To Germany alone the Greeks looked for any considerable help. An evidence of this is the beautiful and often quoted remark of the Athenian Laonikos Chalkokondylas: "If the Germans were united and the princes would obey, they would be unconquerable and the strongest of all mortals."
We encounter similar statements very frequently, both earlier and later, from the Roman courtier Dietrich von Nieheim and from the humanists, from the Alsatian Wimpheling and Sebastian Brant, from the Swabian Nauclerus and the Frank Pirckheimer. "What could Germany be," they cry, "if she would only make use of her own strength, exploit her own resources for herself! No people on earth could offer her resistance!"
Dr. Grupp claims that Germany's lack of unity has resulted only from her rule of goodwill toward all, within her borders as well as without.
It never occurred to the Germans as to other peoples to disturb the peaceful development of their neighbors. They allowed mighty powers to build themselves up unmolested and to rise above Germany's head. In their internal affairs they observed the same principle of justice; no line, no class, no province, no grant succeeded in obtaining so oppressive an ascendancy, that other lines and classes, other provinces and grants were simply annihilated. The unfortunate consequence was lack of unity.
Nowhere were or are there so many cultural centres, so many different movements, tendencies, parties. This great multifariousness of the German life was recognized and admired by others. But this very multifariousness had its darker side, the fatal, much deplored lack of unity.
Through the centuries, Dr. Grupp claims, Germany has been altogether too good-natured, allowing other nations to all but bleed her to death.
In her peaceable disharmony Germany has dreamed along carelessly and good-naturedly for centuries until the abrupt awakening when she saw a yawning abyss opened up at her feet. Good-naturedly she has allowed herself to be plundered and faithfully she has fought other nations' battles. As early as the 15th century the humanists remarked the fact that alien states gladly took German soldiers into their service, and later on it was worse than that. Foreign countries gladly waged their wars on German territory. Here was decided for the most part the fate of the Spanish world-empire, here France and England battled for supremacy. The Seven Years' War was not only a question of Schleswig; it was a question of whether North America and even far-away India should be French or English.
Now the condition is suddenly reversed; the Germans are fighting for themselves, and the fact arouses the limitless rage of their opponents. Let us console ourselves with the fact that even in the Middle Ages it was said: "Teutonici nullius amici," in spite of their peaceableness.