Russia only her western frontier where they may be attacked. We are
also more exposed to the dangers of a coalition than any other nation,
as is proved by the whole development of history, by our geographical
position, and the lesser degree of cohesiveness, which until now has
characterized the German nation in comparison with others. God has
placed us where we are prevented, thanks to our neighbors from growing
lazy and dull. He has placed by our side the most warlike and restless
of all nations, the French, and He has permitted warlike inclinations
to grow strong in Russia, where formerly they existed to a lesser
degree. Thus we are given the spur, so to speak, from both sides, and
are compelled to exertions which we should perhaps not be making
otherwise. The pikes in the European carp-pond are keeping us from
being carps by making us feel their teeth on both sides. They also are
forcing us to an exertion which without them we might not make, and to
a union among us Germans, which is abhorrent to us at heart. By nature
we are rather tending away, the one from the other. But the
Franco-Russian press within which we are squeezed compels us to hold
together, and by pressure our cohesive force is greatly increased.
This will bring us to that state of being inseparable which all other
nations possess, while we do not yet enjoy it. But we must respond to
the intentions of Providence by making ourselves so strong that the
pikes can do nothing but encourage us.

Formerly in the years of the Holy Alliance--I am just thinking of an
American song which I learned of my late friend Motley: "In good old
colonial times, when we lived under a King"--well those were the good
old patriarchal times when we had many posts to guide us, and many
dikes to protect us from the wild floods of Europe. There were the
German Union, and the real support and consummation of the German
Union, the Holy Alliance. We had support in Russia and in Austria,
and, above all, the guaranty of our diffidence that we should never
express an opinion before the others had spoken.

All this we have lost; we must help ourselves. The Holy Alliance was
wrecked in the Crimean War--not through our fault. The German Union
has been destroyed by us, because the existence which we were granted
within it was unbearable in the long run for ourselves and the German
people as well. After the dissolution of the German Union and the war
of 1866, Prussia, as it was then, or No