“It is difficult to exaggerate the political domination of Germany by Prussia. The practice belies the theory: it is not as German Emperor but as Prussian King that William II. rules the confederation. The larger is merged in the smaller. The poor barren plains of Brandenburg and Pomerania rule over the smiling vineyards and romantic mountains of the south and west. The German people are governed more completely from Berlin and Potsdam than the French were ever governed from Paris and Versailles. And they are governed with an iron hand. In theory, every part of the empire may have a proportional share in the administration of the country; in reality, Prussia has the ultimate political and financial control. Germany pays the taxes; Prussia spends them. Germany provides the soldiers; Prussia commands them. And the Prussian War Lord and his Junkers in the last resort decide the issues of peace and war.
To realize how complete is the Prussian control we need only consider the fact that in the supreme Federal Parliament—the Bundesrat—for forty-two years the Prussian representatives have always had it their own way. Yet Prussia, according to the Constitution, has only got seventeen delegates out of fifty-two. When the Imperial Constitution was framed it was thought that the Prussian representation was far too small, and the fear was repeatedly expressed that the Prussian vote in the Bundesrat would be overruled. But not once has it happened that the German majority in the Bundesrat has dared to oppose any important measure initiated by the Prussian Government. For all practical purposes, therefore, Prussia is the suzerain power. The German principalities and kingdoms are reduced to political tutelage and subjection.”
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.’