te as a last resort. The forces which guarantee the union
of these territories are strong enough both in the parliament and in
the army to assure it, and no one can doubt that the proper
authorities are ready to use these forces at the right time. No one
mistakes the meaning, when the announcement is made from the highest
quarters: "Ere we shall yield again Alsace, our army will have to be
annihilated" (and words to this effect have been spoken). The same
thing is true, to an even stronger degree, of our eastern frontier. We
can spare neither, Posen even less than Alsace, and we shall fight, as
the Emperor has said, to the last man, before we renounce Alsace, this
protection of our Southern states. Yet Munich and Stuttgart are not
more endangered by a hostile position in Strassburg and Alsace than
Berlin would be endangered by a hostile position near the Oder. It
may, therefore, be readily assumed that we shall remain firm in our
determination and sacrifice, if it should become necessary, our last
man and the last coin in our pockets for the defense of the German
eastern frontier as it has existed for eighty years. And this
determination will suffice to render the union between your province
and the empire as positively assured as things can be in this world.

We confined our demands to what was necessary for our existence and
what enabled the big European nation which we are to draw a free
breath. We did not include territories where German used to be spoken,
when this had been largely due to a propaganda of the German courts.
More German used to be spoken in the East, North-east, and elsewhere
than today. Remember our ally, Austria, and how familiar German was
there in the days of Joseph II. and of the Empress Maria Theresa, when
German was a greater force in parts of Hungary than it is or can be
today. But, for everything we gave up in the shape of a linguistic and
outward union, we have found rich compensation in the intensity of a
closer union. If the older gentlemen will think back to the time
before Emperor William I., they will realize that the lack of love
among the various German tribes was much greater at that time than it
is today. We have made notable progress in this direction, and, when
we compare the unequivocal expressions of opinion from Bavaria and
Saxony today with the familiar sentiments of earlier times, we must
say that Germany, which for the past one hundred years had lagged
behind the other peop