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Of the five volumes of Treitschke’s “German History,” the only part which is of general interest is the first volume, dealing with the rise of Prussia, the reign of Frederick the Great and his successors, the Napoleonic wars, and the Congress of Vienna.
That history is so intolerably tedious that even the magic of Treitschke’s genius has not been able to relieve its dulness, and that before the war no British or French publisher dared venture on a translation of Treitschke’s masterpiece.
Not only has Prussian history been the centre of all Treitschke’s activities; it also supplies him with the sole standard of all political values, the sole test of the truth of all political theories. With superb logic he deduces all his political system from the vicissitudes of the Brandenburg State. His sympathies and antipathies, his affinities and repulsions, are Prussian.
“Le style est l’homme.” Never was Buffon’s dictum more strikingly verified, and never did any literary style reveal so completely the personality of the man. Treitschke’s style is imperious and aggressive. It has the ring of the General who gives the word of command. His sentences are not involved, as German sentences generally are. They are pregnant and concise.
On approaching the study of Treitschke’s works, we are at once impressed by the inexorable logic of his political and moral creed. There is, perhaps, no other instance of a system so splendidly consistent in its principles.
Those readers who will follow Treitschke’s close reasoning to the end will probably agree with me that the political creed of which he has been the apostle and prophet is substantially the same creed which has plunged Europe into the present world war, and that, more than any one thinker, much more certainly than Nietzsche, Treitschke must be held responsible for the catastrophe.
But to the philosophical student by far the most important of Treitschke’s writings are his two volumes on the Science of Politics, which are, without exception, the most fascinating and the most suggestive political treatise published in this generation. Political treatises are proverbially dull and out of touch with reality. Treitschke’s treatise is a solitary exception.
There is no counterpart in modern history to the development of the Prussian State, no political structure so entirely self-contained and self-sufficient, which has so continuously pursued its own selfish ends. For an exact analogy it is necessary to revert to ancient history; therefore Treitschke’s sympathies go to the ancient State much more than to the modern State.
To the Prussian alone, as to the Roman and the Spartan, the devotion to the State is glorified into a religion, the religion of patriotism. Even as his sympathies, so are Treitschke’s antipathies determined by his Prussian preconceptions. Whatever is alien to Prussian ideals is odious to Treitschke.
We find it in Mommsen’s “History of Rome.” It has found a striking expression in his famous chapter on the Celts, which is only a veiled attack against the French, who are assumed to be the lineal descendants of the Gauls. The same dogma is the dominant idea of Treitschke’s “History.” We find it in the bionda bestia of Nietzsche.
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