XII.—Why Prussia has enslaved Germany.
“How shall we explain this startling paradox? How is it, and why is it, that the artistic and exuberant, genial and sentimental German submits to the hard rule of the commonplace, uninteresting, and dour Prussian?
If you ask ninety-nine out of a hundred Germans they will not give you a reply. They know too little of and care too little about politics to be even aware of the fact. They are satisfied with appearances. They do not see the King of Prussia behind the German Kaiser. They are hypnotized by the glittering helmet of the War Lord.
But if you succeed in discovering one in a hundred who understands the relation between Germany and Prussia, and who has thought out the political problem, he will probably give you something like the following reply:
‘I know that there is no love lost between the Germans and the Prussians. I know that in culture and native ability we are as superior to the Prussians as our vine-clad hills are superior in beauty to the sandy wastes of Pomerania. And I know that in politics we play a subordinate part, although we are superior. But I also realize that it is necessary for us to submit. And it is necessary for us to submit, precisely because of our virtues. For those virtues of ours are unpractical. And it is necessary for the Prussians to rule, precisely because of their shortcomings. For those shortcomings are practical. The pure gold of the German temper could never be made into hard coin nor used to advantage. It could be made to produce splendid works of art, gems and diadems and ornaments, but for practical purposes, in order to forge the weapons of the Nibelungen, the alloy of the baser metal was indispensable. It required the mixture of Prussian sand and Prussian iron to weld us into a nation, to raise us to an empire. It is because we Germans are artists and dreamers and individualists that we could never manage our own affairs, that we have always been “non-political animals.”[6] On the contrary, it is because the Prussian has no brilliance, no romance, no personality, that he makes a splendid soldier and a model bureaucrat. Two things above all were required to make Germany into a powerful State—a strong army and a well-ordered administration. Prussia has given us both.
‘And let us not forget that Germany more than any other Power required such a strong army and such a strong administration, not only owing to the shortcomings of her national character, but owing to the weakness and danger of her geographical position. Germany is open on every frontier. She has ever been harassed by dangerous enemies. Only a generation ago she was threatened on every side. On the north she had to face the rulers of the sea, who hampered her commercial expansion; on the west she had to face the restless Gaul; on the south she was confronted with the clerical and Jesuitical empire of the Habsburg; on the east with the empire of the Romanovs. From all those enemies Prussia has ultimately saved us. The Hohenzollern dynasty has proved a match for them all.
‘The whole annals of Germany and Prussia are a striking proof of the political weakness of the German and of the strength of the Prussian character. Again and again Germany has witnessed magnificent outbursts of national prosperity. She has seen the might of the Hohenstaufen; she has seen the wealth of the Hansa towns. Again and again she has witnessed the spontaneous generation and blossoming of civic prosperity; she has seen the glory and pride of Nuremberg and Heidelberg, of Cologne and Frankfurt, the art of Dürer and Holbein. But again and again German culture has been nipped in the bud. It has been destroyed by civil war and religious war, by internal anarchy and foreign invasion. The Thirty Years’ War devastated every province of the German Empire, and such was the misery and anarchy that in many parts the people had reverted to savagery and cannibalism.[7] And hardly had the country recovered from the horrors of the wars of religion, when repeated French invasions laid waste the rich provinces of the Rhine and Palatinate. So completely did German rulers of the eighteenth century betray their duty to the people that some Princes degraded themselves to the point of selling their soldiers to the Hanoverian Kings in order to fight the battles of England in America.
‘Whilst the German Princes were thus squandering the treasure and life-blood of their subjects, there was growing up in the North a little State which was destined from the most unpromising beginnings for the most glorious future. It is true that the little Prussian State was wretchedly poor; for that very reason the Prussian rulers had to practise strict economy and unrelenting industry. It is true the country was always insecure and constantly threatened by powerful neighbours; for that very reason the people had to submit to a rigid discipline and a strong military organization. It is true the country was depopulated; for that very reason the rulers had to attract foreign settlers by a just, wise, and tolerant government.’
A patriotic German might illustrate in the following simple parable the complex and strange relations between Germany and Prussia:
‘The German people a century ago might be compared to the heirs and owners of an ancient estate. The estate was rich and of romantic beauty. The heirs were clever, adventurous, and universally popular. But although devoted to each other, they could not get on together. Their personality was too strong, and they were always quarrelling. Nor could they turn to advantage their vast resources, and the natural wealth of the estate only served to attract outside marauders. They were so extravagant and so unpractical that they would lay out beautiful parks and build magnificent mansions whilst neglecting to drain the land and to repair the fences. They would spend lavishly on luxuries, but they would grudge food to the cattle and manure to the fields. Thus, with all their splendid possessions, the German heirs were always on the verge of bankruptcy.
‘To extricate themselves, they decided to accept the services of a factor and manager. The factor was the Prussian Junker. He was an alien. For he could hardly be called a German. In blood he was more Slav than Teutonic. He was unrefined, unsympathetic, and overbearing. But as a manager he was splendid. He bought up outlying parts to round off the estate. He paid more attention to the necessaries than to the luxuries and the amenities of life. He was more careful to surround himself with a strong police force than with poets and minstrels. But he was able to keep out the marauders and the poachers. He was able to protect the property against stronger neighbours and to bully the weaker neighbours into surrendering desirable additions to the estate. In a short time the heirs, formerly universally popular, were cordially hated in the land. But their rents had increased by leaps and bounds, and the German estate had been rounded off and made into one solid and compact whole.’
Such, German writers would tell us, is the parable of Germany and Prussia. The Germans are the gifted, generous, and spendthrift heirs to an illustrious domain. Prussia is the alien, upstart, unpopular, unsympathetic, bullying factor and manager. But to this bullying factor Germany owes the consolidation and prosperity of the national estate.”