I.
Amongst the many discoveries brought about by the war of the nations, an educated British public has suddenly discovered the unsuspected existence of Heinrich von Treitschke. And not only have we discovered the national Prussian historian—we have also unwittingly discovered Prussian history. We have certainly had revealed to us for the first time its secret and hidden meaning. We are only just beginning to realize that for nearly two hundred years it is Prussia, and not Russia, which has been the evil influence in European politics. Prussia has not been a natural political growth. She has been an artificial creation of statesmen. She has been pre-eminently the predatory State. She has never taken the sword to defend a disinterested idea. The ravisher of Silesia, of Schleswig-Holstein, of Alsace-Lorraine, the murderer of Poland, she has never expanded except at the expense of her neighbours. She has corrupted the German soul; she has been the mainstay of reaction and militarism in Central Europe. She has been the bond of that freemasonry of despotism, of that Triple Alliance of the three empires which subsisted until the fall of Bismarck, which has been for generations the nightmare of European Liberals.