XII.—How the German People were subjected to Prussia.
We have analyzed the principles which ever directed the Prussian State. We have described the characteristics of the Hohenzollern dynasty who created that Prussian State. How is it that the German nation should have surrendered their destinies to a power which is so constitutionally selfish, so inherently evil, which has trampled down all the principles that a modern world holds dear and sacred?
The subjection of Germany to Prussia has been a triumph of Hohenzollern diplomacy and deceit, and has been the outcome of a tragic misunderstanding on the part of a politically uneducated and inexperienced people. The German people were tired of their political impotence, of their miserable dynastic quarrels, of their abject subservience to their parasitic princelings. The German people, broken up in a hundred petty States, had the legitimate and praiseworthy ambition of becoming a united people. German unity had been for generations a cherished dream of German patriots. History had abundantly proved that the Austrian Empire could not assist in the realization of that dream. Then came the opportunity of the Prussian tempter. Prussia offered her mighty sword. Prussia alone had the military power and a strong political organization. The German States yielded to the temptation. They trusted that, in concluding an alliance with Prussia, they would retain their liberties. Indeed, they hoped that once German unity was realized, Germany would assimilate and absorb the Prussian State. Alas! it was the Hohenzollern State which was to annex and subject the German Empire. Little did the Germans know Prussian tenacity. Little did they know the rapacity of the Black Eagle. Still less did they know the black magic of the necromancer Bismarck.
Treitschke reminds us in his “Politik” of an incident which is characteristic of the relation of the German Empire to Prussia. On one occasion even Bismarck, the Prussian Junker, expressed a misgiving that a particular law would not be acceptable to the Federal States of the Empire. Emperor William contemptibly dismissed the objection. “Why should the Federal States object when they are only the prolongation of Prussia?” Treitschke, the Saxon, accepts the Prussian theory of Emperor William. He tells us proudly that the Federal States have ceased to be independent States—indeed, that they have lost the essential characteristics of a State, that they are only called States by courtesy, that there is only one State in the German Empire, and that all the other Federal communities only continue their precarious existence by virtue and with the consent of the Hohenzollern dynasty.
It is one of the most appalling misunderstandings of history. Like Faust, the German people have sold their soul to Mephistopheles: Bismarck. And they have sold it for power. They are now paying the price. As in the wonderful old ballad of Burger, the Prussian horseman has taken the maiden “Germania” on his saddle. The death’s-head hussar has carried her away on his wild career through space until he has brought her to the gates of Hell.
It has thus been the fate of the German nation, as of other European nations, to work and fight for the aggrandizement of the King of Prussia. A section of the people, the Social Democrats and the Liberals, have made fitful and impotent efforts to free themselves from the tyranny of the Hohenzollern. What they have not succeeded in doing, Europe is now doing for them. In the fulness of time, Europe has arisen to crush the Hohenzollern, to kill the “Spirit of the Prussian Hive.” The war will result in the enfranchisement of Germany as it will result in the enfranchisement of Poland and Serbia. Did the history of the world ever present so tragic a paradox? Twelve million heroes are fighting the German Government. Millions of the manhood of the civilized world are laying down their lives on all the battlefields of Europe and all the high seas of the world, mainly in order to make the German people free.