United States or India ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The century from the death of Frederick the Great, in 1786, to the death of William the First, in 1888, includes, in a convenient period to remember: the downfall of Frederick's patriotic edifice; the apathy and impotency that followed upon the breaking up of the bureaucracy he had welded into efficiency; the shuffling of the German states by Napoleon as though they were the pack of cards in a great political game; a revival of patriotism in Prussia after floggings and insults that were past bearing; the jealousies and enmities of the various states, the betrayal of one by the other, and finally the struggle between Austria and Prussia to decide upon a leader for all Germany; and at last the war against France, 1870-71, which was to make it clear to the world that Germany had been Prussianized into an empire.
In 1870, when they were subalterns, their country lost the advantage of its numerous population by abandoning general military service at a time when Prussia was completely realizing the idea of a nation in arms. In 1914, when they were commanders, France was inferior to a still greater degree in point of numbers to Prussianized Germany. In armament, France was inferior at first to her enemy.
It is safe to say that there was hardly a man or woman of that crowd who had not a soldier at the front; and there before them hung the enemy's first flag a splendid silk flag, white and black and crimson, and embroidered in gold. It was the flag of an Alsatian regiment a regiment of Prussianized Alsace.
Or can any one doubt what will now happen to all the democracies if the present Pan-Germany, now existing by means of Prussian victories in this war, is during the next ten years consolidated, organized, Prussianized and then, a fighting machine twice as powerful as the machine of 1914, hurled against the democracies?
"From 1871 onwards Prussianized Germany, by far the best-educated, and industrially and commercially the most progressive, country in Europe, with the enormous advantage of her central position, was, consciously and unconsciously, making ready for her next advance. The policy of a good understanding with Russia, maintained for many years, to such an extent that, in foreign affairs, Berlin and St.
Nevertheless, Victor's daughter seemed to be no more than fair game, in Sturm's understanding, and a source of supercilious amusement but thinly veiled or not at all. Alone with the girl, Sturm put on the airs of a Prussianized pasha condescending to a new odalisque. Sofia held the animal in a deadly loathing which, betrayed in word or look or gesture, animated in him only a spirit of derision.
He was saddened by the incident, for he had hoped that some of the ancient courtesies of war would survive in the aerial branch of the service, at least. It angered him too; therefore, on his next reconnaissance, he ignored the German. Evidently the Boche air-squadrons were being Prussianized. The enemy pilot approached very closely and threw a missile at him.
And it was heightened by the conduct of, shall we say, the prussianized officials, who are reported to have disposed of waggons for large sums to greedy merchants, who used to raise the prices of the merchandise and batten on the misery of their fellows. It is but fair to say that venality is not one of the characteristics of the German bureaucracy.
But he did want power to enforce submission to the expansion of Germany at her will. And this power was his means to the end which was what less Prussianized minds in Germany contemplated as attainable in less objectionable ways. Such a means he could not fashion in the form of strength in sea power which would have placed us at his mercy, without arousing our instinct for self-preservation.
Our main contention is, that as the pacific philosophy of Herder and Kant, of Goethe and Lessing, provides the key to the old Germany described in Madame de Staël’s masterpiece, even so the military philosophy of Mommsen and Treitschke, of Bismarck and Nietzsche, gives us the key of modern Prussianized Germany.
Word Of The Day