those prerogatives of a partially independent vassal
State which Servia already enjoyed. Canning regarded the
struggle against Russia's eastern policy as incomparably
more important than the future of the Hellenes. In his
mistrust of the Court of St. Petersburg he was at one with
Londonderry and the extreme Tories, except that he wished
to oppose the Russian designs by deeds, and not merely,
like Metternich, by postponements and delays.
" It was indeed a blessing that the clear ray of an energetic
national policy once again streamed into the nebulous world
of European reaction. And Canning advanced with the
times. He perceived some of the new forces which were
forcing their way into the life of nations, and he recognised
their justice ; the ideas of his policy of British supremacy,
took the direction, even if it was only by chance, of many
of the deepest wishes of the Liberals of the Continent. He
knew how to make masterly use of this advantage. Just
as the two Pitts had made eloquent use of a great phrase
the Balance of Power to disguise the selfish policy of
English maritime supremacy, their successor now employed
a new catchword the freedom of nations which later
passed into the vocabulary of Lord Palmerston, as a seasoned
heirloom. The Liberal world listened entranced, while this
handsome man, with his ardent sparkling eyes and his broad
bald forehead, delivered one of his fiery and closely-reasoned
speeches ; in which he always selected the right moment
for interrupting his sagacious disquisition on the advantages
to English trade with a well -calculated attack on the
hated Holy Alliance, or a solemn appeal to the principle of
nationality, or some classical quotation redolent of liberty.
Since, moreover, the feeling of veneration for free England
still lingered on from Napoleonic times, the curious situation
arose that this thoroughly insular aristocrat passed for a
hero of cosmopolitan liberalism ; and this island nation,
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 243
which surpasses all the nations in the world for deep-rooted
national egotism, was extolled as the valiant defender of the
freedom of all the nations. For Metternich Canning repre-
sented a formidable enemy. The court of Vienna knew how
to deal with the ideologues of the Revolution ; but this man,
with his marvellous combination of fire and frost, of ardour
and sobriety, who, supported by the economic force of the
greatest financial power in the world, defended the cold
calculations of his commercial policy with a mighty pathos
of patriotic eloquence, and enlisted the public opinion of
Europe into the service of English maritime supremacy
this man was to the statesmen of Vienna an enigma. He
was only in office for a few weeks ; then he was overwhelmed
with such a torrent of abuse from the Austrian diplomats as
clearly betrayed their secret apprehension." 1
6. The Congress of Verona, 1822
The Congress of Verona was intended to continue the
campaign against revolutionary outbreaks which had been
opened at Troppau (1820) and Laibach (1821). The pleni-
potentiaries met at Verona on October 20 ; Great Britain
was represented by the Duke of Wellington, and his action
was inspired by Canning, who followed the line marked
out by Castlereagh. Russia, Austria, and Prussia decided
(October 30) that France should have a free hand to deal
with the Spanish revolution. Wellington dissociated him-
self from this decision. Great Britain feared that France
would secure control of Spain and of the Spanish colonies ;
this fear, and the necessity of providing for the safety of
British trade in South America, explain Wellington's
attitude on the South American question. Treitschke calls
attention, quite justifiably, to the second of these motives.
But his explanation of Great Britain's efforts to secure the
abolition of the slave-trade is grotesquely unfair :
1 Deutsche Geschichte, iii. pp. 263-6.
244 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
" How dearly Russia had to pay for this success ! On
the iQth and 2Oth of November, Wellington declared in two
memoirs, that England could not participate in the last
measures taken by the Powers, and, on the whole, would only
intervene in the internal situation of the other States, if her
own interests were threatened. That was Canning's refusal of
the great Alliance. On the 24th of November, Wellington
drew the sharp sword, which England held in readiness, half
out of its sheath, as he broached the subject of the inde-
pendence of South America. His minister 1 had written to
him with fervent zeal : ' American questions are at present
far more important for us than European. If we do not take
hold of them and turn them to our own advantage, we run
the risk of losing an opportunity which can never never be
recovered.' Of the freedom of the new world, of the
awakening of nascent nationalities, not a syllable transpired
in the course of these cool expositions of a commercial
policy ; Canning kept his fine phrases for his parliamentary
speeches. In fact, the British flag found itself hard pressed
in the American seas ; it could with difficulty defend itself
against pirates, as long as it could not rely on the protec-
tion of the new authorities in the maritime States. Already
in March, President Monroe had formally recognised several
of the new Republics 2 in the name of the North American
Union ; and Henry Clay, in a powerful speech, declared
that to be America's answer to the impious conspiracy
of the despots. Even now British battleships found
themselves under the necessity of forcing the blockade
before Puerto Cabello, in order to secure the entrance of
merchantmen. England, who had herself experienced so
many violent changes of her rulers, and in her penal
laws expressly provided for obedience to the existing
government, 8 could not possibly carry her regard for the
legitimate rights of the Spanish court so far as to allow
1 Canning.
2 Colombia, Chile, Buenos Aires, Mexico ; in March 1822.
8 By a statute of Henry VII. (1495) no person assisting the king de
facto was to be liable to impeachment or attainder.
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 245
the fertile markets of Venezuela and Peru to be lost
meanwhile to her North American rivals.
" In the dry tone of a business intimation, Wellington
gave a notification to the Powers that England must combine
with the colonial authorities to check this piracy, and this
collaboration would inevitably involve a recognition of the
actual existence of these revolutionary governments. All
the other Powers protested vigorously. The Emperor
Francis declared roundly that he would never recognise the
independence of the Colonies, so long as their legitimate
king had not done so himself. Bernstorft, 1 too, expressed
the vigorous disapproval of his monarch, and found that the
moment for this declaration had at any rate been badly chosen,
since the decrees of Verona might possibly restore order in
Spain, and make possible an understanding of the Colonies
with the mother-country. The Tsar wished first to await the
result of a great plan of reconciliation, which he had con-
certed with King Ferdinand. Finally, France expressed
the wish that the Alliance should ' at some future date '
agree to a joint action, so that the precipitate action of an
individual Power might not excite the commercial rivalry
of the rest. This legitimist circumspection, which so pains-
takingly avoided the acknowledgment of actual facts, was
of no service to the pressing interests of British trade.
Wellington did not hesitate to express himself in the matter
very emphatically, in his cool way ; and, at the close of the
Congress, Bernstorff regarded it as certain that England
would very soon, without consulting the Allies, come to a
complete understanding with the rebel States of South
America.
" It was with just as little concern for the opinions of the
other Powers that Wellington represented another important
interest of the English commercial policy the abolition
of the slave-trade. With what joy had the civilised world
once welcomed this benevolent idea, when it was first urged
by the noble and pious Wilberforce. Since that time, the
1 The representative of Prussia.
246 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
pious zeal of the Continent had long grown cool, because
English statesmen at all the Congresses had urged the reform
with a too conspicuous zeal, and even the British commercial
world voiced its opposition to the slave-traders with an
almost fanatical violence. The wicked world could not
forbear to ask itself why all the traders from London to
Liverpool, usually not at all remarkable for philanthropy,
should suddenly evince such a tender concern for the negroes.
The trade lists supplied the answer. Of the whole coffee
importation of that time scarcely a twentieth part came
from the English colonies, of the sugar importation about
a fourth. The whole British colonial Empire comprised
only a few plantations suitable for negro-labour, and these
had long been over-supplied with blacks ; the abolition of
the slave-trade could here do very little harm, whereas, in
the case of the colonies of the other Sea-Powers, it was bound
to produce serious economic disturbances. Thus, these fine
professions of Christian charity served to cloak another
and less Christian ambition namely, to inflict serious
injury on England's rivals. Canning himself could not
deny that this mistrust existed, especially in France,
though he naturally refused to admit that it had any
justification." 1
7. The Significance of (a] the Catholic Emancipation Act
(/<?2p) and, (b] the Reform Bill {1832)
The two following passages illustrate Treitschke's interest
in the development of the English parliamentary system ;
and they show how differently from German Liberals he
interpreted the spirit of the English constitution. Here,
as in his political essays, he takes the view that the English
system of government before 1832 was based not upon
principles but upon the vested interests of the land-owning
aristocracy. In the reforms of 1832 and later years he, like
Gneist, saw mainly the overthrow of an old order, and
1 Deutsche Geschichte, iii. pp. 276-8.
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 247
imagined that the stability of the British State had been
fatally impaired. But he admitted the usefulness of some
of the social reforms which followed upon the reconstitution
of the House of Commons :
(a) " Since Canning had broken away from the alliance with
the Eastern Powers, English parliamentary life had taken on
a new vigour ; Huskisson secured some modification of the
harsh Customs laws, 1 and Canning himself, shortly before his
death, was becoming more drawn towards the rising party of
the Whigs. Public opinion was directed once more to those
plans for reform, which Pitt had projected in his early
optimistic years, but had been obliged to postpone in the
troubled days of the war. During the long years, when the
States of the Continent had been fashioned anew by an
enlightened absolutism or by the Revolution, England had
been expending her best energies in founding her colonial
empire, and her internal legislation had been almost entirely
disregarded. Now at length the nation realised how much
had been neglected, and the need for reform obtruded
itself with such insistence that several of the most daring
innovations of the next decade were the work of strongly
conservative statesmen ; for instance, the first measure,
Catholic emancipation, was the work of Wellington and Peel
(1829). Even these Tories felt that any longer delay
might involve civil war, and possibly the revolt of a shame-
fully misgoverned Ireland ; and that the old animosity of
the Catholic Celts, which had just been powerfully stirred
by O'Connell's flaming speeches, must be appeased by an act
of justice.
" This moderate reform only achieved what Germany had
accomplished long ago, and the other Continental States in
or after the Napoleonic era. The power of the English aristo-
cracy was, however, closely interwoven with the privileges
1 Huskisson became President of the Board of Trade in 1823 ; in 1827,
after Canning's death, he became Secretary for War and the Colonies ; he
resigned office in 1828. He was one of the pioneers of free-trade policy.
248 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
of the national Church. Just as in the twelfth century, the
struggle with the Roman Church first weakened the supremacy
of the Norman kings, and prepared the way for the struggle
of the Papacy and Empire in the following century, so the
first blow to the Anglican Church at once threatened the
supremacy of the parliamentary aristocracy, and opened a
door for the entrance of a democratic age. Louder and
louder sounded the demand for the reform of Parliament.
Once again, though in an entirely different fashion, there was
revealed that contrast between the regions of the South-East
and the North- West which had proved so momentous in the
history of England. Often in earlier centuries had the
powers of progress pitched their camp in the plains of the
South-East ; but since that date the mountainous country
of the North- West had emerged from seclusion. Here lay
the mines and the manufacturing towns of modern England.
Here an entire transformation of the old social relations was
in progress. For the country-people continued to stream
into the towns ; and these large and prosperous industrial
centres were imperiously demanding parliamentary repre-
sentation, while the wretched boroughs of the South- West
were falling more and more into decay." J
(b) " What wonder that this peaceful reform was extolled
by the moderate Liberals of the Continent as a fresh proof
of English hereditary wisdom ; even Dahlmann saw in the
reform only a wholesome reformation of the existing con-
stitutional authorities, since he, like his master Montesquieu,
looked upon the Lower House as a democratic counterpoise
to the Upper House. It was only a few clear-sighted Con-
servatives who appreciated the importance of this great and
far-reaching change. In a brilliant article in a Prussian
official newspaper, Hegel 2 prophesied that this reform would
shake the power of the old parliamentary aristocracy to
its very foundations ; and the sequel proved him correct.
1 Deutsche Geschichte, iv. pp. 21-2.
3 This essay, " Ueber die englische Reform-Bill," is reprinted in Hegel's
Werke, vol. xvii. (Berlin, 1835), pp. 425 el seq. It was contributed to the
Allgemeine preussische Staatszeilung in 1831.
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 249
Until this date, only a fourth of the members of the House
of Commons were chosen freely ; the others all owed their
seats to the favour of the landowners and of the Cabinet.
From this time, in half the constituencies it was the middle
classes who held the casting-vote ; and although even now
the nobility exercised their usual arts of controlling the
elections in forms adapted to the time and with great success,
yet the House of Commons did become gradually what it
had never been under the Georges a national assembly.
The power of the Upper House, however, declined irresistibly;
for the Lords had hitherto quietly exercised a great part of
their influence in controlling the elections as well as the
votes of the Lower House. The old House of Commons
depended on the rotten boroughs for the successive genera-
tions of its young statesmen ; henceforth their entry to the
House was not so easy. The scarcity of talent and the
decline of eloquence soon showed that the great days of
English parliamentarism had come to an end. In addition
to the old-fashioned names of ' Whig ' and ' Tory,' the vague
continental terms ' Liberal ' and ' Conservative ' had already
come into use ; for the two old hereditary aristocratic parties
soon became split up, after the French fashion, into half-a-
dozen fractions, small groups representing particular opinions
and interests, which were only with difficulty gathered into
one camp. The leader of the new House of Commons no
longer, as the two Pitts had done, ruled with the authority
of a commander-in-chief over an unbroken phalanx of
friends and connexions of his own class ; he was obliged to
win over by flattery the new gentry made up of merchants
and manufacturers, bank directors and railway directors,
who were now jostling the old landed aristocracy ; he must
promise satisfaction of every domestic, ecclesiastical, or local
claim, he must promise fulfilment for every wish ; he must
now let himself be led, and now, under an appearance of
submissiveness, he must himself take the lead. If the
House of Commons in the past had often alienated the
nation by its social arrogance, now the portals were unbarred
250 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
to admit every caprice and whim of public opinion ; the
anonymous and self-appointed statesmen of the newspapers,
especially those of the Times, acquired an enormous power,
and it happened not infrequently that the commoners,
intimidated by the uproar of the Press, voted for measures
of which they disapproved. Legislation which before had
been so tardy, now worked rapidly, often wantonly. In
rapid succession, the Civil List of the Crown was separated
from the public expenditure, the trade monopoly of the East
India Company was terminated, slavery was abolished in
the Colonies ; the University of London was incorporated
and took its place beside the two ancient aristocratic uni-
versities ; the decayed municipal corporations were trans-
formed by a Liberal but ill-considered Municipal Government
Act. And so strong was the democratic tendency of the
time that even this House, which was still made up almost
exclusively of the rich and aristocratic classes, had to turn
its attention to the much-abused masses of the people. In
the year 1833 appeared the first and very unassuming Act
for the regulation of the factories ; further, a small State-
subsidy was granted for elementary education, which had
been so shamefully neglected." l
8. Character and Policy of Lord Palmerston, 1830
l.The following sketch is a good example of Treitschke's
skill in portraiture. It is also interesting because he saw
in Palmerston the incarnation of English diplomacy. He
held that England always had pursued a narrow policy based
on her commercial interests, and had always disguised her
selfishness beneath a cloak of general principles. In Palmer-
ston's case the cloak was unusually transparent, and he makes
Palmerston the type of the British hypocrite :
" The inmost nature of this time of transition was ex-
hibited in the Talleyrand of parliamentarism, that very
1 Deutsche Geschichte, iv. pp. 24-5.
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 251
skilful statesman, who, an aristocrat by birth and inclina-
tion, from this time guided the foreign policy of England
in the manner of a masterly demagogue. Lord Palmerston
sprang from a very old Anglo-Saxon family, which had been
famous long before the Norman Conquest ; in modern times
the house of Temple had always been an ornament of the
Whig party. Young Viscount Henry, however, went over
to the Tories without any compunction, because the Whigs,
in those Napoleonic days, could not hope for power. At the
age of two-and-twenty he was Lord of the Admiralty, 1 two
years later Secretary at War ; a and, by his ardent though
irregular industry, he acquired such a thorough knowledge
of State affairs that he could no longer fail to get an official
position. He was the most permanent of all the English
ministers : of the fifty-eight years of life which remained to
him after his entry into office, he spent forty-eight on the
ministerial benches. In the years when he helped to equip
the army against Napoleon, he soon accumulated a rich
store of diplomatic experience, and, in his first great parlia-
mentary speeches, he boldly announced the leading idea of
his political life. He justified the expedition of the fleet
against Copenhagen with the simple words : ' In this case,
the law of nature is stronger than the law of nations.'
Consequently England, in time of peace and for the sake of
her own preservation, was to make a marauding attack on
a small neighbouring State. The momentary advantage, the
' expediency,' as he liked to call it, excused the breach of
faith and law. A politician through and through, without
any feeling for art or for the ideal forces in human life, but
free from self-conceit and sentimentality, he always followed
his inborn practical instincts ; principles and theories
hampered him as little as conscientious scruples. He knew
that he would make his way, if only he could continue in
the saddle ; he quietly declined a high office for which he
felt himself not yet equal, and afterwards, without grumbling,
1 In the Portland administration, formed in March 1807.
a In the Percival administration, formed in October 1809.
252 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
he contented himself with a position of the second rank,
although he had by this time expected something more
important.
" But success was bound to come to him in the end ; from
early days he was a favourite of the drawing-rooms ; business
did not hinder him from cheerfully living and letting live,
or from taking part enthusiastically in every pastime of dis-
tinguished society. He ridiculed the sanctimonious bearing
of his companions, and he confessed with a refreshing sin-
cerity how much pleasure he derived from female society
and from all the joys of this world ; even in his old age, he
enjoyed hearing himself called by his old pet name ' Lord
Cupid.' When, after a long sitting in the House of Commons,
he made his way home at a late hour of the night, walking
with elastic stride, always with a flower in his mouth or in
his button-hole, shouldering his umbrella, his tall hat shoved
far back on his head, his countrymen rejoiced at this
picture of old English exuberance. His whole being exhaled
a cheerful ease. The strong, square Anglo-Saxon head,
with the roguish eyes set far apart, suggested at once the
strength of the dog and the cunning of the fox. To his
tenants he was a good-natured landlord ; his cousins and
friends he provided with fat sinecures, in accordance with the
English aristocratic custom, but he never intentionally
entrusted an important office to an incompetent. If an
opponent thwarted his purpose, he never failed, sooner or
later, to secure his revenge ; but, after that, all was forgotten ;
lasting animosity was incompatible with this easy-going
nature. He lacked the greatness and the depth of a really
original and powerful thinker. His strength lay in that
subtle sagacity which enabled him to scent in advance
every change of public feeling ; and the longer he remained
in power, the more perfectly he and his fellow-countrymen
learnt to understand one another, until finally he seemed to
them the perfect embodiment of the national spirit.
" He had no acquaintance with foreign nations, and he
did not desire their acquaintance ; it was only for Italy,
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 253
where he had spent a few years of his youth, and for the gay
life of the Paris salons, that he cherished a certain predilec-
tion. He judged the Germans as Canning's envenomed and
insulting poem in the Anti-Jacobin Review had taught all
the Tories to judge them ; he saw in them a servile nation,
composed of infantile politicians, of undisciplined free-
thinkers, and of learned fools. So, in his parliamentary
speeches, he had no hesitation in striking the seductive note
of national self-glorification ; and he soon learnt that this
sort of demagogic flattery can hardly be made too gross for
a British audience. In the summer of 1813, when the people
of Prussia were in arms, Palmerston extolled the incom-
parable advantages of the English mercenary army, and
declared to delighted crowds that the Commander-in-chief
can rely more confidently on such an army of paid volunteers
than on a ' band of slaves ' who are dragged from their houses
by force. Subsequently, he even glorified the cat-o'-nine-
tails as a jewel of British freedom ; as a matter of fact the
whole difference between the English and the continental
armies consisted in the fact that, in the case of the latter,
floggings were administered without examination, while in
old England they were administered after a sentence under
martial law.
" The reactionary doctrines of the Austrian court could
not appeal to this realist, though he took care that this fact
should not occasion a breach with Lord Castlereagh. He
attached himself to Canning with sincere delight, because
the latter brought back into honour the old English policy
of self-interest. He soon retired from the Wellington
ministry * with the other Canningites. He felt that this
Cabinet must be ' wrecked on the rocks of public opinion,'
and he was not mistaken with regard to the approaching
collapse of the Bourbon dynasty. 2 For two years he con-
tinued in the ranks of the opposition, and by enlightened
commonplaces prepared the way for the bold change of
1 In May 1828.
a By the July Revolution of 1830.
254 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
front which was to transfer him to the Whigs. ' In Nature,'
he announced, ' there is only one motive force the spirit ;
in human affairs this force takes the form of opinion ; in
political affairs it takes the form of public opinion ; and
those statesmen who understand how to master the passions,
the interests, and the opinions of men acquire a dispro-
portionate power.' Whether a statesman is not also under
an obligation to instruct public opinion when it is at fault,
and to defy with angry brow the prejudices of the national
assembly, was a question which he never put to himself.
When, after the July Revolution, he entered the Reform
Cabinet of the Whigs, and took over the Foreign Office from
the nervous hands of Lord Aberdeen, 1 he immediately took
the path of Canning's commercial policy. He could not en-
rapture the House, like the two Pitts, by an ardour of spiritual
exaltation, nor, like Canning, by the sustained pathos of a
skilled eloquence ; the new parliamentarism called for an
apostle of mediocrity. Palmerston relied on the infallible
method of national self-praise, on little dialectic conjuring
tricks, on journalistic phrases, which were intelligible to all
and saved the trouble of reflection. He attacked his
opponents with an insulting wit, and, on occasion, with a
well -calculated coarseness, which, to the unsuspecting,
rang like the involuntary emotional outburst of an honest
man, and always left his hearers with the impression that
they had gazed deep into the recesses of his loyal heart.
" When still in opposition, he had already expressed
with a prophetic smile the flattering conviction that every
member of the House of Commons would be able to form
an expert opinion on foreign policy, if only this were con-
ducted honestly and openly. Accordingly, as a minister, he
was zealous in preparing elaborate Blue-books, which gave
a little information about everything, but no information
at all about essentials ; so that every reader of The Times
could now boast that he knew the European policy of this
1 He entered the Grey Cabinet (November 1830) as Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs.
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 255
popular statesman from beginning to end. Like Canning,
Palmerston wished to preserve the peace of the world, in
order not to injure British trade ; but, like his master, he
desired with equal intensity that the Continent should
always be threatened with a simmering danger of war, in
order that England might have a free hand for extending
her colonial Empire and for securing the markets of the
whole world. Above all, it was important to keep apart
those two very dangerous rivals, France and Russia ; and
the business sense of the converted Tory immediately per-
ceived how easily this end might be attained by a skilful
exploitation of the political passions of the day. Judiciously
employed, the Liberal phrase ' for old England ' might
become a no less useful and at the same time less costly
article of export than coal, iron, and cotton. If England
attached herself to the new French ruler, 1 in such a way
as to support him and at the same time to hold him in
check, if this entente cordiale of the western powers in the
midst of these unsettled times were persistently extolled
as a league of freedom against despotism, of light against
darkness, then an honourable understanding between France
and the conservative powers of the East was rendered
impossible." z
9. The Foreign Policy of Palmerston,
Our next passage relates to the policy which Palmerston
pursued, as Foreign Secretary, in the second Melbourne
Administration. Palmerston's main preoccupation at this
time was the question of the Ottoman Empire, which he
desired to maintain against the designs of Russia. For this
purpose it was necessary that Great Britain and the other
European powers should intervene to save the Sultan from
the attacks of Mehemet Ali, the ruler of Egypt and the most
ambitious of Turkish vassals. The reward which Palmerston
3 Louis Philippe, proclaimed " King of the French " on August 9, 1830.
8 Deutsche Geschichte, iv. pp. 26-9.
256 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
obtained from the Sultan was the closing of the Dardanelles
and the Bosporus to ships of war. Prussia acted with
Great Britain in the Turkish question, and Treitschke felt
that his country had been made a catspaw. In 1841 the
Melbourne administration went out of office; Palmerston
was succeeded by the pacific Aberdeen :
" Thus there reigned once more on the Continent that
condition of veiled dissension which England needed for her
plans, and never had the old truth that the trader's policy
is the most immoral of all policies been so clearly demon-
strated as in these years. While the great powers were
taken up with their wranglings, Palmerston would be able,
unmolested, in his own unchivalrous fashion, to vent British
insolence on the weak. He started a dispute with Naples
over the Sicilian sulphur trade, with Portugal over the
sacrifices of the last civil war, a war which England her-
self had diligently fostered. With Servia he concluded a
commercial treaty, and immediately endeavoured to compel
Prince Milosch to dissolve the constitution. The rock of
Aden, the key to the Red Sea, the Gibraltar of the East,
was stolen * in 1839, in the midst of peace. Soon after began
the Opium War, 2 the most detestable war ever waged by a
Christian nation ; the Chinese were compelled to tolerate
the smuggling of opium from the East Indies ; and England,
while she poisoned their bodies, sought to save their souls
by the evangelical sermons of her missionaries. Against
more powerful opponents Palmerston only dared to employ
the weapon of cunning. Every one suspected that England
was secretly supporting the Circassians in their struggle
against Russia ; though the secret only became notorious
when the Russians seized the ship Vixen, freighted with arms,
1 From Arab tribesmen, who had plundered a shipwrecked East India-
man and maltreated the crew and passengers (1837).
3 In 1840-42. The war was provoked by the sudden and arbitrary
interference of China with the opium trade. It resulted in the cession of
Hong-Kong to Great Britain, and the opening of five Treaty Ports to
European trade.
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 257
on the Caucasian coast. Even more acute distress was
roused at the London court by the occupation of Algeria,
the last and best legacy of the French Bourbons. According
to the English point of view, the whole of Africa was the
legitimate possession of Great Britain. Even the peaceably
disposed Lord Aberdeen declared arrogantly to the Prussian
Ambassador : ' The French have united Algiers to France
" for all time." That phrase ' for all time ' signifies until
war is declared, until the first English battleship appears
in the harbour of Algiers ! 1 Every British heart was filled
with the ambition to lay waste this fair and promising settle-
ment of the French ; therefore that dangerous enemy of
France, the heroic Abdul Kadir, 2 could count at any time on
England's secret assistance.
" In the face of such an absolutely unscrupulous com-
mercial policy, a policy which was penetrating into and
making mischief in every part of the world, all the other
civilised nations seemed like natural allies. England was
the stronghold of barbarism in international law. England
alone was to blame for the fact that naval warfare, to the
shame of humanity, was still an organised form of piracy.
It was the common task of all nations to establish on the sea
that balance of power that had long existed on land, that
healthy equilibrium which should make it impossible for any
State to do just as it pleased, and should secure for all alike
the protection of a humane system of international law. The
cause of human civilisation demanded that the diversified
splendour of the world's history, which had begun with the
dominion of the monosyllabic Chinese, should not develop
in a vicious circle towards a final supremacy of the mono-
syllabic Britons. As soon as the Eastern question again
came under discussion, it was essential that some attempt
should be made, by a far-seeing statesmanship, at least to
1 The English government asserted in 1833, and on later occasions,
that France ought to evacuate Algeria because Polignac, the minister of
Charles X., had given pledges to that effect in 1829.
a The leader of Algerian resistance to the French in the years 1832-37,
and again in 1839.
S
258 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
mitigate that oppressive alien despotism which the English
fleet exercised in radiating circles from Gibraltar, Malta, and
Corfu, and to restore the Mediterranean Sea to the Mediter-
ranean nations. The Prussian State, however, did not as yet
possess a fleet ; it could not and dared not rise to such a free
vision of those far-distant operations, since it could itself
barely afford the necessary protection for the scattered
German peoples, and Italy had not yet risen to the status
of a Great Power." 1
10. The "Entente Cordiale" of Great Britain and Prussia, 184.1
The following passages relate to comparatively un-
important affairs. But they are entertaining, as giving us a
continental estimate of Queen Victoria, of the Prince Consort,
and of their well-meant attempts to cultivate friendly
relations with the German courts. Frederick William IV. of
Prussia responded cordially to their overtures. He joined
with Great Britain in 1841 to found a Protestant bishopric
at Jerusalem. In 1842 he visited London and conceived
a strong admiration for the English parliamentary system.
He was represented at the Court of St. James by Bunsen,
whom Treitschke abuses for Anglophile tendencies :
(a) " In November 1841 the first evangelical Bishop of
Jerusalem was consecrated by the Archbishop of Canter-
bury ; he was a Jew of Breslau, who had received in baptism
the name of Alexander, and he filled his difficult office very
respectably. The ordination sermon celebrated the episcopal
see at Zion as the first-fruits of the union of all Protestants.
So Prussia presented to the new Anglican diocese not only
one-half of the cost of maintenance, but also the person of
the Bishop. Bunsen was in an ecstasy ; he fancied that
he had once again achieved a great diplomatic victory by
persuading the British to accept this gift from Prussia ; and
he heard with rapture how his pious friend, Lord Ashley, had
1 Deutsche Geschichte, v. pp. 63-4.
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 259
extolled Prussia's Christian monarch as the best and noblest
king of this world. It was not without a certain malicious
pleasure that he noticed with what suspicious eyes all the
other Great Powers without exception regarded this Pro-
testant bishopric. Russia and France, since the Dardanelles
Treaty, 1 had been jealously competing for the favour of
England, and naturally had no wish to be outbid by
Prussia; while Metternich vaguely apprehended a danger
to the Catholic Church in this friendship of the two Pro-
testant Great Powers, and said anxiously to his faithful
Newman in London : ' Bunsen is trying to found a new
Schmalkald League. . . .' " 2
" Looked upon as a political treaty, this agreement
with Bunsen was a monstrosity, because England alone de-
rived all the advantages from it and gave nothing in return,
and experienced diplomats surmised that now at last the
proceedings of this theological busybody would be put an
end to. Frederick William thought otherwise. He had not
been prosecuting any political plans in these negotiations,
and he continued to repeat the modest exhortation : ' Let
us efface ourselves.' Since he now perceived the con-
summation of that work of Christian piety, which was all
that his heart desired, he decided to bestow a handsome re-
ward on the man through whose agency it had been accom-
plished. In the autumn of 1841 he began to carry out the
long-projected changes in the diplomatic corps. Werther
received an important office at court, and his place was taken
by Count Maltzan, hitherto ambassador at Vienna. Bulow,
whose talents the King valued very highly, was recompensed
by a transfer to Frankfort, in order that he might infuse new
life into the politics of the German Confederation. In
naming his successor Frederick William exhibited a chival-
rous delicacy of feeling without precedent in the history of
diplomacy ; he allowed the young Queen herself the choice
between three names Count Arnim, Count Donhoff, and
1 Of July 1841, by which the Dardanelles were closed to ships of war.
* The League of Schmalkald was formed in 1530 by the Protestant
Princes of Germany to resist the religious policy of Charles V.
260 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
Bunsen. The answer could hardly be in doubt, since Bunsen
during the recent negotiations had yielded so compliantly
to all the English demands. After a conference with the
Queen, Lord Aberdeen replied : ' We cannot do better than
keep what we have,' that is, Bunsen ; ' we do not know the
other two gentlemen.'
" From the point of view of England the choice could not
have been better ; from the point of view of Prussia it could
not have been worse. The weakest of the Great Powers
needed for its representatives men of strong Prussian pride,
men who would uncompromisingly insist on the independ-
ence of their State, which had not yet been fully recognised by
the older Great Powers. In this respect Bulow had been
sometimes at fault, since, in the course of years, he had
accustomed himself to the English point of view to the verge
of forgetting his own. But Bunsen, at the time that he took
up his office, as a result of the influence of his British wife,
was already half transformed into a pseudo-Englishman ;
several of his children adopted their mother's nationality ;
that cosmopolitan indeterminateness, which has been the
misfortune of so many diplomatic families, had fallen like
a blight upon his household. It was gratifying for this self-
satisfied man, so soon after his failures at Rome, to find
himself transferred from the quiet country house on the
Hubel near Berne to the stately Prussia House in Carlton
Terrace. There he found himself in close proximity to
Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, the Foreign
Office in Downing Street, and the ancient groves of St.
James' Park ; on all sides he saw the monuments of a great
history. The fire of his easily aroused enthusiasm was
kindled into flame ; the State and the Church, the country
and the people of the prosperous Island took on a rose-
coloured light. He regarded his own office as the most
important post in the Prussian diplomatic service, and he
was made very happy by the consciousness that he had been
selected to seal more firmly the historic alliance of the two
kindred nations. This ' historic alliance ' had been a pet
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 261
phrase of Prussian diplomacy ever since the change of
dynasty. No one asked what the Prussian State hacj ever
gained by the friendship of England, and whether Prussia
was not now strong enough to dispense with it.
" As blissfully hopeful now as he had been at Rome,
Bunsen regarded any personal friendliness shown to him in
London as a political victory, and seriously believed that the
least genial of all nations could be won over by geniality ;
he innocently hoped that the British would not put any
obstacle in the way of an extension of the Zollverein, and
that in case Germany acquired any colonies, Great Britain
would affectionately protect them with her fleet. The
English regarded their ardent admirer with a quiet irony, and
lost no time in turning to account his unrequited love.
' Ritter Bunsen/ as he was called at court, was soon a lion
of London society and a special favourite of the newspaper
reporters. In addition to the enormous mass of his de-
spatches and memoirs, which were invariably witty and
invariably unpractical, he contrived to win a place in the
world's history for his book on Egypt, and to continue his
liturgical studies. Thus he was equally intimate with the
diplomatic, the learned, and the ecclesiastical circles of
London, and was always ready to relate with a just pride
how he had been the only foreigner present at a banquet of
the Lord Mayor or the Archbishop of Canterbury ; or how
his speech delivered in faultless English had been enthusi-
astically received by some assembly ; or how the University
of Oxford, more grateful than the German Universities,
had honoured him with a doctor's degree. He made use of
this brilliant social position to found numerous societies
for the benefit of the German residents in London, and also
to give a helping hand to the young German scholars who
assisted him in his labours. In the opinion of the public
at large, it was to the advantage of the Prussian State that,
throughout the vast metropolis, the Prussian Minister
should form a constant topic of conversation. In point of
fact, his political activity in London, as before in Rome,
262 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
was wholly injurious to his native country. It was im-
possible that an enthusiast, who was so easily satisfied with
fair words, should gain any influence over the cold English
business-men. At the Prussian Court, however, Bunsen's
sanguine reports were the cause of totally false conceptions
of England's German policy, and of fatal mistakes, which
were to meet with a severe punishment later, when the fate
of Schleswig-Holstein was at stake." l
(b) " Such a spectacle of internal peace naturally filled
German moderate Liberals with admiration ; disillusioned
by the intrigues of the July monarchy, they began to reject
the French ideas of freedom which had been fashionable
in the 'thirties, and now found an embodiment of their
constitutional ideal in the State of Queen Victoria. Only
a few observed how the aristocratic substructure of the old
English parliamentarism had crumbled since the Reform
Bill ; how the decisions in the Lower House had gradually
come into the hands of the Scots and the Irish ; and what
new democratic transformations were thus preparing. At
this time Great Britain was rejoicing in an unexampled
economic prosperity. Her industrial activity had developed
to such an extent that she felt herself in a position to control
all the markets of the world, and she therefore raised the
banner of Free Trade. A vast emigration secured the
conquest of extensive colonies ; and, even if these were
perhaps at some future date to shake off the political
dominion of the mother-country, still they preserved their
British civilisation, and thus secured a great advantage for
the Anglo-Saxon over the Teuton race ; it was not long before,
in every corner of the globe, there might be found some
province which bore the auspicious names of Victoria and
Albert. Occupied in their party struggles and in their
rivalries with their neighbours, the continental nations
scarcely noticed how the greatest Empire in the world's
history was thus growing up perfectly unmolested. Among
the German Anglomaniacs England was commonly extolled
1 Deutsche Geschichte, v. pp. 122-6.
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 263
as the model of a peace-loving Power, who confided innocently
in the adequacy of her small hired army. Yet, as a matter
of fact, this new Carthage was the only State in Europe which
was continually more frequently even than Russia waging
wars wars, to be sure, in which gold counted for more than
iron.
" At the side of the mistress of this world-empire stood
a German princeling, who found himself in the same situa-
tion as that of a princess married to a foreigner ; he could not
keep his nationality. Prince Albert soon became a thorough
Englishman, though in the family circle he generally spoke
German, and his devoted consort, to the horror of all pious
British hearts, even allowed him to use a silver knife for
eating fish. When a few years after his marriage he once
more visited Germany, he took pains to display his British
ways, and held a review of the garrison of Mainz in a grey
summer overcoat ; so that the Prussian generals demanded
wrathfully whether this young sprig of the House of Wettin
had altogether forgotten that German princes paid honour
to the flag of their country in military uniform. In the cold
joylessness of English life he lost that genial cheerfulness
which characterises the cultivated German ; he became
stiff, pedantic, and harsh and uncharitable in his judgments,
so that even the task of training his children, which he
entered into with great zeal, was only successful in the case
of some of his daughters, and was wholly unsuccessful in
the case of the heir to the throne. His self-assurance was
very much enhanced by the calculated flattery of the British
party-leaders, and by the innocent encomiums of continental
constitutionalists. He looked down with arrogance on his
illustrious fellow-princes in Germany ; he imagined that he
understood German politics better than they did, although,
as a result of his long absence, he had long since lost touch
with the affairs of his native country ; and he did not realise
that he was giving any cause for offence by constantly and
pedantically exhorting the German princes to follow the lead
of England. The Queen took up the same attitude. She
264 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
loved her consort so deeply that she folded his country as
well as himself to her heart, and with true womanliness
believed herself called upon to watch over its welfare. She
imagined that, like her predecessors who had been Kings of
Hanover, so she, in the character of Duchess of Saxe-Coburg,
was a member of the German Confederation ; and the Ger-
man courts offered a far less ungrateful soil for the delicate
arts of feminine policy than did the English Parliament.
" Between London, Brussels, Wiesbaden, and Coburg
there was established a chain of couriers, who maintained
regular communications among the trusted intimates of the
House of Coburg ; and there were side-lines to Paris and
Lisbon. Though the English press, in its blind hatred of
the foreigner, protested against the alleged ' German in-
fluence ' at the London court, Germany might, with more
reason, have complained of an English and Coburg influence.
The elder brother of the Prince Consort, Duke Ernest of
Coburg, who was entirely German in his sympathies, felt
this very strongly. Soon after he had mounted his little
throne, he wrote to his Uncle Leopold : ' We must become
loyal Germans again, for hitherto we have as a rule appeared
as mere relations of the great courts of the West ; hence
Coburg is looked upon as a nest of un-German intrigues
and ultra-Liberal ideas.' But unfortunately nothing was
achieved beyond noble resolutions. To prudent calculators
like Leopold and Albert, the great West-European interests
of their cosmopolitan dynasty naturally seemed more im-
portant than their little German native province ; and the
advice of the Coburgs continued to be frequently detrimental
to the interests of the German nation, all the more detri-
mental since this House, in every way favoured by Provi-
dence, had also the rare good fortune to be extolled in litera-
ture, not by the common flatterers of the courts but by loyal
and distinguished writers. All the honest German scholars,
who enjoyed the patronage of Bunsen and Stockmar in
London, became the apostles of this legend of the Coburgs.
They recounted in good faith to their countrymen at home,
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 265
how wonderfully the Prince Consort had contrived at the
same time to become a thorough Briton and to remain a
thorough German." 1
(c) " The Foreign Ministry continued for a long time to
send the British Cabinet unrequited professions of affection,
especially since Billow had stepped into the office of Count
Maltzan, who had been smitten with an incurable disease
after only a few months. As Minister, Billow remained what
he had been as Ambassador, such an unreserved admirer of
England that Stockmar contentedly declared him to be
the most capable of all the Prussian diplomats. On receiving
the intelligence of the new Asiatic successes of the English, he
expressed the congratulations of his Court through Bunsen,
and added, in the fervour of his own enthusiasm : ' Bound
to Great Britain by the ties of a long alliance and of a deep
and enduring friendship, we are accustomed to look upon
everything which promotes the glory and well-being of the
British Empire, almost as if it had happened to ourselves.' 2
With such disinterestedness did these sentimental politicians,
in the honoured name of the German State, assume a part
of the responsibility for England's shameful opium war !
Certainly, Berlin was badly informed with regard to oriental
affairs, since Bunsen believed everything that his British
friends told him, and sent home indignant reports that his
dear England had been shamefully calumniated in the matter
of the ppium trade. 3
" It was impossible that this Anglomania, which after
all only represented the personal sentiments of the King
and his intimates, could continue very long. There was
absolutely no motive for a political alliance of the two
Powers ; even their economic interests lay at this moment
in widely different directions. No sooner did Prussia raise
her duties a little than Peel expressed deep indignation, as
if the rights of England, whose own duties stood far higher,
1 Geschickte, v. pp. 129-31.
2 Biilow, Instruction to Bunsen, November 5, 1842.
8 Bunsen's Report, December 10, 1842.
266 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
had thereby been infringed ; and though Bunsen soothingly
replied, ' The Zollverein is still the best customer of your
industry/ his royal master could not be unaware that it
was essential that German industrial activity should outgrow
this dependence. 1 How little importance the English nation
attached to the German alliance was demonstrated at this
time by Macaulay's essay on Frederick the Great. Even
the French, who still held in esteem the philosophers of Sans
Souci, had never expressed their opinions of Prussia with
such a brutal arrogance and lack of understanding, and here,
as elsewhere, the brilliant essayist was only expressing the
average opinion of his educated countrymen. Frederick
William's cultivated and artistic friend, Count Raczynski,
also had some experience of British self-complacency. When,
after a friendly reception at court, he ventured to ask
whether German artists should not be invited to introduce
painting in fresco into England, where it was almost un-
known, the English painters protested with great heat, 2
and Sir Morton Shee replied proudly : ' Our school is recog-
nised as the first in the world.' " 3
n. Sir Robert Peel and the Free Trade Movement, 1842-4.6
It is needless to say that Treitschke caricatures the views
of Richard Cobden and the Free Trade school. But his
account of the anti-Corn Law movement, and his analysis
of the character of Sir Robert Peel, show him at his best.
It is curious that Treitschke should date from 1846 the growth
of materialism among the English upper classes. A closer
acquaintance with the manners of English society in the
eighteenth century would have shown him that the unpleas-
ing traits which he regards as new were in reality very old ;
though neither then nor in 1846 was it fair to represent
English society as entirely wanting in ideals. The reader
1 Bunsen's Reports, July 25, 1842, et seqq.
8 Bunsen's Report, May 6, 1842.
3 Deutsche Geschichte, v. pp. 133-4.
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 267
will notice that the decay of duelling is, in Treitschke's eyes,
a crowning proof of " the triumph of vulgarity " :
" From the immediate future the disappointed German
protectionist party could on the whole expect very little.
The whole tendency of the age was unfavourable to them.
The first trading power of the world, which had grown
strong under the protection of her customs and navigation
laws, was just returning to the path of free trade. England's
political economy, as List l said bitterly, had now risen to
such a height that she could boldly break away the ladders
which had aided her ascent. The doctrine of the greatest
happiness of the greatest number, which had first been
expounded by the father of English radicalism, Jeremy
Bentham, gained an increasing hold over the British nation ;
from this doctrine arose the desire for free trade and cheap
consumption. The middle classes, who had forced their
way into parliament as a result of the Reform Bill, directed
their attacks in the first place against the corn duties, because
they felt that such power as remained to the old nobility
was partly due to the corn laws. The great multitude of the
working classes, on the other hand, regarded with suspicion
a movement which was political as well as economic ;
they trusted the middle classes even less than the land-
owners, and they feared that the repeal of the corn laws
would bring about a lower rate of wages, which was indeed
the secret hope of many opponents of the corn laws. From
the year 1839 the Anti-Corn-Law League, founded by
Richard Cobden, carried on a campaign among the middle
classes by means of meetings, newspapers, pamphlets, by
itinerant speakers and mass petitions, by processions and
industrial exhibitions, the manufacturers providing the
League with abundant pecuniary resources. After six
years of tireless agitation, the League had won over the great
majority of the middle classes, especially in Manchester and
1 Friedrich List, best known as the author of Das National System der
Politischer Oekonomie (1844).
268 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
the industrial districts of the North- West ; and the demand
for free trade resounded far and wide throughout the country.
" In the writings of the new Manchester School there
came to life once again that old theory of natural rights
which had never yet been systematically refuted in England,
and the tenets of which, like all lifeless abstractions, could
be turned to equally good account by a dull materialism or
by an extravagant idealism. Thus it was possible for John
Stuart Mill to be enthusiastic at the same time for Wilhelm
Humboldt and for English radicalism. 1 Agreeing with the
formulas of Humboldt, and yet in the sharpest conceivable
contradiction to him, Cobden regarded the State as an
insurance society, founded by the free will of individuals,
and intended solely to protect commerce and labour from
violent disturbances, and to exact the lowest possible
premiums from its clients. The accumulation of wealth
was for him the sole object of human life ; rapid means of
locomotion for commercial travellers and the cheap produc-
tion of cotton were the highest aims of civilisation. He
declared in perfect seriousness that Stephenson and Watt
had been incomparably more important in the history of
the world than Caesar or Napoleon. If only now, for the
first time, trade and commerce were allowed their natural
freedom, then every nation would infallibly devote itself
to those branches of industry which it could pursue with
the greatest profit ; thus each nation would play into the
hands of all the others by an exportation which should
always correspond exactly with its importation ; a harmony
of interests would be automatically established ; the sinful
luxury of a standing army would cease ; swords would be
beaten into ploughshares, in fulfilment of the predictions
of the old prophets, and eternal peace would dawn upon
the world. Cobden had a sincere love for the working
classes ; he wished to benefit them by a reduction in the
price of bread. He even defended compulsory school-
1 The reference is to Mill's Essay on Liberty, reviewed by Treitschke in
Die Freiheit.
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 269
attendance, because it was necessary that the intelligence
of the factory hands should be tolerably enlightened in order
that their labour might produce the greatest material
results ; factory-laws, on the contrary, he condemned as an
encroachment on the liberty of the individual.
" Such a gospel of mammon- worship threatened to
mutilate the human race ; it threatened to extinguish all
the heroism, all the beauty and sublimity, all the idealism
of the human soul ; yet this doctrine of voluntarism, of an
unrestricted social competition replacing any kind of State
compulsion, was characterised by a certain daring self-
assurance which was bound to attract men of energy and
enterprise. Yet that great intellectual development which
marked the age of the Revolution had wholly vanished in
this struggle for the freedom of the individual against the
control of the State. Even Cobden felt an almost senti-
mental enthusiasm for the sober idea of improvement, of
material progress ; he looked upon himself as the chosen
apostle of the well-being of the nations at large. To be sure
his cosmopolitan doctrine, originated by a self-complacent
and insular nation, which looked with contempt upon all
foreigners, could not be altogether free from certain crafty
and unexpressed commercial motives. He himself showed
more appreciation than most of his countrymen for foreign
peoples ; he admired the Prussians ; even the unity of
Germany and of Italy did not appal him. Nevertheless, at
the very beginning of his public activity, he said openly :
' Our only goal is the lawful interests of England, without
regard to the ambitions of other nations.' His doctrine of
a universal free exchange of commodities was based on the
tacit assumption that England was to control the wholesale
industries of the whole world, and that only the primary
industries, and a few others which would be difficult to
transplant, should be left to the other nations. Just as
Canning and Palmerston had relied on the phrase ' con-
stitutional,' so now Cobden relied on the phrase ' free
trade ' as a profitable article of export, which should make
270 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
the tour of the globe, and enlist all the nations in the interests
of British trade-supremacy. As soon as the shrewd manu-
facturers perceived this hidden purpose of the free trade
doctrine, the movement strengthened irresistibly, until the
leading statesman of the moment, Robert Peel, could no
longer restrain it.
" Although Peel, as the son of a rich cotton-spinner who
had risen by his industry and sagacity, himself belonged
to the middle classes, he did not in the least share Cobden's
view of life. Like his father, to whom the working classes
always remained grateful for countless proofs of practical
humanity, he always stood high above the class-selfishness
of the manufacturers. He grew up in the convictions of
the Tory party, of the High Church, of the old-fashioned
solid classical education, and he saw in Pitt the ideal states-
man ; this calm, deliberate, cautious man seemed a born
conservative. Yet fate assigned to him the role of a
reformer. The rapidly changing times forced him again
and again to examine carefully the views of his party ; and
as soon as he saw that they were no longer adapted to the
welfare of the country, he stood up constantly, with high
moral courage, for what he had recognised as a new truth,
regardless of the disapproval of his old friends, regardless
of that narrow party-convention known as ' ethics of party.'
Rarely has a statesman changed his opinion so often on
great political questions, without ever being untrue to
himself. Even as a young man, Peel ventured in Parliament
to contradict his own father, the authority by whom he had
always been guided, and to support the resumption of
cash -payments by the Bank of England. Then, like
Wellington, he recognised the necessity for the emancipation
of the Catholics, hitherto contested by all the Tories ; and
he defended this reform, which opened the way for all the
democratic innovations of the next decade. The Reform
Bill, however, he opposed obstinately to the very end ; but,
when the decision came that the middle classes were to be
admitted into the House of Commons, he could no longer
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 271
disguise from himself that the centre of gravity of the old
aristocratic edifice of the State had been shifted. Now, as
a minister, he resolved to yield to the irresistible agitation for
free trade, and thus to continue the policy of the Reform
Bill.
" The majority of his Tory friends disowned him. In
league with his old opponents, the Whigs and the Radicals,
he went on his way, amid the cheers and plaudits of the
middle classes, a statesman who did not rule his age by
force of original and creative ideas, but rather conscientiously
learnt the lesson of his age, and as an orator, if not brilliant,
was at least powerful by his honesty and frankness and his
courage in accepting the inevitable. The proud lords of
the old Tory nobility cursed the cotton-spinner who, in
spite of his princely wealth, had always remained a plebeian,
and had infamously betrayed his party; and Benjamin
Disraeli, the young Hotspur of the Tories, said, ' Such a
conservative government is nothing but a huge imposture.'
But already the working classes were beginning to turn
their attention to the socialistic theories of Chartism, and
they besieged Parliament with gigantic petitions for the
extension of the rights of the people. The dull resentment
of the masses, and the critical condition of trade in the
North- West, compelled the Government to take action.
" In the year 1842, almost two- thirds of all the customs
rates of the old tariff were either cancelled or reduced.
Other reductions in the customs rates soon followed. Then
in the year 1845 a serious failure of crops brought unspeak-
able misery over the island kingdom, and especially over
Ireland. It was apparent to every one that Great Britain
had become an industrial country. Her native agricultural
industry no longer sufficed to feed the enormously increased
urban population. After these experiences Peel risked a
decisive step. In [May 1846 the corn duties were repealed.
The Lords gave their assent, because Wellington, the Iron
Duke, warned them that if they did not agree now of their
own free will, the Upper House would at a later day be
272 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
either coerced or else abolished. So hopeless already was
seen to be any resistance to the rising middle classes. A few
weeks later Peel was obliged to resign. His old opponents
had helped him to victory ; now his vanquished friends
took their revenge. If he dissolved Parliament, he would
be sure of securing a large majority, but so he said to
Bunsen only with the support of the Radicals, and ' I
will not go with the Radicals.' 1 So he retired, a victim
of party-spirit ; and for a long time the middle classes
continued to extol him as the most popular of all the British
statesmen. He knew that, in the same spirit that had
animated his noble father, he had secured a great benefit
for the working classes, but that he had in addition
strengthened the commercial power of his country ; for an
uncompromising national self-assertion was as sacred to him
as to all his countrymen. For the purposes of a commercial
policy he did not disdain to resort to the trivial artifice of
empty deception ; he said once to the Prussian ambassador :
' It is essential for you to come to an understanding with
us over the customs question, for otherwise it might easily
happen that a Franco -American naval alliance would
threaten the economic and political independence of the
Continent.'
" His inheritance was taken over by the Whigs, who
were from this time frequently obliged to join forces with
the Radicals, although their own leaders, almost without
exception, belonged to the proudest and most distinguished
families of the aristocracy. Lord Palmerston, who was
again installed in the Foreign Office, was able now to pursue
with redoubled energy his old policy of secretly disturbing
the peace of the world ; he taught the bears on the Continent
to dance now to the tune of Liberalism, now to the tune
of Free Trade. The victors revelled in a boundless self-
adulation. Cobden cried, in the intoxication of his delight,
' Free trade is the international law of the Almighty ; not
only England but the whole world is now and for all time
1 Bunsen's Report, July 10, 1846.
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 273
concerned in the struggle of the Corn League.' His disciples
compared the year 1846 with the Revolution of 1688. And
of course the repeal of the Corn Laws had a profound influ-
ence on all social relations ; it democratised society, as the
Reform Bill had already democratised the State.
" Though Cobden had always assured the landowners
that they would not suffer by the repeal, this attempt at
conciliation was at once proved to be either an error or
else an intentional deception. Agricultural rents sank
considerably ; and as the English nobility always knew
how to adapt themselves to the times, they realised very
soon that the only way in which they could possibly maintain
their authority over the middle classes was by the powerful
aid of the middle classes themselves. Since landed property
was no longer sufficiently remunerative, they began to
concern themselves in railways, banks, and industrial
enterprises of every description. It was not long before
the son of the Duke of Argyll, without causing any scandal,
was carrying on a profitable trade in wine. Old notions of
honour and old class prejudices vanished before the omni-
potence of money, whereas the German nobility were still
poor, but still chivalrous. A commercial spirit pervaded
the whole life of the nation. That last indispensable
bulwark against the brutalisation of society the duel
went out of fashion, and soon disappeared completely ;
the riding-whip supplanted the sword and the pistol ; and
this triumph of vulgarity was celebrated as a triumph of
enlightenment. The newspapers, in their accounts of
aristocratic weddings, recorded in exact detail how much
each wedding-guest had contributed in the form of presents
or in cash ; even the youth of the nation turned their sport
into a business, and contended for valuable prizes, whereas
the German students wrought havoc on their countenances
for^the sake of a real or imaginary honour. The gulf between
German and British manners widened more and more.
Such traces as remained of the puritans of Shakespeare's
merry old England were completely submerged in the prose
T
274 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
of commercial life. Therefore the attitude adopted by
the island kingdom towards the other States of the world
was more than ever determined by the calculations of a
commercial policy." 1
12. Great Britain and the Schleswig-Holstein Question, 1846
In 1846 Christian VIII. of Denmark issued an ordinance
or " Open Letter " declaring that the Danish State (including
the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein) was indivisible, and
that it could pass by inheritance to females. This decree
was resented by the German population in the duchies who
had hoped that, by the extinction of the male line of the
Danish dynasty, Schleswig and Holstein would be separated
from Denmark, and that they would then be ruled by a
German prince. Treitschke suggests that Great Britain
opposed the wishes of the majority of the population in the
duchies, and did so in order to keep Kiel out of the hands
of Prussia :
" The Great Powers thought quite otherwise. They all
adhered to the inflexible dogma that the integrity of the
Danish monarchy was necessary for the maintenance of the
balance of power in Europe. Innocent folk might well
ask in astonishment why the balance of power in Europe
would be shaken, if the little State on the Sound and the
Belt were reduced from two and a half to one and a half
millions ? Any one who looked deeper, however, could
not fail to recognise that there were serious grounds for the
view of the larger courts ; it was rooted not only in the
peacefulness of the time, but also in the general anxiety
occasioned by the rise of Germany. No one doubted that
the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, having broken away
from Denmark, would attach themselves firmly to Germany ;
that they would summon Prussian troops to protect them,
and that they might even concede to the Prussian fleet, the
1 Deutsche Geschichte, v. pp. 475-480,
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 275
first ship of which had just been launched, the finest harbour
on the Baltic. A German naval port at Kiel ! This thought
alone was sufficient to rouse indignation in every English
heart. Moved by their hatred of Germany, Denmark's
hereditary enemies, the British, now appeared as friendly
patrons of the court at Copenhagen. Immediately after
the appearance of the ' Open Letter,' the Times then
still the powerful organ of national opinion wrote : ' The
Prussian statesmen cannot be acquitted of the reproach of
having actively supported a feverish agitation, an agitation
detrimental to the peace of a neighbouring country, because
it occurred to them that it would provide an agreeable
amusement for the German nation, and also, possibly,
because they wished to distract the attention of the German
nation from other questions far more practical and far
nearer home.' Then Germany was warned against that
greed of territory which had already proved dangerous in the
New World, and which would be fatal in the heart of Europe.
With such hypocrisy as this, a nation, which had year after
year been appropriating to itself new colonies, dared to
abuse the Germans, because they humbly wished to preserve
the heritage of their fathers ! The Government still held
back : it desired first of all merely that the integrity of the
Danish State should be preserved, no matter under which
dynasty ; for it regarded this State, strangely enough, as a
bulwark against Russia ! " l
13. The Foreign Policy of Lord Palmerston, 184.7-4.8
In the following passages Treitschke apparently attributes
to Palmerston more craft than that distinguished statesman
ever showed. Lord Minto's mission to Italy " to found in
Italy a Whig party, a sort of Brooks' Club at Florence," was
as well intentioned as it was resultless. It was probably the
idea of Palmerston's chief, Lord John Russell, the most
1 Deutsche Geschichte, v. pp. 580-1.
276 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
amiable of Whig doctrinaires. In the Swiss question the
feud between the Protestant cantons and the Catholic
Sonderbund Palmerston's chief anxiety was to prevent
either France or Austria from intervening by force of arms ;
he defended the neutrality of Switzerland against the
designs of Guizot and Metternich. The Spanish marriage
question, which is mentioned in our second extract, had
arisen in 1846 ; it was a dispute between England and
France over the marriages of Queen Isabella and her sister.
In all these transactions the worst that can be said of
Palmerston is that he systematically watched and foiled
the diplomacy of Metternich and of Guizot.
(a) " So Palmerston was able to come forward boastfully
as the generous protector of Italy. Also he was applied
to for advice by the helpless Pius, and the great Catholic
pulpit orator of London, Bishop Wiseman, through whom
the appeal was transmitted, hinted that the Pope could
not wholly trust either the Vienna or the Paris court. Lord
Palmerston immediately sent his eccentric Radical friend,
Charles Minto, as ambassador to Turin, and then with
secret instructions to Rome, where Great Britain dared
not, in view of her ancient laws, allow herself to be officially
represented ; and he said scornfully to Bunsen : ' That will
not please Metternich, but an English fleet in the Adriatic
will please him even less.' * Minto's suite comprised a whole
crowd of young men out of office, who with astounding
insolence proclaimed on all sides at the courts the approaching
revolution. Nothing lay further from the minds of these
distinguished demagogues than an honest sympathy with
Italy's misfortune ; they merely wished to thwart Palmer-
ston's enemies, Metternich and Guizot, and to foster that
dissension on the Continent, which was so advantageous
to England's commercial policy. Bunsen, to be sure, for
whom no English cunning was too flagrant, allowed himself
to be deceived once more, and wrote enthusiastically : ' The
fight in the cause of the constitutions is becoming " a question
1 Bunsen's Report September 28, 1847.
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 277
of political religion, in which England fills the office of High
Priest." ' * Palmerston as a High Priest ! this amusing
notion could certainly have only originated in the brain of
the Prussian ambassador, filled as it was with enthusiasm
for his foreign brothers ; and Canitz refused to believe that
in a nation, which hitherto had boasted of its sound practical
intelligence, ' political fanaticism should have been estab-
lished as a permanent institution.' z His king, however,
declared, when he became acquainted with the intolerable
squabbling of the diplomats of the western powers : ' The
English ambassadors at Piedmont and Greece seem to me,
with all due deference, to be ripe for the madhouse over-
ripe.' 3 Metternich had good reason to complain that
Lord Firebrand was resuming the old ' Aeolus policy of
Canning ' ; the statesman who protested most vigorously
against a policy of intervention is himself intervening
everywhere ; he is le plus intervenant de tous. And whatever
the English court could do to kindle fresh sparks in this
universal firebrand, it did with all its might." 4
(b) " What a splendid opportunity for Palmerston to
take at last his revenge for the Spanish marriages ! He only
needed the diplomatic verdict (which would in any case
involve a considerable delay owing to the great distance
which separated the five courts), to be able to hold out a
little longer, until the Sonderbund was demolished by the
weapon of the twelve majority. As early as September,
his faithful Lord Minto, on his journey to Turin, had con-
ferred with Ochsenbein and had learnt with delight that
the leaders of the Radical insurgents had resolved to make
a prompt attack. 5 The Prussian ambassador, too, judged
the situation rightly ; he wrote home in his report : ' Every
day of delay is hastening the collapse of the Sonderbund.'
When at length the Duke de Broglie presented Guizot's
1 Bunsen to Canitz, April 16, 1847.
2 Canitz to Bunsen, September 25, 1847.
3 King Frederick William to Bunsen, October 8, 1847.
4 Deutsche Geschichte, v. pp. 721-2.
6 Bunsen's Report, September 28, 1847.
278 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
draft memorandum, Palmerston was for the moment
scarcely able to contain his malicious joy, and in a scornful
note he replied that he admired the wording of the document,
that he saw very well that it was a question of a second
edition of the Cracow affair, 1 and that he could never lend
his hand to assist in making Switzerland another Poland.
Thereupon general indignation at the great courts ; King
Frederick William wrote to Bunsen : ' This witticism of
your Whig friend smacks of over-addiction to oysters and
champagne. It is the child of the Guizot-Metternich
hatred, that is to say, of the vilest apparition on the diplo-
matic horizon since the July days.' 2 Meantime Palmerston
artfully made an appearance of giving way, and declared
himself prepared to discuss a general memorandum. Thence
another delay of several days, during which the English
ambassador in Switzerland, the young son of Robert Peel
and a personal friend of Ochsenbein, contrived that General
Dufour 3 should be privately urged to open the attack as
quickly as possible. Again there was high indignation at the
great courts when this new breach of faith was made public.
Frederick William refused to believe that this ' rascally
young Peel " could be the son of the man who had the soul
of a duke and the heart of a commoner. 4 But had Austria
and France behaved any more honourably when they
supported the Sonderbund with money and arms ? Once
again was revealed the utter falseness of the old system of
advisory congresses. The European States were bound to
one another by too many and diverse interests ; the high
court of justice of the Five Powers could never deal quite
impartially with any serious matter of dispute. 5 . . . How
absurd appeared now, after the issue had long been decided,
1 The free city of Cracow had been annexed by Austria in November
1846.
* Count Arnim's Report, November 22 ; King Frederick William to
Bunsen, December 8, 1847.
8 The General of the Protestant cantons.
* King Frederick William to Bunsen, December 4, 1847,
5 Deutsche Geschichte, v. pp. 730-31.
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 279
the mediatory note (V ' ermittlungsnote) which the Great
Powers at length agreed to transmit, on December 7.
Palmerston had attained his purpose, and now indulged in
one more of his malicious jokes. The great Elchi of Pera,
Lord Stratford Canning, had in the meantime appeared in
Switzerland as plenipotentiary extraordinary, and exerted
himself, with English modesty, on the one hand, to coax
the ambassadors of the Great Powers into a better humour,
and, on the other hand, to warn the Diet against the propa-
ganda of European Radicalism. He had received secret
instructions not to present the mediatory note (V ermittlungs-
note}, which had been countersigned by Palmerston, in case
the Sonderbund had in the meantime been overthrown.
Thus England stood aloof ; and Palmerston was filled with
delight when the four other Powers alone were apprised, in
a curt note of refusal from the Diet, that any mediation
was superfluous, as the two parties of the Confederation
no longer existed. This snub to the Great Powers was
everywhere received by the Liberals with loud derision ;
their party feeling had reached such a pitch that the over-
throw of the Sonderbund seemed to them like a defeat of
the old European order. Thiers said in the Chamber that
the conduct of Guizot was a counter-revolution in itself.
The Diet received congratulatory addresses from France,
from South Germany, and from Saxony ; even Jacoby, with
his Konigsbergers, solemnly expressed his thanks to the
Swiss ; and Freiligrath sang :
Im Hochland fiel der erste Schuss,
Im Hochland wieder die Pfaffen,
Da kam, die fallen wird und muss,
Ja die Lawine kam in Schuss,
Drei Lander in den Waffen !
Die Freiheit dort, die Freiheit hier,
Die Freiheit jetzt und fur und fur,
Die Freiheit rings auf Erden !
" The Swiss negotiations brought down scorn and
280 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
mockery on all the Continental Powers, and to the King
of Prussia they brought in addition a severe personal and
political mortification. Frederick William was too proud
and too honourable to take part in the secret despatch of
arms and money. But only the more earnestly did he
desire the open intervention of the whole of Europe on
behalf of the threatened Federal right of the Confederation.
Swiss Radicalism, which at bottom was very little attracted
towards the projects of the cosmopolitan propaganda,
seemed to him like a disastrous hotbed of European anarchy.
As early as the summer of 1846 he wrote to London : ' It
is absolutely necessary that Prussia, for the sake of Neuchatel,
should preserve the canton's sovereignty intact, in accordance
with existing agreements.' When, therefore, the double-
tongued polic^ of England was revealed, he cried out bitterly
that Great Britain had abandoned Prussia, her best and
most powerful ally ; and Canitz complained : ' The guiding
principle of the British Cabinet is partly a passionate hatred
against Guizot and Metternich, partly a deep-seated interest
in every struggle against the existing order, under the
pretext of progress ; its firm is bankrupt of legitimacy.'
Wonderful how this ingenious king slapped his own face.
In Vienna and Frankfort he honourably represented the
reform of the German Bund, and in Switzerland he fought
passionately against political ideas which after all were
directed towards the same end. How often had his father
valiantly resisted every attempt at interference by the
western Powers in German Federal politics ; although the
chief article in the constitution of the German Confederation
also figured in the Act of the Vienna Congress. Now
his son was desiring that the Great Powers should join
together to fight for the unrestricted sovereignty of Uri,
Schwyz, and Unterwalden ! Even General Gerlach, who
already considered the Germano-maniac plans of Federal
reform of his royal master much too bold, could not repress
the obvious question : ' With what show of reason can we
keep the western Powers from interfering in German Federal
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 281
reform, if we ourselves summon them to intervene in the
affairs of the Swiss Confederation ? ' " l
14. Great Britain and Turkey, 1876-77
The following extracts are taken from two essays which
relate primarily to the Eastern Question. The two first
occur in>an essay on "Turkey and the Great Powers,"
which is dated June 20, 1876 a few weeks after the
Bulgarian atrocities, and while it was still uncertain
what steps would be taken by Europe to end the Turkish
scandal. Russia was anxious to embark single-handed
on the reform or the destruction of the Ottoman Empire ;
Great Britain, under the guidance of Disraeli, desired to
reform the Ottoman government through a conference of
the great Powers. The other essay is entitled " The
European Situation at the End of 1877." It is dated
December 10, 1877 about a month before Russia was
unwillingly compelled, by threats of British intervention,
to conclude the armistice which ended the Russo-Turkish
War and saved Constantinople from her grasp. Treitschke
makes England's conduct in 1876 and 1877 the text for a
general attack upon her diplomacy. It is interesting to
notice that Treitschke was in favour of destroying the
Turkish power altogether :
(a) " To compare present-day England with eighteenth-
century Holland is to go too far ; in the vast machinery of
its social life the nation still shows a mighty energy ; and
it may very well happen that, if England believes that the
vital interests of her trade have been injured, she may once
again astonish the world by some act of resolute daring.
But certainly the intellectual horizon of her statesmen is
quite as narrow, and her view of life is quite as antiquated
in its narrow-mindedness and quite as obdurately conserva-
tive, as was once the policy of the declining Netherlands.
1 Deutsche Geschichte, v. pp. 732-4.
282 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
Over-rich and over-satiated, vulnerable at a hundred points
of their widely scattered dominions, the British feel that
they have nothing more in the wide world to wish for, and
that, to the young and developing forces of the century,
they need still only oppose the mighty weapon of a
vanquished age. Therefore they obstinately resist any
changes in the international system, no matter how bene-
ficial these might be. England is at the present day the
unblushing representative of barbarism hi international
law. It is England who is to blame if naval warfare, to the
shame of humanity, still bears the character of privileged
robbery. It was England who, at the Brussels Conference, 1
opposed and frustrated the attempt of Germany and Russia
to set some limits to the devastation of land warfare. Apart
from the feeble and utterly unprofitable sympathy which
the English press professed for the unity of Italy, the British
nation has, during the last two decades, shown towards
every rising nation confident in its own future, nothing
but a malicious hostility. England was terribly distressed
at the wickedness of the North American slave-dealers ;
she was the shrieking but (God be thanked !) cowardly
advocate of an alien Danish rule in Schleswig-Holstein ;
she venerated the Federal Diet and the Guelph dynasty ;
she allowed the French to attack united Germany, though
she could have prevented it, and she prolonged the war by
her trade in arms. When Monsieur de Lesseps conceived
the brilliant idea of the Suez Canal, 2 which the ruler of
India ought to have welcomed with open arms, Great
Britain buried her head in the sand like the ostrich, in order
that she might not see this blissful, but at the moment
inconvenient, necessity ; the great work was sneered and
scoffed at until it was completed, and then England at-
tempted to exploit for her own advantage an innovation
which had been accomplished against her will. And, after
all these accumulated proofs of the incapacity and the
1 In 1865.
2 He obtained his first concession in 1854 ; the canal was opened in 1869.
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 283
narrow prejudices of British statesmanship, can we Germans
be expected to admire this State as the great-hearted
defender of international freedom and of the European
Balance of Power ? Only too audible are the echoes of those
high-sounding words, with which England is pleased to
cloak her Eastern policy ; that old alarmist cry : ' It is the
Ganges that we are defending on the Bosporus.' And why
should we break England's head on behalf of the Indian
Imperial Crown ? " 1
(&) " But England cannot wait. A policy which, like that
of Metternich, merely strives to preserve existing conditions
because they exist, lives from hand to mouth ; it needs from
time to time some noisy and theatrical demonstration, in
order to prove to the world that it still lives, and is prepared
to protect Europe from the imaginary dangers that beset
her. Four notions in particular seem to animate this paltry
statesmanship. In their blissful seclusion, the inhabitants of
this rich island have preserved an antiquated notion of a
European Balance of Power, and they torment their brains
with horrid visions which, since the Revolutions in
Italy and Germany, have lost any justification. They
are terribly alarmed for their Mediterranean bases, and
fail to see that England's incomparable mercantile marine
is bound to give her the upper hand in the Mediterranean,
even if these positions were restored to their natural
owners an eventuality immeasurably far from realisa-
tion at present. Great Britain desires at any price to
preserve the existence of the Ottoman Empire, because the
ridiculous commercial policy of the Turks has opened a
vast hunting-ground to the English trader. To be sure,
it only requires a little foresight to perceive that, if tolerable
political conditions were established in the Balkan Penisula,
the commerce of these countries would necessarily be stimu-
lated, and the greatest trading nation in the world would
therefore reap an advantage ; but these monopolists have
at all times preferred a small sale with a large margin of
1 Deutsche Kdmpfe, ii. pp. 361-3.
284 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
profit to modest profits from a larger sale. Rejoicing in the
momentary advantage, they continue to swear by the words
of Palmerston : ' I will not enter into discussion with any
statesman who does not recognise the existence of Turkey
as a European necessity ' ; and they forget that this same
Palmerston said in his last years : ' We will not a second
time draw the sword on behalf of a corpse.' Just as once,
when it deemed the acquisition of the Ionian Isles to be
expedient, this commercial policy delivered over the unfor-
tunate town of Parga 1 to the savage cruelty of Ali Pasha,
now at the present day it is providing the Turks with money
and weapons for the massacre of the Christians of Bosnia.
Finally and most important of all, England is trembling for
her Indian possessions ; the new imperial crown and the
utterly disastrous visit of the Prince of Wales 2 show how
heavily this anxiety weighs upon her.
"It is feared in London that Russia might control the
Suez Canal from Stamboul ; and therefore, by overtures to
the Caliph, Great Britain has tried to keep the Mussulmans
of Hindustan in a good humour and to guard them from
Muscovite cunning. Any one who regards the victorious
progress of the Russians through Central Asia, not with the
pessimism of a Vambery, but with an open mind, will ask
indeed what cause England can find for alarm. The idea
that Russia may casually put in her pocket the two hundred
million souls of the Anglo-Indian Empire is in truth nothing
but a bad joke ; and if it finds a few supporters in Europe,
it is merely because the vast distances in Asia appear so
insignificant on our maps. Rather both States have reason
to fear in the East a common enemy the fanaticism of
Islam and, by dint of a little good-will on both sides, an
1 In 1814 the inhabitants of Parga (a Greek town in Epirus) placed
themselves under British protection to escape from their impending sub-
jection to Ali Pasha of Janina. But in 1817 the British Government
handed Parga over to Ali Pasha in recognition of his past services against
the French. The inhabitants were offered an asylum in the Ionian
Isles.
a In the winter of 1875-76 ; this visit was the occasion for Queen
Victoria's assumption of the title Empress of India.
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 285
understanding with regard to the demarcation of their
respective spheres of supremacy might have been possible
fifteen years ago. At the present day it is scarcely possible.
It lay with England to invite this understanding ; for her
position as an Asiatic Power was far more seriously threatened
than were Russia's new possessions. What did a defeat
in this barbarous country matter to Russia ? She lost a few
hundred miles, and won them back, from the fastnesses of
the interior, a few years later. For England, on the other
hand, a successful insurrection in India might have terrible
consequences. It would not, to be sure, shatter altogther
the force of old England the power of the queen of the sea
would even then remain very great but it would give that
power a severe shock, and would result in a terrible loss
for human civilisation, since the provinces of India would
be abandoned to a vast civil war. The task of governing
hundreds of millions of natives by a few hundred Europeans
is immeasurably difficult. All the most important interests
of England demanded that she should fearlessly make an
attempt to establish good relations with her troublesome
neighbour in the North ; but, haunted by the fixed idea of a
Russian world-empire, England's statesmen and her people
zealously obstructed this understanding. Every fresh con-
quest of the Russians was greeted by the English press with
hostile bitterness. If England sent an agent to Kashgar,
where he certainly had no business to be, that was quite
in order ; but if Russia sent an agent to Khiva, where he had
equally no right to be, all England cried out at the wicked-
ness of the Muscovites. Not merely the irresponsible press,
but even influential circles, gave vent to such cries of distress
as accorded little with the ancient manliness of the English
character. The famous book of General Rawlinson, 1 which
could scarcely have appeared without the tacit approval of
the highest authorities in India, practises freely the art of
1 The well-known Assyriologist, Sir Henry Rawlinson, published in
1875 a book on England and Russia in the East, which produced a sensation
at the time.
286 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
talking of the devil till his imps appear. Thus, by constantly
proclaiming to the world that the Russians were to be feared
as enemies, Great Britain aggravated the dangers of the
situation. England's rule in India is based fundamentally
on her moral reputation ; as soon as the natives of India
begin to suspect that a formidable enemy of their British
rulers is advancing in overwhelming strength towards the
Indus, the ties of obedience may very well be relaxed. It
was this openly expressed fear of Russia which drove the
Court of St. Petersburg to an unfriendly and sometimes
perfidious policy. It went unconcernedly on its way, and
from time to time consoled the uneasiness of its British neigh-
bours with insincere professions of affection. Without
indulging unreasonable suspicion, we might at the present
day hazard the conjecture that these Asiatic conquests
constitute for the Russian Government not merely an end
in themselves, but also a means towards the realisation of
another purpose : Russia intends to prepare difficulties for
the English in India, in case the downfall of the Turkish
Empire should be followed by a world-war.
"Thus English statesmen waver to and fro between
old-fashioned prejudices and nervous apprehensions ; their
own interests and a feeling of inward elective affinity enable
them to pose before the Turks as their only true friends.
Their most recent feat the dethronement of the Sultan, 1
was a very skilful move, and nothing more ; it only proved
that England thoroughly intends to assert her influence on
the Bosporus ; for who could seriously give credence to the
edifying fairy-tale that the Tsar Alexander wished to break
up the League of the Three Emperors, and was only prevented
by England's watchfulness from conquering Byzantium.
But in vain shall we look for any creative idea in a Tory
government. The Tories scarcely trouble to ask whether
1 Abd-ul-Aziz was murdered, or committed suicide, in June 1876, after
he had been deposed, on the ground of incapacity, to make way for the
still more incapable Murad V. It is highly improbable that Great Britain
inspired this revolution ; and Treitschke was not in a position to know the
facts.
ON ENGLISH HISTORY 287
the existing order is worth preserving or even capable of
being preserved ; they feel with shame how greatly England's
reputation has declined during the last decade, and they
endeavour, by dint of noisy demonstrations, to cry halt to
the world's history. Can such a barren policy as this hope
to find allies among the great Powers ? " 1
(c) " The Koran says : ' The Mussulmans alone are men ;
despise all other nations : they are impure.' For a State
which lives and must live in conformity with such laws as
these, there is no longer any room in Europe. The expulsion
of the Asiatic peoples from the ground of Western culture
is a duty, which, up to the present, one century after another
has left unfulfilled ; and even now, so it would seem, the
great task will be but half accomplished. Yet even this
half -success is a gain for civilisation, and it is all the more to
be prized, since it is preparing a well-merited humiliation
for the policy of England. The fallacious security of insular
life has bred in the English State and people an arrogant
disregard for the feelings of foreign nations, such as no
continental nation would venture to indulge. The tone of
the English press, in discussing foreign affairs, exhibits a
sinister similarity to those arrogant utterances which marked
the newspapers of the declining republic of the Netherlands
at the beginning of the eighteenth century ; in each case the
nation attempts to console itself for a loss of power by a
morbidly exaggerated self-confidence. It seems altogether
to escape the observation of these serenely self-satisfied
islanders, that giadually their fundamental contempt for all
progress in international law, and the professional bias of
the British authorities against all foreign ships, are working
upon the public opinion of the whole of Europe, and that by
degrees an immense hatred and disdain for England has
accumulated on the Continent. Of the sense of justice of
the British people one more edifying example has just been
afforded in the annexation of the Transvaal Republic, an
absolutely flippant proceeding, which had not the excuse
1 Deutsche Kdmpfe, ii. pp. 396-9.
288 HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
of any sort of reasonable motive. Towards the weak John
Bull still shows invariably that same disposition which once
prompted the bombardment of Copenhagen ; before the
strong he humbles himself, and sighs dolefully with his
minister, Card well ; x ' The English alliance has little value
for other nations, since we have nothing to offer them save
our sincere love of peace ! '
1 Lord Cardwell was successively Secretary of State for Ireland, the
Colonies, and War in the years 1859-74.
a Deutsche Kdmpfe, ii. pp. 464-5.
INDEX
Abd-ul-Aziz, Sultan, 286 and note
Abdul Kadir, 257
Aberdeen, Lord, 254, 256, 257,
260
Aden, 256
Aegidi, Ludwig, 20
Africa, British claims in, 257
Aix, 229
Albert, H.R.H., Prince Consort, 263-
265
Albrecht, C., 146 and note
Alexander I., Tsar, 236, 237, 286
Algeria, occupation of, 257
Ali Pasha, 284 and note
Alsace-Lorraine, 110-14, 179
America, 174. See also United
States of America
America, South, 241, 243-5
Amsterdam, 109
Anti-Corn-Law League, 267
Arbitration, Courts of, 179
Argyll, Duke of, 273
Aristotle, 5, 90, 120, 125, 127, 130,
156, 182-3
Armed neutrality, 227-8
Army, the, 43, 153-62 ; English,
232-3 ; French, 158-60 ; Ger-
man, 100, 104-6, 158, 160-62
Army Bill of 1814, 106
Arnim, Count, 259
Ashley, Lord, 258
Assaye, victory of, 231
Austria, war with Prussia (1866),
26, 28-31, 164 ; and the move-
ment for German unity, 46, 61,
65 ; alliance with Prussia, 47 ;
and Italy, 75 ; and the North
German Confederation, 83 ;
nationalism in, 186 ; and the
Holy Alliance, 236 ; and the
Congress of Verona, 243
Badajoz, 233
Baden, Grand Duchy of, union
with Austria, 28, 30 ; and the
North German Confederation,
85
Balance of Power, 175
Balbo, Cesare, 77
Bavaria, 61, 83, 105, 140, 168
Belfort, 113
Belgium, 107, 108, 114, 175-6, 185,
229
Belle Alliance, La, 230, 236
Benedetti, negotiations with Bis-
marck, 169
Bentham, Jeremy, 15, 120, 267
Berne, 209
Bernstorff, 245
Bismarck, Prince Otto von, 33, 65,
72, 82, 99, 105, 115, 149, 190,
199, 205 ; Treitschke's opinion
of, 25-8, 117, 118, 119, 122, 142,
165 ; letter to, 30-32 ; friendship
with Motley, 39 ; and the North
German Confederation, 82, 83 ;
and Benedetti, 169
Blanc, Louis, 8
Blittersdorff, Baron von, 58 and note
Bliicher, Marshal G. L. von, 235,
236 note
Bluntschli, J. K., 122
Bonapartism, 8, 23, 82, 87-94, 207
Borries, Count von, 64 and note
Borromaus League (1586), 211
Bosnia, massacre of Christians in,
284
Brandenburg, 46, 172
289 U
290
HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
Brandt, Sebastian, in
Brescia, Arnold of, 74 and note
Briefe : quoted, i, 5-7, 8, 19-33, II6
Brittany, 188
Broglie, Duke de, 277
Brussels Conference (1865), 282
Budget, right of control of, 29, 30,
100
Biilow, General, 236 note
Billow, H. von, 259, 260, 265
Bundesrath. See Federal Council
Bundesstaat. See State, Federal
Bundesstaat und Einheitsstaat, 23,
27. 36-47
Bunsen, Baron von, 258, 259, 260-
266, 272, 276, 278
Byzantium, 94
Cabinet Government, 199
Cambronne, General, 236
Canitz, Baron F. von, 277, 280
Canning, George, 246, 247, 253, 254,
269 ; character and policy, 238-
243 ; and the Congress of Verona,
243. 247
Canning, Lord Stratford, 279
Cardwell, Lord, 288 and note
Carlsbad Decrees (1819), 46
Carlyle, Thomas, 94, 148, 161
Carnot, L. N. M., 158
Castlereagh, Lord (Earl of London-
derry), 234, 239 and note, 253 ;
and the Vienna Congress, 75 ; at
the Congress of Chatillon, 229 ;
and the Holy Alliance, 236 ;
suicide of, 238 ; at Troppau and
Laibach, 240 and note
Catholic Emancipation Act (1829),
247-8
Caulaincourt, 229
Cavour, 77, 96, 102 ; essay on, 82
Charles Albert of Carignan, 76
Chatillon sur Seine, Congress of,
228-30
China, and the Opium War, 256
Christian VIII. of Denmark, 274
Church, the, relation to the State,
122-4, 131-3 ; constitution of,
181
Clausewitz, 149, 155
Clay, Henry, 244
Cobden, Richard, 267-73
Cologne, 229
Colonies, 170-72
Confederation of States. See States,
confederation of
Constitutions, 180-226
Copenhagen expedition, 231, 239,
251
Corn-duties, 266-73
Cracow, 165, 278 and note
Criminal law, 132-4
Culturstaat, 135, 156
Customs Union. See Zollverein
Dahlmann, F. C., 3, 31, 35, 120, 122,
146 note, 195, 224, 248
Dante, 74
Dan ton, 211
Dardanelles Treaty, 259 and note
Democracies, 181-4, 208-15
Denmark, 45 ; and Schleswig-
Holstein, 274-5
Deutsche Geschichte im ig Jahr-
hundert, 8, 117, 227 ; quoted,
206, 229-81
Deutsche Kampfe, quoted (i.), 80-
86, 107-14 ; (ii.), 34, 281-8
Deutsche Ordensland Preussen, Das,
20
Disraeli, Benjamin, 271, 281
Donhoff, Count, 259
Droysen, 35
Duelling, 273
Dufour, General, 278
Duncker, Max, 19
Edward VII., visit to India as
Prince of Wales, 284
Einheitsstaat. See State, Unitary
England, 116, 140, 151, 178, 227-8 ;
government and constitution, 94,
96-8, 189, 192-203, 246-50 ; and
the Franco-German War, 108-
109 ; aristocracy of, 196-201 ;
rule in India, 169 ; colonies of,
171-2 ; and international law,
176, 257, 282 ; nationality of,
187 ; royal family, 193-4, Z 95"
196 ; Civil Service, 198, 199 ;
trial by jury, 215-19 ; army,
232-3 ; and the Holy Alliance,
236-8 ; and the abolition of the
slave-trade, 245-6 ; newspaper
INDEX
291
press, 250, 257 ; and Africa, 257 ;
and the Opium War, 256, 265 ;
entente with Prussia (1841), 258-
266 ; and the Free Trade move-
ment, 266-74 ' an d the Schleswig-
Holstein question, 274-5 ; and
Turkey (1876-77), 281-8 ; fear
of Russia, 284-6
English character, commercialism
of, 273-4
Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg Gotha,
264
Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover,
57 and note, 146 note
Ewald, 146 note
Federal Act (June 18, 1815), 45
Federal Council (Bundesrath), 38,
83-6, 105, 202
Federal State. See State, Federal
Federalist (periodical), 41
Ferdinand, King, 245
Fichte, 142
Forckenbeck, Herr von, 225
Foreign policy, 169-70
Fourth Estate, the, 88, 90-92, 95
France, 52, 53, 147, 178, 205, 209,
212, 213-14, 215 ; under
Napoleon III., 87-96 ; army,
158-60 ; nationality, 188 ; at
the Congress of Verona, 243,
245 ; and Algeria, 257. See also
Franco-German War
Francis, Emperor of Austria, 237,
245
Franco-German War, the, 107-16
Frankfort Parliament, 2, 54 note,
61-3, 67, 84
Frederick the Great, 56, 70, 165,
169, 206, 208
Frederick Augustus II., King of
Saxony, 2
Frederick William I., 156
Frederick William III., 165
Frederick William IV., 26 note, 61,
62, 65, 70, 167, 266, 277-8, 280;
and the Protestant bishopric at
Jerusalem, 258-9 ; and the Holy
Alliance, 237
Free Trade movement (1842-64),
266-74
Frehse, Dr., 26
Freiheit, Die, 9-18
Freiligrath, 279
Genoa, 73, 77
Gerlach, Ernst Ludwig von, 26 and
note
Gerlach, General, 280
German Emperor, 105
German Empire, founding of, 82-
106
German literature, influence of, 56
German princes, 63-5
Germany, Liberalism in, 10, 61-2 ;
movement for unity of (1848-66),
28-9, 35-81 ; army, 100, 104-
106, 158, 160-62 ; in the Franco-
German War, 107-16 ; national
characteristics of, 129, 186, 188,
194 ; nobility, 139-41 ; need of
colonies, 170-72 ; government
and constitution, 189, 198-203 ;
Civil Service, 200, 203, 220 ;
local government, 223-6 ; and
Schleswig-Holstein, 274-5
Gervinus, 126, 146 note, 206
Gioberti, 75
Gneist, 94, 120, 246
Goethe, 5, 138, 153
Gortschakoff, 175
Gottingen, Seven Professors of, 146
Great Britain. See England
Greeks, the, 186, 241-2
Grimm, W., 146 note
Guelderland, 39
Guizot, 276-80
Haarlem, 38
Hague, The, 38
Halkett, Colonel, 236
Hamilton, Alexander, 41
Hanover, 31, 61, 64, 71, 80, 81
Hanseatic Cities, 59
Hapsburg, House of, 13
Hardenberg, 230
Hausser, Ludwig, 82
Heeren, 50 and note, 53
Hegel, 64, 131, 134, 248
Herder, 120, 125
Hesse, 31, 70, 80, 81, 85
Historische und politische Aufsdtze,
quoted (ii.) 20, 47-60, 63-9, 71-8 ;
(iii.) 1 1-8, 89-91, 93-103
HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
Hobbes, Thomas, 134
Hoche, 159
Hohenzollern, House of, 79, 196
Holland, 38-40, 114, 175, 185
Holstein, 45, 82
Holtzendorff, 133
Holy Alliance (1815), 236-8
Huguenots, the, 172
Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 15, 17, 18,
69, 268
Huskisson, 246 and note
Ihering, 134 ; Geist des romischen
Rechts, 7
India, 169, 284-6
International Law, 114-16, 162-4,
173-9. 257, 282
Ionian Isles, 241 and note, 284
Italy, 49, 73-9, 91, 275-7
Jacob, 146 note
Jacoby, 279
Jerusalem, Protestant bishopric at,
258-9
Junkers, 23-6, 57, 59, 139, 141
Justices of the Peace, 198, 220
Kant, 2, 35, 120, 128
Kashgar, 285
Keudell, Robert von, 26 and note
Khiva, 285
Kiel, 274-5
Kleinstaaterei, 48, 52
Klopstock, 56
Laibach, 240 and note, 243
Leopold I. of Belgium, 264
Lesseps, F. de, 282
Liberalism, 9, 10, 12-17
Liberty, 182-3 ; (Die Freiheit) 9-18
Liberum veto, 36-40
Lincoln, Abraham, 43
Liverpool, Lord, 238
Local government, 17, 94-7, 101-
102, 150, 219-26
Lombard League, 74 and note
London Benevolent Society, 109
Londonderry, Earl of. See Castle-
reagh
Lorraine. See Alsace-Lorraine
Louis XIV., 208
Louis Napoleon, 212
Louis Philippe, 96, 255 and note
Macaulay, 192, 266
Machiavelli, 5, 6, 74, 78-80, 119, 164
Maltzan, Count, 259, 265
Manchester School, the, 108, 119,
151, 221, 268
Manin, 76 and note
Marienburg, 20
Maurienne, Counts of, 76
Medici, the, 74
Mehemet Ali, 255
Metternich, 46, 75, 237, 238, 241-3,
259, 276-8, 280, 283
Metz, 113
Mill, John Stuart, 9, 15, 16, 120, 268
Milosch, Prince, 256
Minto, Lord Charles, 275-8
Mohl, Robert von, 67 and note, 191
Monarchy, 191-2, 195-6, 203-8
Monroe, President, 244
Montesquieu, 68, 180
Motley, 39
Miiller, Johannes, 50 and note
Murad V., 286 note
Naples, 256
Napoleon I., 75 and note, 159-60,
177, 228
Napoleon III., 83, 87-93, 95, 166
Nationalism, 124-6, 184-9
Nature, Law of (Naturrechtslehre),
125, 164
Netherlands, 8, 37-40, 44, 51, 82,
in, 229
New York, 41, 42, 211
Newman, 259
Nicholas, Tsar, 116
Niebuhr, 152, 179
Nimeguen, treaty of, 175
North German Confederation, 82-
106
Novara, battle of, 75 and note
Nuremberg, 224
Ochsenbein, 277, 278
Olmiitz, Conference of, 26 and note,
65
Opium War, 256, 265
Orange, House of, 40
Over beck, 118
INDEX
293
Pallavicino-Trivulzio, Marchese di,
76 and note
Palmerston, Lord, 109, 242, 269,
284 ; character and policy, 250-
255 ; foreign policy, 255-8, 272,
275-81
Pangermanism, 55
Papacy, the, 74-5
Parga, 284 and note
Parliamentarism, 189-203
Particularism, 47-51, 54, 72, 77
Particularist Liberals, 57
Party Government, 96-9, 189-90,
192-5
Peel, Sir Robert, 265, 278 ; and
Catholic Emancipation, 247 ; and
the Free Trade movement, 266-72
Peninsular War, the, 231-3
Pepe, Florestan, 71 and note
Pepe, Guglielmo, 71 and note
Persigny, 93
Petersdorff, Allgemeine Deutsche
Biographic, quoted, 34
Pfizer, Paul, 142
Philadelphia, Congress of, 41 and
note, 43
Philip II. of Spain, 166
Philips, W. Alison, The Confedera-
tion of Europe, quoted, 236
Phoenicians, the, 171
Piedmont, kingdom of, 71, 73-8,
179, 188
Pitt, William, 200, 202, 247
Pius IX., Pope, 276
Polignac, 237 note
Politik, Die : origin of, 5, 8, 23,
117-19 ; method of, 119-27 ;
definition of the State, 127-45 ;
the individual and the State,
145 - 7 ; war, 148-62 ; inter-
national law, treaties, foreign
policy, 162-79 ; standards of
judgment of constitutions, 180-
184 ; the Nostrum of National-
ism, 184 - 9 ; Parliamentarism,
189 - 203 ; monarchy, 203 - 8 ;
Democracy and popular liberties,
208-26; quoted: (i.) 119-42,1145-
147, 150-72, 182-4, 185-95 ;
(ii.) 37-44, 105-6, 143-5, 173-182,
184, 191-2, 195, 226
Popular Liberties, 214-26
Porte, the, 174
Portsmouth, 200
Portugal, 256
Prague, treaty of (1866), 31
Prussia, i, 3, 4, 5, 152, 177, 207 ;
and Austria, 45, 47 ; necessity
for predominance of, in the Con-
federation, 8, 20, 23-31, 79-81,
83-6, 104-6 ; constitution, 100-
102, 200 ; king of, 108 ; nobility
of, 139-41 ; municipal statutes,
224-5 ; army, 160-61 ; at Water-
loo, 235-6 ; at the Congress of
Verona, 243 ; entente with Eng-
land (1841), 258-66
Puerto Cabello, 244
Quiroga, General, 240 note
Raczynski, Count, 266
Rawlinson, Sir Henry : England
and Prussia in the East, 285 and
note
Reform Bill of 1832, 246-50
Regensburg Reichstag, 56, 84
Reichstag, 83, 100, 202
Republics, 190
Reuss, Prince of, 63, 105
Rhine Confederation (Rheinbund),
27, 31, 51, 64
Rienzi, 74 and note
Robespierre, 211
Rochau, A. L. von (1810-73), 21,
119; Grundzuge der Realpolitik,
6 and note
Roggenbach, Franz von, 26 and note
Rome, 74
Roon, 158
Roscher, 3, 4, 7
Rossi, 75
Rothes, Richard, 131
Russell, Lord John, 275
Russia, 164, 178, 186, 242, 243, 281,
284-6
Russo-Turkish War, 281
Ryswick, Treaty of, 175
Sardinia, 77
Savigny, 120, 125, 174
Savoy, House of, 76
Saxony, 80-1, 83, 140, 153, 167 ;
king of, 61, 105
294
HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
Schleiermacher, 120
Schleswig, Duchy of, 45
Schleswig-Holstein, 26-8, 69, 274-5
Schmalkald, League of, 259 and
note
Schwarzenberg, Felix, 164
Self-government. See Local Gov-
ernment
Servia, 256
Shee, Sir Morton, 266
Sismondi, 68
Slave-trade, abolition of, 245-6
Social Democrats, 137, 217
Socialism, 117, 119
Sonderbund, 276-80
Spain, and the Congress of Verona,
243-6
Spanish marriage question, 276, 277
Spinoza, 38
Staatenbund. See States, Confedera-
tion of
State, the, 5-18, 72-4, 79-80, 117-47 ;
relation with other States, 148-
r 79 I types of constitutions, 180-
226
State, Federal (Bundesstaaf) , 36-7,
40-4, 62-78, 83
State, Unitary (Einheitsstaat) , 37,
44. 83
States, Confederation of (Staaten-
bund), 36-7, 40-4, 83
States, small, 47, 55, 58-9, 69, 83, 136
States of the Church, 73, 77
Stein, Baron vom, 69, 72, 224-5
Steinbach, Erwin von, in
Stockmar, 264
Stuttgart, Parliament, 62
Suez Canal, 282, 284
Switzerland, 37, 42, 43, 51, 62, in,
176, 210, 214 ; and the Sonder-
bund, 276, 277-81
Sybel, 35, 36
Tennyson, Maud, 149
Theocracy, 180-1
Thiers, 279
Thuringia, 83
Tilsit, treaty of, 177
Times, 109, 250, 275
Tocqueville, 94
Transvaal Republic, 287
Treaties, 162-4, 176-8
Treitschke, General von, 1-2, 23,
32-3
Treitschke, Heinrich von, birth and
parentage, 1-2 ; religion, 2, 31-4 ;
education, 2-6 ; at Leipzig, 19-20;
projected history of the German
Confederation, 7-8, 19-22 ; at
Munich, 19-20 ; return to Leip-
zig, 21 ; professorship at Frei-
burg, 22-3 ; and Bismarck, 5-
31 ; offer of professorship at
Berlin, 28-9 ; article in the
Prussian Almanac, 33 ; leaves
Freiburg, 31 ; pamphlet on " The
Future of the North German
Middle States," 31, 80 ; pro-
fessorship at Kiel, 82 ; professor-
ship at Heidelberg, 82 ; political
essays by, 82, 87, 96 ; political
ideals, 102-3 ; professorship at
Berlin, 117; enters Reichstag,
117 ; obligations to earlier
writers, 120 ; views on : Alsace-
Lorraine, Army, Bonapartism,
Colonies, Democracy, England,
Machiavelli, Manchester School,
Party Government, Universal
Suffrage, War, Waterloo, Well-
ington, etc., etc. See those titles
Works : See Briefe, Bundes-
staat und Einheitsstaat, Deutsche
Kdmpfe, Deutsche Geschichte im
ig. Jahrhundert, Deutsche Ordens-
land Preussen, Historische und
politische Aufsdtze, Die Freiheit,
Politik, Vaterlandische Gedichte
Trial by jury, 215-19
Troppau, 240 and note, 243
Turkey, 116, 241, 281-8
Ultramontanes, 24, 57, 59
United States of America, 41-4, 67-
68, 184, 211-13
Universal Suffrage, 117, 119, 143-
45, 219
Vallaise, Count, 75
Vambery, 284
Vaterlandische Gedichte (1856), 4
Venice, 73, 74
Verona, Congress of, 243-6
Victoria, Queen, 259, 262-3, 284 note
INDEX
295
Vienna, Congress of, 45, 46, 75
Villafranca, Peace of, 75 and note
Vincke, Ludwig, n
Visconti, the, 74 and note
Waitz, 66
Walpole, Robert, 201
War, 107, 130, 148-62, 178-9
Waterloo, 230, 235-6
Weber, W., 146 note
Wellesley, Henry Baron Cowley,
230 and note
Wellesley, Richard C., Marquis
Wellesley, 168, 230 and note
Wellington, Duke of, 193, 271 ;
character of, 230-5 ; at Water-
loo, 235-6 ; at the Congress of
Verona, 243-4 ; and the slave-
trade, 245 ; and Catholic Emanci-
pation, 247
Werther, 259
Wilberforce, William, 245
William I., Emperor, 105, 142,
158
Wiseman, Bishop, 276
Wiirtemberg, 62, 83
Zollverein, 3, 10, 83, 165, 266
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1972
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