V.—The Prussian State the Centre of Treitschke’s Literary Activities.
All Treitschke’s activities have centred round one subject: the history and policy of the Prussian State. All his loyalties are given to one cause, the supremacy of the German Empire led by the Prussian State. He has been a voluminous writer, and he has written on the most varied subjects. But all those subjects have only been taken up with the one object of elucidating Prussian problems and directing Prussian policy. His studies on Federalism, on the United Netherlands—by far the most suggestive survey of Dutch history which has so far been attempted—are intended to solve the problem of the relation of Prussia to the Federal States of the German Empire. His study on Cavour and Italian unity was undertaken as an introduction to the study of German unity. His admirable monograph on that strange and unique military theocracy of the Teutonic order was an essay on the early history of Prussia. His volume on Bonapartism was a study of the chief political opponent of Prussian supremacy. Briefly, all his volumes of essays have been preparatory to his life-work, the history of Germany, and the history of Germany itself is always kept subordinate to the history of the Prussian State.