ern 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 mai