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BOSTONPUBLICUBI^RY

LETTERS

THE WAR

GERMANY AND FRANCE.

BY


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T. MOMMSEN, D. F. STKAUSS,F. MAX MiJLLEE, AND T. CAELYLE.

^^ La force est la reine du monde, et non pas V opinion; mais V opinionest celle qui use de la force." Pascal.

SECOND EDITION.

/ / /

LONDON :TEtJBNEE AND CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.

1871.

The Proceeds of the Sale will be handed over to the VictoriaInstitute for Providing for the Widows and Orphans of theGerman Soldiers.

The Publishers, Messrs. Teubnee and Co., are willing to

receive other contributions for the Victoria Institute.

TAYLOE AND CO., PEINTEES,IITTLE QUEEN STEEET, LINCOLN*S INN FIELDS.

CONTENTS

PAGE

Theodore Mommsen to the People of Italy :

Letter to the Milanese Paper ' La Perseveranza' . 1

Letter to the Milanese Paper 'II Secolo' .... 7

T>. F. Strauss to the People of France :

Letter to Ernest Renan 41

Max MiiLLER to the People of England :

Five Letters to the ' Times.' First Letter .... 58


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Second Letter 72

Third Letter 83

Fourth Letter 88

Fifth Letter . 96

Postscript 110

Thomas Carlyle on the War:

Letter to the Editor of the ' Times ' 115

THEODORE MOMMSEN

TO THE PEOPLE OP ITALY.*

I THE WAR.

LE TTEE

INSEETED

IN THE MILANESE PAPER 'LA PERSEYERANZA/

Of the lOth of August, 1870.

Do you know wliat it is that people liere are afraid of ?Some of our Politicians^ to wliom I do not belong,profess to believe in the existence of a plot of longstanding between the Cabinets of Paris and Florence.They think that just as France has been forced intoa war against us, so it will be with Italy, unless Italiancitizens prove themselves to be stronger and wiserthan the French have done.

And do you know what the friends of Italy reply tohis?-^ y * Translated from the Italian by I. C.

Z THEODOEE MOMMSEN

Tliey say, "As for the Italian Cabinet, anything ispossible j but as for tlie Italian people, they will sup-port the Germans, and offer an invincible obstacle toany such policy."

Still, to say the truth, we are not entirely safe. Itis only too easy to deceive a people ; and I do not feel

convinced that your countrymen recognize the serious-ness of this impending danger, or that they are on thealert in looking out for it.


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This war is a terrible one, as we well know ; its .scaleis tremendous ; but how overwhelmingly would it bemagnified, if the material forces of another of thegreat nations were thrown into it !

But this is not the point that most disturbs us.

You are distant from us, and in any case, the Ger-mans are not easily alarmed, and have ample reliancem their own powers.

Within these last few days, in the single city ofBerlin alone, 28,000 young volunteers have enrolledthemselves ; as fresh ones arrive, the authorities smiledoubtfully, at a loss what to do with such numbers ;still the young champions persevere, and go here andthere, determined to get enrolled somewhere.

To-day a friend described to me the case of a father

sending forth to the war his four sons ; grasping eachone by the hand in turn, " Come back/^ he said.

TO THE PEOPLE OF ITALY. 6

Tlie old Hanoverian officers, who have hitherto re-fused to serve under the King of Prussia, come forwardnow, ready to fight the French with us.

In Prague and Vienna the German students areapplying to their Governments for permission to enter

the Prussian army. Even the Duke of Nassau, whomwe dispossessed, has rejected with disdain the offer ofthe French to reinstate him.

No j it is not fear that speaks, when we exhort youto maintain your neutrality, very different to this arethe motives that inspire us.

I do not know if we are making war upon theFrench nation, or upon that handful of daring adven-turers, who, having contrived to possess themselves ofthe government of France, now hope to subject lemonde cm demi-monde. But take it to be true thatthe French people wish for war, that a rabid cliau-vlnismej whilst condemning the senseless motivesassigned by the reigning Government of France fordeclaring war upon" us, still accepts the consequences,and sees in it the longed-for revenge, whether ofWaterloo or of Sadowa; you at least must feel for-bidden by honour to take part in a war meditated foryears, behind the mask of false professions and falserfriendship, and brought forward now, with an im-pudence and levity offensive to all Europe. It restswith you, that this war, so dreadful already, shall no

B 2


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4 THEODORE MOMMSEN

develop into sometliing still more dreadful a war ofraces a war between tlie Latins and the Germans.

Oh ! my friends beyond the Alps, I am no blind

admirer^ either of ancient Rome or of modern Italy. Isee the sad inheritance which the slavery of centurieshas left to your noble country ; and I know that al-though a Cavour could break your chains, the futurealone can efface their traces. But I have faith in thisfuture; and I love the Italy of to-day with all herwounds. We Germans put our trust in you. Italians,every hope of a happier era to come depends upon asolid and loyal alliance between the various nations.

There was a time when Rome was the destruction ofevery nation about her ; and when the holocaust was

completed, Romans saw with horror, in the ruin oftheir foes, their own destruction.

Ah ! do not deprive us of this treasured hope thehope that the world is wide enough to hold yet an-other free and fortunate nation. Ah ! do not engenderamong the German peoples the miserable thought,that the Roman races wish to subjugate or exterminatethem.

Can we not live in peace you in your fair gardenof Europe, we in our less favoured plains ?

Does the Prussian Government tout for clerical votesby mounting guard at the Vatican ?

And if the Prussian Government has a friendly feel-

TO THE PEOPLE OF ITALY. D

ing for certain Protestant popes (protestant followersof tlie Pope), not a wliit less knavish and a good dealmore dangerous tlian yours, do you tliink, for all tliis,that the German people will see with any less rejoicingthe Infallible precipitated from the heights of theCapitol ?

If you desire to consolidate the fetters which hinderthe advance of your battalions on Rome, you have onlyto consolidate the present rule in France ; that sacredpersonage. Napoleon, reigns only by the support ofthe priests.

Is it Germany that is keeping down Italy ? Areour shouts of admiration for the combatants of Novara our enthusiasm when Lombardy shook off the Aus-

trian yoke already forgotten ? Is that happy brother-hood in arms no longer remembered which broughtthe Prussians to the Maine and the Italians to Venice ?


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When the question came up of that great undertak-ing, the pride of our times, the tunnelling of theAlps, was it the German nation that proposed theabsurd and disgraceful condition that it should be forthe advantage of a single nation alone ?

Have we given to an ancient and refined people aliterature foul as the waters of the Paris Seine, thatcorrupts the hearts of your youth, and spreads evenamongst your respectable classes like an insidiouscanker ?

6 THEODOEE MOMMSEN TO THE PEOPLE OF ITALY.

01i_, Italians ! you know tliat tlie Germans neithercould nor would possess tliemselves of tliat wliicli of

right is yours.; and you know as well, that the cradleof your king is now a French department^ and yourhero ex post fad a Frenchman by birth !

If the old Italian territory, respected in its nationalityeven in the saddest days of its servitude, is thus in-fringed as the nation rises with a new birth, and,like the unlucky man freed from brigands, you arecompelled to pay a ransom to the semi-brigands whoset you free, is it not the hand of France that youfeel in all this ?

A second Sadowa on the banks of the Rhine an-

other such day will give you a full and lasting free-dom.

We ask for no battalions. Our forces by themselvessuffice to protect the Continent against the commonenemy ; but bear in mind the natural alliance betweenour nations, and do not forget our fidelity at Cus-tozza.

Beelin, July 2'^rd, 1870.

LETTER

TO

THE EDITOR OF THE MILANESE PAPER 'IL SECOLO/

Inserted in the number for the 2i0th of August^ 1870,

The *" Perseveranza ' was pleased to give place in itscolumns to some remarks of mine respecting tlie pre-sent political situation^ especially tlie relations betweenItaly and German}^; and if this paper has thought

proper to make its own reservations^ by suppressingthose passages which appeared incompatible with itsprofound respect for the Tuileries^ this was not so


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much the fault of the honourable editor, whose hon-homie and good faith I am ready to admit, as of my-self, the author, who could not distinguish betweenthe ' Perseveranza ' of yesterday and the ^ Perseve-ranza ' of to-day.

So much the more am I obliged to your journal for

reproducing my letter, and accompanying it with suchsympathetic words, dictated by the same spirit of fra-ternal feeling between the two nations which inspiredmy own.

If I take up my pen for the second time, it is not torepel the act of accusation of Italy against Grermanywhich the ' Perseveranza * chose to place side by sidewith my letter. Before proceeding to do this, I await

8 THEODOEE MOMMSEN

Italy^s assent to tliis accusation, wliicli I tliink im-probable.

If all tlie wrongs and crimes wrought wben the do-mination of Austria weighed as heavily upon Prussiaas upon Italy, are to be laid to the charge of the Ger-man people and of their present rulers, there is soundcause to show why the Germans and the Italians cannever unite in a loyal friendship ; and even further,we might, with a moderately fair face, defend thatmost ingenious theory, that Italian freedom is to be

found in the continuation of French fetters.

It is too true nor have we forgotten it Prussiawas long a stay to the policy of Schonbrunn ; but,beyond this, it is also true that the desires and hopesof the better part of the German people were in directopposition to that ill-starred policy, and the liberals ofthe North especially have always fought, both in thepress and in Parliament, for Italian independence. Itis (thanks also to this liberal policy) that in 1859 wewere able to stop our Government on the eve, as the' Perseveranza ^ rightly says, of reconquering yoursplendid city for its secular tyrant.

But are not such petty recriminations unworthy ofmen whose glory it is to be the contemporaries of aCavour and a Bismarck ? whose glory it is to belongto two nations that have known how to arise andrehabilitate themselves ?


He wlio makes the Prussia of Konigsgratz and

Worth responsible for the political deeds of the epochof Manteuffelj might with equal force reproach theItaly of to-day with the policy of the Estes and the


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Bourbons.

We will not forget those unhappy times, but wewill remember them as passed aAvay passed awaythrough the common efforts of your and our greatmen, your and our noble aspirations.

But it is not to tell them this that I write to myfriends in Italy. There is no need to tell men overagain those things which they thoroughly know andfeel.

A few days ago I wrote to you, influenced by a well-grounded fear that, in spite of yourselves, you might bedragged into a war, the memory of which would haveremained a barrier between us, more insurmountablethan the Alps. But this danger, perhaps the mostserious that could have befallen us in this great andlamentable struggle, has happily passed away. We

may hope now that the great conflagration will not con-sume the whole secular edifice of European civilization.

This, Italians, we owe in no small measure to you ;and I, for one, out of the many that now are feelingthis, come forward to say it to you and to graspby the hand a faithful ally. Truly we must not forgetwhat the German sword has done

10 THEODORE MOMMSEN

" II lampo de' manipoli e I'onda del cavallo." *Our German sword^ whicli knew liow to wait andwlien to strike, whicli gave no chance to the be-trayers of the nations to consummate the evil thingsthey had meditated.

Our debt to you is a debt to tlie Italian peoplesolely: without the opposition of the popular voice,matters might have taken a very different turn. Aworthy friend of mine, writing to me from Italy, says,^^Our Government sides with Napoleon, but in thepresence of the unanimous feeling of the nation, whichopenly threatened insurrection from one end of the pen-insula to the other, in case of an alliance with France,the Government was unable to carry out its wishes/^

Every one knows how true this is. You have nowdone for us what we did for you in 1859, but youhave done it better and with more success ; not thatyou threw yourselves into the cause with more ardourthan we did, but because the weight of public opinionhas more effect in Italy than in Germany, our Go-vernment being stronger, both for good and for evil.But letting alone the question as to the how, the factremains that the good sense and good faith of the

Italian people frustrated this sinister alliance, and theGerman nation thank them for it.


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Ministers may come and go, and transitory as their* The fire and rush of foot and horse.


fame may be tlie recollection of tlieir misdeeds, ful-filled or unfulfilled, but peoples remain, and tliefaith these plight together augments the commonweal, and advances the world one step nearer to thatgreat union of the nations, when each and all willdesire nothing better than to live side by side inmutual love and respect.

I will add a few words upon your relations, andour own, with France. When I wrote my first letter,this great war could scarcely be said to have begun,now it is waxing to its close. I wrote my first

letter when the French nation was preparing to con-quer, when ours was getting ready to resist ; now,facts have spoken.

The confidence of our foes has suff'ered a terribledisenchantment terrible even to their enemies. Adiscouragement has fallen upon them, springing asmuch from tlieir vanished dream of success as fromthe reality of their present reverses. From bravadoto despair is but a leap, and these unfortunates havea perilous facility for both these extremes.

But for us, in spite of our victorious successes, you

may be well assured that the thinking portion of ourcommunity still see nothing in this war but a de-plorable necessity, and were it possible even now toexchange it for a secure and lasting peace, they wouldmost willingly do so.

12 THEODORE MOMMSEN

If you want a thoughtfully-considered opinion uponthe French nation from a German point of view, I canrecommend to your notice an admirable publicationby one of our leading jurisconsults, Treitschke ofHeidelberg, ' On the Present State of France / youwill find it in the second series of his politico-historicalessays. There you will see the thesis proved, muchbetter than I could do it, that the ruin of Francemust be a calamity for Europe.

We do not pass sentence upon the nation ofMoliere, of Voltaire, of Cuvier, of De Musset, and ofthe gamins de Paris; we did not do so yesterday,nor shall we do so to-day, whether it should presentitself before us in the form of an elegant article,

signed " Cassagnac, pere, fils et Cie.,^^ or whether itshould come to us in person, via Weissemburg, in thegarb of the gentle Zouaves.


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On the other hand, it is incontrovertible that wehave to deal not only with the battalions of Napoleonthe last, but with the French nation, those verymen in France who most condemned the frivolouspretext which was made the excuse for a declarationof war against us, and who also foresaw the inevitable

issue, yet were wishing themselves for war in the samebreath. I hold, and, if I mistake not, Germany holdsFrance in its entirety, responsible for this war. Yetthis does not make the French nation any the less a


European necessity, France is still ^^ La GrandeNation/' tliougli slie would be greater if slie made amore temperate use of the well-merited epithet.

I am not a politician. The future of Europe, withina little, rests in certain hands. I do not pretend to saywhat they will do with it ; but this I can say, Italianswill never be called upon to abandon their Frenchsympathies ; amongst ourselves there are many whostill cherish and glory in them, many who will soonresume them.

Could we only hit upon some method of inspiringour neighbours with that quality in which, unhappily,they are so deficient, I mean the love of peace, andthe power of realizing the fact that liberty and equality

as principles are not exclusively reserved for the Frenchpeople, but are the common property of all nations, could we do this, no one again in Germany would thinkany longer of a Yosgian frontier.

The constitution of our nation is essentially federal,and as a consequence of this war, the federal principlewill assert itself more and more forcibly. It is truethat in this war our strength lay in the righteousnessof our cause, that right was might. We were con-strained to defend ourselves, from this came our union,and from union came victory. But we made ourselvesheroes with heavy hearts ; nor do we admire the pro-spect of having to cull similar laurels every five years.

14 THEODORE MOMMSEN

Such considerations as tliese_, I think, will dictate apeace. May God preserve us as mucli from Scylla asfrom Cliarybdis_, from diplomatic cowardicOj and fromthe ambition of conquest.

II. PEACE.


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War seems ended.

And now_, how are we to make the peace that willconclude it and for the sake of which so many bravemen have died as lasting and happy as the war hasbeen brief and disastrous ?

To achieve this, our statesmen will have to surmountdifficulties as great in their kind as those which ourarms have so gloriously overcome.

Heaven grant that the same far-seeing judgmentwhich has blessed our Prussian strategy may attendour policy !

With good reason the world already proclaims Moltkea great leader, it will be for another generation to judgehow far Bismarck was his equal. Posterity will de-cide; meantime we must act, and to the best of our

ability make such a peace as shall be wisest for the-safety of Germany and the quiet of Europe.

But in doing this, let it be understood, we shall do italone. We shall suffer no intervention from those


governments wlio have been simple lookers-on duringour tremendous struggle. We admit tliat all the greatPowers have a legitimate interest in a peace which

affects the immediate future of Europe ; and as con-querors, we hold it still to be our duty to respect theseinterests, and the so-called European equilibrium, anydisturbance of which must be as hazardous to ourcountry as to any other.

But, single-handed we have been forced to fight outthis war, and to defend this equilibrium, threatened byFrance armed and prepared to upset it, by the dismem-berment of Prussia and the conquest of half Germany.And now, single-handed we intend to provide for ourown tranquillity and the tranquillity of Europe. Amic-able advice, coming from old friends, will be fairlyconsidered ; counsel which comes as a threat will havethe answer of Ems.

As regards the Cabinet of Florence, it might havebeen co-operating with us in this great work. It hasnot done so, and, at this hour, its interference wouldmeet with a rebuff, in place of the sympathy we latelyextended to it.

All the same, we can distinguish between an inimicalgovernment and a friendly people, and the demonstra-tions of the Italian nation in favour of our cause will

never be forgotten by us. You have shown that,whilst generously compassionating the misfortunes of


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16 THEODORE MOMMSEN

France, you are still alive to tlie injustice tliat violatedthe sacred rights of a nation_, and the criminal levitywith which war was declared upon us ; you are able to

discern that this war on the part of France is one of /Uaggression, on our side one of defence ; and you admitthe culpability of this aggressive attack of an autocracybarely veiled by a rag of Parliamentary form, upon anation of freemen, who possess, in their national con-stitution,^ the elements, at least, of the freedom of thestate and the liberty of the person.

In this crisis of affairs, I think we Germans owe aduty to you Italians, since in all human probability weshall dictate the terms of peace ; and you ought to besatisfied as to our aspirations, and to have some assu-

rance that the national enthusiasm which has carriedus to our supreme position, will not degenerate into aNapoleonic passion for conquest.

No doubt serious mistakes, with frightful conse-quences, are possible ; but we shall not fall into theseerrors, if the aspirations of our statesmen are regulatedby those of our people. Now what these last are Iknow, and I will justify them to you.

Let us first consider a little the position of Germanyin respect of France.

My political memory serves me for a retrospect ofat least thirty years. Now I can prove that thisentire period has been filled with French intrigues,


having for tlieir object the seizure of the left bank ofthe Rhine.

Daring the lapse of a whole generation, threats ofthe war which has just burst out have not ceased toring in our ears ; and because at last M. de Gramontcomes upon the stage^ and violates all the rules of thescenic art in having the tragedy of war preceded byhis stupid farce of a declaration, because of this, thewhole crime of the tragedy, as well as the folly of thefarce, are alike to be saddled upon this poor puppet,and his wire-puller Napoleon the Third !

Ah ! indeed ! if this were but true ! Peace, then,would soon and safely be made !

Napoleon the Third is not guiltless ; he has to an-

swer for the gigantic proportions of this terrible war.But for the war itself that is now raging between Grer-mans and Frenchmen he is not answerable, such a


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tremendous responsibility could not belong to oneman, were he ten times an autocrat.

We are to be excused if our German estimate of theEmperor of the French is not quite so correct as theaim we take at his soldiers with our needle-guns.There are some that call him a Caligula; others, a

Nero ; others, a fool led by his wife ; and again somedescribe him as a mediocrite meconnue, adopting thewitty mot of that brilliant but luckless Frenchman,who, entangled in the nets of Imperial obliquity, saw,

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18 THEODORE MOMMSEN

when too late, tlie abyss that yawned beneath it, and

in a moment of despair made himself its first victim.

Without attempting to refute any of these charges,we are compelled to admit, by the force of facts, thatin the remarkable compound which makes up the cha-racter of the man who held so long the destinies ofEurope, there are qualities which can neither be con-sidered criminal nor contemptible.

It is to the initiative of Napoleon the Third thatFrance owes the revolution of her commercial enter-prise. To the same hand Italy is indebted for herrevival, based, too, upon the soundest principles of

nationality. The benefit thus conferred was inestimable,although it was hampered by unjustifiable reserva-tions, and though it was forced by the genius andvirtue of the loyal and gifted Cavour.

But let us grant that the ostensible responsibility ofthis miserable war rests with Napoleon the Third, Ican still prove that he entered upon it by the desire ofthe French people. Those who know the Frenchnation best, and particularly the political and militaryportion of it, know as well as I do that this war hasbeen hatching ever since the final overthrow of thefirst Empire, and that since the reconstruction of Grer-many, war has only been a question of time. Ientirely agree in the opinion held by many, thatthe Emperor was averse, not to War, Heaven knows


the Empire never nieant Peace, but to a war wMcli,if not successful, would jeopardize his dynasty. Amongus in Germany it was universally believed tliat a waragainst us would be the inevitable result of a change in

the French government, whensoever that change came.But how it came to pass, after years of his habitual in-decision, that Napoleon, with reckless suddenness at


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last, exchanged these warlike meditations for the horridreality, remains to be explained by the historians ofthe future. I may suggest in passing, however, that itis not improbable the prospect of a revolution at hisdeath tempted him to steal a march upon his possiblesuccessors, and, that by re-haptizing his dynasty inPrussian hlood, as he expressed it, he hoped to give it

its best chance of stability. Thus he sought to com-bine the parts of a good Father and a good Frencl^-man!

It is certain that, unlike his Mexican war, or evenhis Italian campaign, both of which were unpopular, Napoleon, in the present war, had the popular voicewith him ; not only with him, but urging him withsuch a force that, at all hazards, he was induced toventure upon it.

It is certain also that the majority of Frenchmen, of

all shades of politics, have held together on one point,viz. the wish to get possession of one of our mostfertile provinces, as rich as any in Germany, abounding

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20 THEODORE MOMMSEN

in coa] -mines, and remarkable for tlie industry andcommercial talent of its inlia,bitants ; two tilings, how-ever, always conspicuously absent in it, a native

Frenchman and a French party.

Now, then, after we have repulsed these aggres-sors, after fifty thousand of our bravest hearts havesealed the safety of our frontiers with their blood, wehave to settle our account for all this, not with theFrench Emperor, but with the French nation.

We will not consider now the probable expenses ofthis war, large enough necessarily, and greatly in-creased by the indispensable indemnifications due tothose unfortunate Germans who, relying on Frenchhospitality, were basely betrayed, though an equalnumber of Frenchmen remained undisturbed in theirsafe quarters in Germany ; increased also by the claimsmade by the proprietors of unarmed vessels, as yet theonly war trophies of the boasted French navy. Andwe must not forget also the just compensation thatmust be made for the unjust attack upon Kehl, anopen city, barbarously bombarded by Strasburg balls.

This is a large bill, but it is only a part of ourreckoning. We ask something more than money.We claim territory ; not French territory, but German.

The German nation, in point of its frontiers, is in ananalogous position to the Italian. Our neighbours forcenturies have gone on enlarging their boundaries at


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TO THE PEOPLE OP ITALY. 21

our expense. We know it, and feel it, and cannotforget it. At lengtli the tables were turned; like

you, we got rid of a number of worse tkan uselessdynasties, and gave, by tliis means, strengtli and dig-nity to the central power.

Some knaves and fools ckose to call my native soil,the Baltic duckies, a Dojiish province; but we Hol-steiners will not and never did call ourselves Danes ;and Germany, at last, lias liberated us from our foreignyoke, just as Italy has liberated Lombardy and Venetia.

But we kalt there. We might go further, and withjustice; but the risk to the national independence

would be too great, and the means a disproportionatesacrifice to the end. Millions of Germans peopleAustria, Russia, France, and Switzerland. Trent isan Italian country ; Istria, once Sclavonic, is now vir-tually Italian ; Corsica obeys France ; so does Nice,the ransom of Italian freedom. But since these thingsare so, though Italians and Germans may deplore theirancient losses, yet they should now, as good patriots^resign themselves to the inevitable.

Melancholy indeed is the old story of German dis-union. Melancholy, too, is the tale of our neighboursappropriating Lorraine first, then Alsace. As we read,

our indignation boils against the weak wretches whocould not defend their own, even more than againstthe treachery and violence of their despoilers. Bitter

22 THEODORE MOMMSEN

indeed it was to listen to the well-loved Grermantongue in the border-lands of France. Bitter in-deed to see a French flag waving over that master-piece of German work^ Strasbnrg Cathedral. Whenthe German student, in the German University ofStrasburg, read the sweet story of Goethe's love, that exquisite idyl of Sesenheim, the dear Alsatianvillage, he shut the volume, and asked his heartwhat manner of men his forefathers could have been,who abandoned to the foreigner this sacred field of theGerman muse, to men who cared neither for its budsnor for its blossom, whose whole aim was to extirpateGerman manners, German religion, and our Germantongue.

I do not praise you Italians for what you are doingin Trent and Trieste at this moment ; and I appeal to

the history of Germany for the last fifty years as awitness that we, on our part, have not attempted todo the like. Not even the French themselves have


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been able to bring this charge against us, that we hadever opposed in any way the peculiar proceedings bywhich they tried to spread their civilization.

We let all this pass ; and why ? We knew thenwhat we know now, that the risk was greater thanthe gain, the undertaking not worth the cost.

We cannot see with satisfaction the conduct ofRussia in Livonia, but ask the Germans of Riga, of


Dorpat, if we have aided tliem in resisting tlie attacksmade upon our nationality in those quarters. Wehave not even given them the empty comfort of idlepromises or foolish sympathy. The days of the Cru-

sades are over ; honest patriotism repudiates Quixoticfolly. _

All that we have desired has been to live in peaceand quietness with our neighbours. To do this, theremust be self-denial and self-control, and mutual con-sideration. If France also had been of this pacificmind, our admirers of the Strasburg Minster wouldhave sighed, and pilgrims to pretty Sesenheim wouldhave wept ; bnt the armies of Germany would neverhave followed on their track to take back these con-secrated spots, sacred to our art and our literature.

But now these things are changed !

Italians ! say, if Austria had claimed Milan onceagain from you, if she strove to restore the Bour-bons, and to bring back the Este, and if, in yourself-defence, you bore your banners dyed with theblood of your heroes, even to the gates of her Vienna, if it was for her to sue for peace, and yours to makeit, say, how long, think you, would Trent and Triestebelong to Austria ?

And wise as your counsellors 7iow are, who say toyou, " Confine yours*elves within your present limits,"do you think theii that one of them would be coward

24 THEODORE MOMMSEN

enougli to affect generosity, and counsel a shamefuland derogatory peace ?

The feeble policy of our forefathers betrayed ourland_, our faith, and our language. They left us thisburden, and we have borne it as best we could;

but now, when the fortune of war, not of our ownseeking, has given us back our own, were we in ourturn to act the same cowardly part, we should not


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even have the plea of non possumns to excuse us tothe generations that are to come after us.

Our nation is unanimous in this not conquest, butrestoration; and Italians who claim justice even formen who are not of the Latin race, will praise, andnot blame, a necessary and well-merited act of politi-

cal justice.

The population of Alsace is purely German, if weexcept a few valleys in the Vosges, which are French.*

One of our most conscientious political economistscalculated, before this war, that but a seventh part ofthe Alsatians understand French; and again, but asmall part of these use this language in domestic life.The country people and peasants universally speaknothing but German.

How significant was the case of the unlucky French

* They amount statistically to 20 communes, with 30,000 in-habitants. The remaining 917 communes, with 1,035,102 in-habitants, SPEAK German to this day.


correspondent after the battle of Woei'th^ wlio^ limitedlike a true Frenchman to his mother-tongue, was wan-dering about in his helle France , to find an interpre-

ter who should explain his wants to the peasants ofAlsace !

Even those French who migrate from elsewhereinto these parts soon assimilate themselves, andbecome extensively Germanized. French is the en-forced medium of instruction in the primary schoolsnow ; and the single result of this has been, that theefficiency of these schools is no longer what it was.Formerly, the standard of popular instruction herewas higher than in any other part of France ; now ithas greatly fallen, and it continues to do so everyyear.

It was well said by a worthy ecclesiastic that thewar waged by the French Government upon theGerman language was a war against the religion, themorality, and the well-being of the country.

Here in these valleys you hear our songs and ourlegends ; and our literature has formed here a nucleusof opposition against Paris, in revenge for which theParisian makes the fool in his comedy invariably anAlsatian.

Alsace escaped that blow which undermined thestrong life of France, I mean the extirpation of theHuguenots. In this ill-advised persecution we may


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26 THEODOEE MOMMSEN

see tlie primary cause of tlie decline of tlie Frenchnation^ just as a rampant Jesuitism ruined Austria.

A third of Alsace has remained Protestant, providinga backbone of independent thought, and opening anescape from that subjection which we have seen latelyleading up by arguments more logical than admirableto that ridiculous monstrosity, the Infallibility of thePope.

In Protestant Alsace, we see to this day a liberaland flourishing theology, maintaining the most intimaterelations with our German theologians, and maintainingthese in spite of the obstacles offered by the Govern-'

ment, in insisting that the courses shall be deliveredin the French language. It was only very lately thatthe Strasburg Professors were lamenting to me thatthey were thus compelled to abandon the use of Ger-man in the schools.

I will tell you what a Protestant minister did at thebeginning of this war. His charge was a large villagenear to Strasburg. Going up into the pulpit with thekeys of the church in his hands, he said to the peopleassembled before him, " I cannot with a good con-science pray to God to give France the victory."Then laying down the keys, he gave up his charge,

and departed from the place, and crossed the borderinto Germany. Now he follows a Bavarian regimentin the character of army chaplain.


Sucli facts as these have a grave significance ; inFrance especially^ where whatever any one may think,few have the temerity to dare to express a doubt as tothe glories of the great nation, or the advantages ofher language, ]par excellence the language of civiliza-tion.

Now, what I have said of Alsace is equally true ofGerman Lorraine, that Allemagne, as it was called,which until 1751 conducted all its official affairs inGerman, and still preserves this language in its privatelife. German Lorraine includes part of the depart-ment east of the Meurthe and the Moselle and thecantons of Saar. By the account of the French Ministerof Instruction, made out in 1865, in 76 communes ofthe department of the Meurthe out of 46,508 inhabi-tants, only 6870 could speak the French language;

whilst amongst those who attended the schools, innumber 6800, 2400 only could be said to speak itcorrectly.


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This does not say much for progress under a stronggovernment; but nature is also strong ! as thoseyoung peasants proved, soon forgetting their school-ng in this precious French, and returning in fullforce to their native barbarisms ! Tamen usque re-curret !

The city and canton of Thionville Diedenhofen wecall it are completely German. In this same quarter,

28 THEODORE MOMMSEN

on the confines of Luxemburg, some years ago a wliolevillage, witli the priests at tlieir head, went up to theMairie to protest against the forcible imposition of theFrench language. The afiair came before the Senate

in Paris ; how it all ended I forget, but, doubtless,for one thing, in the decoration of the Maire.

I do not, by what I have cited, mean to prove thatin these subjected provinces of Alsace and Lorraine,France has no friends, and Germany no foes.

France strong, powerful, and united, full of arts andindustries, has been in a position to look down upon adivided, backward, enfeebled nation such as ours. TheFrench Revolution, the wars of the first Empire, thegreat industrial movements, all more or less converg-ing and springing from France, all gave a prestige to

this position. And it is the truth too, and not muchperhaps to our credit, that the German adapts himselfreadily to foreign influences. The desperate obstinacyof the Italian under the*yoke of the stranger is not oneof our strong points. And even you Italians have expe-rienced the beguiling effects of French wit and polishupon weak heads and shallow minds.

Beyond this, in Alsace, we meet an enemy commonto all the world : I mean Catholici'sm not the Catho-licism of the Strossmayers and of Wessemberg, butthat genuine article redolent of the Vatican, which, Iam proud to say, holds Prussia in especial detestation.


that style of Catliolicism which incited the benightedpeasants under its control^ to hunt down and murderour wounded soldiers at Woerth.

Just and necessary as the restitution now has come tobe, yet it will not be consummated without many diffi-culties_, many heart-burnings, and many dangers ; for

the wounds of centuries cannot be healed in a day.A sacred obligation impels us onward in this matter ;but for this we would willingly, even at this moment,


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forego these fruits of our victories, only too glad torenounce these countries whose possession for many ayear to come must give us work to do rather than any-thing like solid advantage.

And after all this, there still remains the importantquestion of the new frontier lines. Let France keep

her French territory intact, whether always hers, ornot, we will not ask ; we desire no conquests, we wantwhat is our own, neither more nor less. But what isour own ?

You may determine the height of a mountain andthe course of a river, but with what precision can youarrange a national boundary ?

I have wandered about the slopes of the Mediterra-nean, Istria, and the Alpine valleys of the Trent; every-where you find yourself in a debatable land, belonging

to both or to neither of the neighbouring countries.To fix a territorial boundary involves so many points,

30 THEODORE MOMMSEN

the interests of commerce, tlie relations of trade,, olddistrict combinations, customs and taxes and dues,and perhaps tlie most important of all, strategicconsiderations. In our case now these last will, ofcourse, stand first, though the value of a natural bar-rier is not what it was, nor are bristling fortresses

along the frontiers much impediment to invasion.Great rivers, being great highways, should in allreason be national property, not national boundaries ;we have seen the result of the divided dominion ofthe Rhine, never ending, and ever renewing, contestsand disputes. Day by day the French remind eachother, with savage joy, that the town of Kehl lies atthe mercy of the cannons of Strasburg. On the sideof France, too, there is the great entrenched camp ofMetz, to which Germany can offer nothing similar.The sole object for which it was made was to supportthe meditated invasion of the last thirty years, and it isneither more nor less than a constant menace fromFrance to Germany.

Metz, too, was once German ; it is French now, wegrant it, though many Germans demand Metz all thesame, not by right of nationality, but to make ourfrontiers secure. But in possessing ourselves of Metzthere will be a difficulty, as every one will nee, in takinga French province, however small, ruled by Frenchlaws and sentiments, and making it German; and


public opinion wlien it classes Metz witli Alsace and


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German Lorraine, I think makes a mistake. But asevery newspaper reader believes himself to be ageneral, so everybody thinks himself qualified to havea judgment in these matters. For my part, I think itour duty to leave these grave particulars undiscussed,relying upon those able hands which hold the destiniesof the two nations. But I repeat it, the nation is

unanimous only for having back the countries whichactually belong to us by their language and customs ;it does not wish that our reclamation should degene-rate into conquest.

And has Europe any just cause for uneasiness be-cause we claim back what was once our own ?

Doubtless there are men so timorous that they mightas well wear petticoats as pantaloons, and there areeasy-going politicians who will counsel us to rememberthe dangers of the future, and to beware how we exas-

perate the French.

But of what avail is such a consideration as this ?Have the days of Woerth and Metz increased thefriendship of the French for us ? are not the inevi-table consequences of this war sad memories and slum-bering hatred, primed to explode at any moment ? anddoes not this tremendous war contain the germs ofanother, possibly still more gigantic ?

But how was this to be avoided on our part ? God

32 THEODOEE MOMMSEN

knows as long as there was a chance of averting thiscalamitous breach, I laboured, in my small way, toeffect it ; and I did this with an honest regard for thegreat and amiable qualities of the French nation, andout of a true affection towards the many good friendsI had found in it.

And now what can we do ? can we put things backto the state when Waterloo was beginning to be for-gotten, and when Rezonville was not foreseen ? Canwe heal the wounded pride, the mortified vanitywhich defeat at all points at our hands has inflictedon our foes ? Those who know the meaning of Frenchpride and vanity will understand, as I do, that no con-citions of peace can intensify the hatred roused to itsheight by utter defeat. What a commentary on thepride and vanity of this great nation is its dreamt-for revenge for Sadowa ! Even our independent vic-tory over the Austrians was received by France as amortal insult.

With all this before our eyes, can any one be mad

enough to suppose that France can be conciliated byany peace of any kind ?


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Again, I ask, were we to claim back Alsace andGerman Lorraine, would Europe and the great Powershave any just cause for uneasiness ?

If this were a matter of conquest, the case mightreasonably alarm the nations, for every conquest is a


crime against the rights of nations^ to trample uponone nation is to offend all ; but I have shown and provedthat this is not a question of conquest.

But I fancy another consideration occupies someItalian minds. Europe is settling, we hope^ firmly andhappily upon the principle of the unification of thegreat nations^ maintained and balanced by the system

of political equilibrium. If we infringe upon thissystem, all its members suffer. Fraternity amongstnations, as well as men, requires a certain equality.Will it then be an infringement upon this equilibriumif these French provinces, with a German nationality,belong again politically to Germany ? I think not.

Those who are against us, complain that Prussia isthe first military Power in Europe, and as to the ' Per-severanza,^ if it could have its way, it would persuadeus to restore this equilibrium which it is so alarmedlest we should disturb, by giving to those poor Frenchthe whole of the left bank of the Rhine ! What a fine

thing is disinterested advice ! But granting that weare the first military Power in Europe, why shouldthat destroy the European equilibrium ? Have notFrance and Russia, both in turns, enjoyed the name ofthis supremacy ? It is a pity we cannot have thesetimes back again ! Then, perhaps, the ^ Perseveranza^would think it safe to obtain for us Alsace in the shapeof a generous gift. Now, alas ! it will cost us dear !

D

34 THEODORE MOMMSEN

Wlien tlie invincibility of the French army was asmuch an article of faith at Milan and Vienna as in theBois de Boulogne (though Berlin scepticism neverquite accepted it)^ where was the equilibrium then ?In fact^ such an equilibrium as this never has existed,and never can; it is a dream, on a par with the equaldivision of worldly goods amongst all men. We must.admit that the Prussian army is stronger than theItalian; does it follow, then, that if we attemptedthe conquest of the Peninsula, we should succeed ?

Morally and materially, a nation^ s greatest strengthis for defence, and not for attack, especially in thelong run. Decidedly, we should issue from any such


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enterprise with loss of honour, and with no advantage.Thank Heaven we are not as yet the dictators ofEurope ! Nero I. and Napoleon I. sent a mandate,and changed a neighbouring state into a dependentprovince; but if any such decree were signed byBismarck, where would it be respected ?

Yet more, how could two provinces of the size ofAlsace and German Lorraine, taken from France andgiven back to Germany let us say to Prussia upsetthe balance between the great Powers ? The transi-tion for a long time must be anything but remunera-tive to us. But supposing the time when they shallhave settled down as good Germans again, like therest of the inhabitants of the Rhenish provinces, what


will the figures of the case show ? Only 1,200,000more Prussians, and just so many less Frenchmen.The two departments of Savoy and Nice contain two-thirds of this number. France, therefore, in 1860,besides violating that generosity which forbids you toexact payment for benefits conferred, committed alsothe serious wrong of upsetting the equilibrium ofEurope ? Had we not better restore the old equili-brium by taking from her Alsace and Lorraine ?

Let me speak seriously again. France, I am thefirst to own it, is a European necessity. She must not,

and cannot, be ruined. But a dismemberment thatleaves her safe frontiers and thu'ty-six millions ofpeople is not ruin.

A sound judge will understand that if the militarypreponderance of Prussia were much greater than it is(and a great deal at present in its strength is personal,for we cannot always reckon upon a Moltke to lead us,or a Lehoeuf to confront us), it still accords better thanany other with the independence of other nations.

Our policy is defensive, not because of chance cir-cumstances, nor from the peaceful character of thepeople, though that tells powerfully, but from thefundamental constitution of Prussia, so ingrafted inher policy that neither people nor government canchange it.

Again, our policy is defensive, because we have no

d2

36 THEODORE MOMMSEN

profit in victory. As Germans^ as Liberals^ and as Pro-testants^ we reject that Austrian dream of seventy


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millions of people^ no longer united Germans^ but amixture of many peoples^ capable only of being ruledby an autocracy, and Catholic more than Protestant.Such acquisitions would be a calamity every way,both to conquerors and conquered. We are even nowlearning this lesson. However victorious we may be,what must be the fruits of this war ? The loss of the

flower of our manhood ; lasting enmity with France ;new perils for the future ; as much within as without.Wise and patriotic was the peaceful policy of Bis-marck which sacrificed something of our victories in1866; and allowed Luxemburg to be dismantled, andhas, to preserve peace, kept at bay for a few years theCommissioners of the grand scheme for the remodel-ling of Europe, although our Generals, like their con-freres in Paris, did not cease to assure him that theywere more than ready ! and that there was nothing tofear. No defeat we had not to fear, but peace wasworth more than many victories.

Again, our policy is necessarily defensive, becauseby the working of our military system, we feel thepenalties of war more profoundly than other nations.In France the upper classes contribute but a smallportion of the ofiicers of. the army. With us, warmeans the whole nation in arms, from the highest to


the lowest. So in proportion we are stronger; but

we also suffer more. It is in vain to tell me that oneman's life is worth as much as another's. The deathof a great merchant ; of a rising professor^ the idol ofhis classes ; of a promising politician^ in whom thefuture statesman may be predicted, the loss of suchmen as these leaves a more irreparable void than thedeath of a private individual who lived only for hisown family. Testis sum. Would to God that I werenot telling you the truth ! Every letter I open bringsme the tidings of some valuable life cut short somefriend wounded some well-known head laid low. Ihave not the heart to go on.

Many a time, and truly, Prussia has been reproached,for her pusillanimous policy. Few have guessed howmuch of that policy is due to the terrible responsibilityof sending such an army as hers into the field. Yes,my friends, the Prussian sword is very powerful ; butit is powerful for defence only. The nation must feelthat it stands face to face with an unalterable necessityto make it raise its arm with full effect. He who wouldabuse this sword, would break it.

In the last place, our policy is necessarily pacific,because of the federal system of our political ma-

chinery. Our federation is distinct from that of Swit-zerland or the United States ; it is adapted to the re-quirements of a State that is neither small nor isolated.


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38 THEODORE MOMMSEN

The war of 1866 settled the nucleus of the Germannation ; this war will seal its federation.

There was a doubt in 1 866 still, whether in its pro-cess of unification the nation would take the line ofcentralization or federalism. This to many did notseem a vital question in the face of a great war, full ofdifficulties and laden with risks ; but now this doubtis decided. The faithful and patriotic help given to usby the whole population of Germany, and by the mostimportant Governments, such particularly as Baden,Saxony, and Bavaria, proves to us beyond a doubt,and beyond a fear, that the federal system suffices forall our aims. It is probable that our national vigour

will gain force ; but it is also certain that the existenceof the secondary States, their sovereigns, and theirrepresentatives, will have a surer guarantee for thefuture than before this war took place.

I beg outsiders, and especially Signer Mammiani, toweigh well the consequences of this war. Those whosee in the unification of the great German nation aperpetual menace to the rest of the world, are calledupon to observe that the political co-operation of thesecondary States forms the soundest check upon Prus-sian usurpations. We form a most powerful combi-nation against invasion ; but, thank God, we cannot

dispose of the Saxons and the Bavarians after themanner of Napoleon the First when he invaded Russia.


I have here set before yon the political positionwhich we hold in relation to France and to Europe.Italy is the natural ally of Germany; like us, shehas cast off the fetters of internal disunion, and thoyoke of the Austrian ; we have common interests andcommon aspirations^ and now more than ever, weshould live in close alliance.

Perhaps it was but right and honourable that theItalian Government should not avail itself of the presentopportunity of taking from France the Italian territoryshe enjoys, but if it does not make an end of theKoman question now, I shall think it is patient andresigned beyond all allowable limits. Signer TerenzioMammiani, in the letter he favoured me with,* seemedto think that Germany would oppose this movement.I am happy to say that he will certainly be mistaken,provided no misunderstanding turns up.

I thoroughly disapprove of the policy of our Go-vernment in religious matters. Our minister of public


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instruction a colleague of Bismarck by the law ofcontrasts it must be will no doubt shed a tear whenhe hears of the failure of the firm of the Infallibilists.But the Florentine Government should know betterthan to be asking about here and there for permissionto take possession of the Pontifical States. Of course,

* I have only seen this letter in our newspaper translations ;if they misstate his meaning, the author must excuse me.

40 THEODORE MOMMSEN.

if tliey do this, they will be told to keep quiet. But iftliey act and don^t talk, our Government will say no-thing, and our nation will applaud.

Beyond this, I do not see that we can go. Mam-

miani would like us to join in the solemn declarationthat the last Council was not Ecumenical. As for me,I must be excused here. I would do it with all myheart, if it was not necessary to become a Catholicfirst ; but this, I own, would not at all suit me.

The attitude of the German Catholics at and afterthe Council was, to my mind, an improvement uponthat of the Italian Catholics; the former certainlymade the nearest approach to a serious opposition thatwas possible in a party professing unanimously tosubstitute the principle of obedience for that of freewill. I believe I express the sentiments of all

sensible Germans, whether Protestant or Catholic, whenI say that it does not become Italy to declare waragainst the Papacy. She should rather support this,her greatest political institution ; and the Papacyshould and could exist without the temporal power^which really degrades it, by making the first Bishopin the world the last of its Kings.

41

D. F. STEAUSS

TO THE PEOPLE OF FBANCE.

-- Letter to Ernest Renan.*

August 18th, 1870.Dear Sir^ Your friendly acceptance of my workon Voltaire, conveyed to me in your letter of the30tli ult., was a great comfort to me. The book met

with a generally favourable reception in German}^,durmg the few weeks vouchsafed to it from its firstappearance to the breaking out of the war ; but I had


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never concealed from myself the difficulties a foreignerhas to cope with in trying to do justice to a man ofanother nation, especially if that man must be calledthe very embodiment of the foreign nationality. Iawaited, therefore, with some uneasiness the judg-ments of the leaders of opinion among Voltaire'scountrymen. That yours has turned out in favour of

my work, makes me right glad ; at all events thetruthfulness which you concede to it has been my soleendeavour.

* Reprinted from the ' Daily News.'

42 D. F. STRAUSS

But who can take pleasure in a literary work, andespecially a work for international peace, as my ^Life

of Yoltaire' was intended to be, at a moment wlienthe two nations to whose union it was meant to con-tribute stand in arms against one another ? Rightlydo you say that this war must cause the deepest dis-tress to all those who have striven for the intellectualassociation of France and Germany; rightly do youdescribe it as a calamity that now again for a longtime to come injustice and uncharitable j udgment willbe the order of the day between the two members ofthe European family whose sympathy is so indispen-sable to the work of moral civilization ; rightly do youdeclare it to be the duty of every friend of truth andjustice, at the same time that he unreservedly fulfils

his national duty, to preserve himself free from thatpatriotism which is only party spirit which narrowsthe heart and perverts the judgment.

You say that you had hoped that the war mightstill have been stayed. We Germans had the samehope in every case since 1866 when war seemed tothreaten ; yet in general we have held a war withFrance as a consequence of the events of thatyear to be inevitable, so inevitable, that here andthere one heard the question asked with dissatisfac-tion, "Why did not Prussia declare war sooner, forinstance on occasion of the Luxemburg affair, and so

TO THE PEOPLE OF FRANCE. 43

bring tilings to an issue V Not tliat we wished forwar; but we knew the French well enough to knowthat they would wish for war. It is now as it waswith the Seven Years' War_, the consequence of theSilesian conquests of Frederick the Great. Frederickdid not desire that war^ but he knew that Maria The-resa desired it_, and would not rest till she had found

confederates. An established ascendancy is not readilyrenounced either by a monarch or a people. They willmake efforts to preserve it until it is decisively taken


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from them. So was it with Austria^ so is it now withFrance : both of them against Prussia^ by whose sidethe whole of non- Austrian Germany, better instructed,is this time standing.

Since the epoch of Richelieu and Louis XIY. Francehas been accustomed to play the first role among Euro-

pean nations, and in this claim she was strengthenedby Napoleon I. The claim was based on her strongpolitico-military organization, and still more on theclassical literature which in the course of the seven-teenth and eighteenth centuries had grown up inFrance, and made her language and her culture su-preme in the world. But the immediate condition ofthis supremacy of France was the weakness of Ger-many; over against France united, unanimous, andquick to move, Germany stood divided, discordant,and unwieldy. Yet, every nation has its time, and, if

44 D. F. STRAUSS

it is of tlie right sort, not one time alone. Germanyhad had its time in the sixteenth century, in the agoof the Reformation. It had paid dearly for this pre-eminence in the convulsions of a thirty years^ war,which threw it back, not only into political feebleness,but into intellectual stagnation. Yet things were farfrom having come to an end with it. It saw its timeagain. It began its work where France had fixedthe roots, not indeed of its power, but of its true

right to European ascendancy. It fashioned itselfin silence; it produced a literature; it gave to the.world a succession of poets and thinkers, who tooktheir place by the side of the French classics of theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries as somethiugmore than equals. If in finish of cosmopolitan under-standing and cultivation, in clearness and elegance,they fell short of the French, in depth of thought asmuch as in strength of feeling they surpassed them.The idea of humanity, of the harmonious cultivation ofhuman nature in individual as in common life, wasdeveloped in German literature in the last twenty-fiveyears of the eighteenth and the first twenty-five yearsof the nineteenth century.

The result of this was that Germany won the intel-lectual leadership of Europe, while France still main-tained its political ascendancy, though latterly in hardstruggle with England. But the literary outburst of

TO THE PEOPLE OP PRANCE. 45

Germany was either fruitless bloom^ or it was destined

to be followed by political regeneration. In tlie timeof Napoleon^ France liad laid Germany prostrate beforelier ; tlie yoke was thrown off in the war of liberation


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of 1813-14. But the ground of our powerlessness,the want of political unity^ was not removed ; on thecontrary^ if the German empire had long been nothingbut a shadow^ now even the shadow had vanished.Germany had become a motley aggregate of greaterand smaller independent States. This independenceitself may have been a mere show, but it was yet real

enough to make all energetic action of the whole bodyimpossible ; while, on the other hand, the '^ Bundestag'^which had to represent the unity, made its existencediscernible in nothing but the repression of all freemovement in the individual States. If France wasagain taken with the humour to aggrandize itself at ourcost, it was not Germany, but Hussia and England, thathad to restrain it. This was keenly felt in Germany.It was felt by the men who had fought in the Libera-tion War, who, during the dismal years of reaction,saw quite another seed spring up than that which theywere conscious of having sown; it was felt by the

young men who had grown up in the thoughts andthe songs of these wars. Thus it was that strivingsafter unity during i ne succeeding time had somethingvery youthful, immature, and romantic about them.

46 D. F. STRAUSS

The German idea haunted tliem as a familiar as theGhost of the Old Emperor. That the Governmentsof the time attached so great importance to the stu-dents' clubs and democratic machinations^ as they were

called, only showed how bad their conscience was.

The storm of your July Revolution cleared our at-mosphere to some degree, without carrying us essen-tially forward. There was now too much attention paidto a nation differently constituted; for every peoplefirst of all must look to its own work, to its own natureand history. In the Chambers of our smaller States therewas life enough ; many robust forces were aroused, butthe narrow range of their activity made their horizonequally narrow. As Prussia and Austria remainedclosed to constitutional life, and held together in oppos-ing its spread in the smaller States, in these latterhostility to the Bundestag, the pitiful remnant of Ger-man unity, passed for patriotism. ludeed, it couldnot long be concealed that nothing could come ofspirited speeches in the small States, so long as theirGovernments could fall back upon the Bundestag, that is, upon the two absolnte leading States. Thoughtsof a representation of the people in the Bund werefloating; in Prussia a hopeful, if imperfect step wasbeing taken in the meeting of the united *' Landtag,^'when for the second time an impulse from your coun-try the February Revolution struck into the course



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of German development. These Frencli influenceswere dangerous for us only so long as they found usweak. In proportion as we gained internal strengththey became more and more desirable ; so that thislast^ which was thought to be most unfortunate for us,is to-day bringing to our view more auspicious conse-

quences than all earlier ones. The impulse of 1848came upon us at a moment when in each of the Ger-man States men had come to be convinced of the fruit-lessness of all separate strivings for freedom and popu-lar well-being, and at one stroke it forced the idea ofGerman unity to the surface. In the German Parlia-ment, elected by the general vote, this thought gainedfor the first time a political organ, before whose moralauthority all existing individual powers had for sometime to fall into the background. But if, during thetwenty years of reaction, the idea of German unity hadhad its life principally among our students, then the

scoffers might say that in 1848 it had passed tothe professors, and so far at least with truth, as inevery educated German, according to the common ex-pression, there is something of a professor. Enough ;the thing was set going very thoroughly in theory,but also very unpractically. In fencing about prin-ciples of right, and debating over paragraphs of theconstitution, invaluable time was lost, till, unobserved,the actual Powers had regained their strength, and the

40 D. F. STRAUSS

ideal fabric of a new Germany dissolved like a castle intlie clouds.

From such airy lieiglits the German imperial thronehad been offered to a Prince who, although in otherrespects a man of the clouds^ had yet so much trueinsight that he could neither believe himself to bethe right man for the crown nor the crown itself tobe a possibility. The attempts which he then madeto appropriate some part of what had been offeredto him ended even more pitifully than the attemptof the German people to constitute itself anew. Inthe course of these struggles the dualism of Austriaand Prussia had more and more brought itself beforemen's eyes as the essential misfortune of Germany.During Metternich's time Prussia had been kept intow by Austria^ and this had been thought theguarantee of all order and security. Its presentattempts, each more earnest than the last, to haveits own will and to carry out its own proper aims,were not less disagreeable than novel to Austrianpolicy. Whatever, therefore, from this time onwardswas undertaken or promoted in Germany by Prussia,beginning with the Zollverein, was both secretly and

openly opposed by Austria. Germany fell into thecondition of a waggon with one horse before andanother of equal strength pulling behind, with no


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hope of moving. But the times educate their men,


provided that among the 3'oung gTowth there are

characters of the right stuff, and that these find them-selves in their right places. Herr von Bismarck wasa man of such stuff, and in his position in theBundestag in Frankfort, he was in the right placefor penetrating into the inmost seat of Germ any ^sweakness. It was indeed his Prussian pride whichswore revenge upon Austria for the humiliationswhich she had destined for Prussia; but in this hewas not unconscious that with Prussia, Germany alsowould be helped forward. On occasion of the warin Schleswig-Holstein, the phenomenon was for amoment seen of the two horses pulling side by side,

yet the end was hardly attained before the old oppo-sition began again. Now was the time to cut thetraces which fastened the hinder horse to the waggon ;it would then be an easy task for the other to move itforward. A true Columbus egg, this thought ! Itwould have seemed that every one must have sharedit; yet there was but one man if the thought wasnot his alone who conceived the true means to carryit into effect.

In the life of nations, as of individuals, there aretimes when that which we have long wished andstriven for presents itself to us in so strange a shape

that we recognize it not, and even turn away fromit in displeasure and resentment. So was it with the

E

60 D. F. STRA.USS

Austrian war of 1866 and its consequences. Itbrought to us Germans wliat we had so long wishedfor^ but it brought it not in the manner that we hadwished, and therefore a great part of the Germannation thrust it away from them. We had hoped towork out the unity of Germany from the popular idea,from the popular desire, from tlie thoughts of its bestmen. Now it was by the action of the de factoPowers, by blood and iron, that we saw the road cutout. We had hoped so wide and so high had beenthe range of the idea to include in one constitutionthe entire German race. Now as the result ofactually present relations, not only the Germans inAustria, but the intermediary South German States,remained excluded. It needed time to reconcile Ger-man idealism, and, perhaps, German obstinac}^, with

the fact which it found before it ; but the might, nay,the reasonableness of this fact was so irresistible, thatin the shortest time the better view had made a most


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happy progress.

That which in no small measure contributed tothrow a light even upon the most blinded was theattitude which France took up towards these events.France had let it be seen that she hoped to strengthenher pre-eminence by means of the internal conflicts

of her neighbour; when she found herself deceivedin this hope she could not disguise her vexation.

TO THE PEOPLE OP PRANCE. 51

From this time onwards we Germans could regulatetlie value we attaclied to our political relations by theFrencli estimate of them^ for their value was exactlythe reverse to the one and the other people. Thesour looks which France cast on Prussia and the North-

ern Confederation taught us that in those two lay oursafety. Her oglings with the unconfederated Southtaught us that in the latter lay our greatest weakness.Every movement which Prussia made_, not to forcethe South German States to join it^ but merely tokeep the door open to them, was suspected by France,and made an occasion of intervention. Even on aquestion so entirely non-political as the subventionof the Mount St. Gothard Railway, the Gallic cockcrowed martially.

Since the fall of Napoleon, France has three timesaltered its constitution; on none of these occasions

did Germany think of interfering. It has alwaysrecognized the right of its neighbour to remodelthe inside of his house, according to his need orconvenience, even according to his caprice. Wereour German transactions of 1866, and subsequently,a different matter ? Did the panels with which welined our hitherto notoriously uninhabitable house, therafters that we strengthened, the walls that we carriedup, shake our neighbour's house ? Did they threatento intercept its light or air ? Did they expose it to

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52 D. F. STRAUSS

danger from fire ? No such thing ! It was simplythat our house appeared to him too noble. Thisneighbour of ours, he wished to possess the finestand highest house in the whole street, and above all,ours should not be too strong. We must not have themeans of making it fast ; he must never be deprivedof the power to do what he had already done severaltimes, of taking possession of a few of our rooms

whenever it suited him, and throwing them into hisown house. Yet, in remodelling our house we hadmade no claim whatever to those portions of it which


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our violent neighbour had appropriated in bygonedays, but had left them to him, and given him theright of prescription. But now, indeed, since he hasappealed to the sword, these old questions rise up again.France will not give up its European primacy.

Only if it has a right to this, has it a right to inter-

fere with our internal questions ? But on what isthis pretended right to the primacy based ? In culti-vation Germany has long placed itself on a level withFrance. The equal rank of our literature has longbeen recognized by the representatives of that ofFrance. The just proportion in which, thanks to awell-devised school education, moral and intellectualtraining have penetrated every class of our people, isenvied by the best men among the French. The ex-clusion of the Reformation from France, greatly as it


contribated to strengtlien its political power, liad anequally great effect in destroying its intellectual andmoral well-being. But even in political capacity wehave now fully come up to the French, though slowly.The Eevolution of 1789 appeared to give them an im-mense advantage over us. We have to thank it forloosening us from many chains which would otherwisehave weighed upon us far into the future ; but whatwe have seen in France since the Revolution has notbeen of a character to frighten us out of our competi-

tion. Limited Governments appear to have come intobeing only to be undermined, to sink into anarchy, asthis, in its turn, into despotism. Whether Constitu-tional Monarchy, in which you, no less than myself,recognize the only durable form of Government forEurope (exceptional conditions put aside), can eveistrike its roots deep in France, appears to be doubtfulto yourself in your admirable essay on the subject ; atleast it is your wish rather than your hope.

That I am not blind to the many good qualities ofthe French nation that I recognize in it an essentialand indispensable member of the European nationalfamily, a beneficial leaven in their mingling it is aslittle necessary that I should assure you, as that youshould assure me of the like unperverted estimation ofthe German people and their merits on your side.But nations, as well as individuals, have, as the

54 D. F. STRAUSS

reverse side of tlieir merits^ not less conspicuous faults ;and in relation to these faults, our two nations have

for centuries enjoyed a very different, nay, totally op-posite, training. We G-ermans, in the hard school ofcalamity and dishonour, in which your countrymen in


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great measure were our relentless schoolmasters andchasteners, have learnt to recognize our essential andhereditary faults under their true form our visionari-ness, our slowness, and, above all, our want of unity,as the hindrances of all national success. We havetaken ourselves to task, we have striven against thesefailings, and sought more and more to rid ourselves of

them. On the other hand, the national faults of theFrench, pampered by a succession of French mon-archs, were for a long time intensified by success, andnot cured even by misfortune. The craving for glit-ter and fame ; the tendency to grasp at these ratherby loud adventurous achievements without than bysilent effort within; the pretension to stand at thehead of nations, and the thirst to patronize andplunder tiiem ; all these faults which lie in the Gallicnature, as those above named do in the German, werefostered to such an extent by Louis XIY., by the firstand by, let us hope, the last Napoleon, that the na-

tional character has suffered the deepest injury. Gloryin particular, which one of your Ministers has recentlycalled the first word in the French language, is rather

TO THE PEOPLE OF FEANCE. bO

its worst and most pernicious ; one wliicli tlie nationwould do well to strike out of its dictionary for a longtime to come. It is the golden calf round wliicli tlienation lias for centuries kept up its dance j it is tlieMolocli at whose altar it has sacrificed and is even

now again sacrificing its own sons and the sons ofneighbouring nations ; it is the ignis fatuus which haslured it from fields of prosperous labour into the wil-derness, and often to the brink of the precipice. Andwhile those earlier monarchs. Napoleon I. especially,were themselves possessed by this national demon,and therefore went even into their unjust wars withsomething of sincerity, with the present Napoleon itis the conscious cunning design to lead the nationastray into aims of cool self-seeking ; to draw their at-tention away from their moral and political destitutionwithin, that is, by ever and ever stirring up the na-tional passion for glitter, fame, and depredation.Against Russia in the Crimea, against Austria in Italy,he was successful. In Mexico he met with sensibledisaster. Against Prussia he let the right momentslip. At the beginning of this year the world couldfor a moment belifeve that he was in good faith, leavingthis path and turning to that of internal reform, in thesense of rational freedom and administrative amend-ment; till his backward spring to the Plebiscite con-vinced all the world that he was still his old self. From

56 D. F. STRAUSS

tliat time Germany^ too, liad everything to fear ratlier,


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slioiild I say, everything to liope.

That unity which he desired to frustrate is ours.The unheard-of claim which lay in his demand on theKing of Prussia was as comprehensible and intolerableto the poorest peasant in the March as to the kingsand dukes south of the Main. The spirit of 1813-14

swept like a storm through every German land; andalready the first events of the war have given us apledge that a nation which fights only for that forwhich it feels both the right and the power in itselfcannot fail of its end. This end for which we struggleis simply the equal recognition of the European peo-ples, the security that for the fature a restless neigh-bour shall no more at his pleasure disturb us in theworks of peace, and rob us of the fruits of our labour.For this we desire a guarantee, and only when this isgiven can we speak of a friendly understanding, of aharmonious combination of the two neighbouring peo-

ples in all the labours of civilization and humanity ;but not till that time when the French people shallfind its false road closed to it will it be able to openits ear to voices like your own, which for long timepast have called it to the true road the road of honestdomestic efibrt, of self-control and morality.

I have written in greater detail than pleases meindividually, and indeed than is becoming; but our


German affairs and aspirations easily rise before theforeigner as a mere mist ; and to make them a littleclear^ some minuteness is unavoidable. You will^ per-haps^ think it even less becoming that these lines cometo you in prints not in writing. In ordinary times Iwould certainly have first asked your consent to theirpublication; but as things are now_, the right momentwould have passed before my request could reach you,and your answer come to my hands ; and I think thatit is not ill done if in this crisis two men of the twonations, each in his own nation independent and farfrom political party strife, freely, though without pas-sion, address one another on the causes and the mean-ing of the war ; for my utterance will seem to me onlythen to have its true worth if it gives you occasion toexpress yourself in the like manner from your ownpoint of view.

RoBSCHACH, \2th August, 1870.

58

MAX MULLEE


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TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND.

. Five Letters to the Editor of the ^ Times/"^

FIEST LETTEE, August 29th, ]870.

Sir, I could hardly trust my eyes wlien I read inthe ^ Times ' of to-day the following paragraph :

" Neither of the powerful contending countries seem to haveregarded as disgraceful or criminal the proposal of the other todismember and appropriate, in spite of treaties, the whole orportions of independent, peaceful, well-governed nations, Hol-land, Belgium, Switzerland ; though we well know that an En-glish Minister who could dishonour his country by listening fora moment to such proposals, would be driven from office by an

indignant people."

My surprise became still greater when I saw thisterrible charge endorsed by a name that is honouredin Germany as much as in England the name of Sii*

* These letters have been revised by the writer, who hasalso made a few additions.

MAX MULLEE TO THE PEOPLE OP ENGLAND. 59

Harry Verney. In tliese words, wliicli could not havebeen penned with a light heart,, he arraigns at the barof public opinion, not simply two ministers, but twonations ; and he declares, with the undisguised prideof an Englishman, that a policy which in France andGermany is tolerated and approved by the peoplewould have been branded in England as disgracefuland criminal.

I feel certain you will allow me to take up thischallenge as far as Germany and Count Bismarck areconcerned. Sir Harry Verney writes with so muchconfidence that I tremble lest he have some evidence,unknown to me and others, that Count Bismarck wasreally an accomplice of Count Benedetti, and notsimply an unwilling listener; nay, as he so pointedlyrefers to Holland, the only share of the booty whichcould possibly have been claimed for Germany, hemay possess documents, withheld as yet from thepublic, proving that Count Bismarck really bargainedfor Holland as a sop to Germany.

If that is the case, I give up Count Bismarck, butnot yet the German people, whom Sir Harry hasattacked as enduring a Minister "who in England

would have been driven from office by an indignantpeople.'^ If, on the contrary, there is no further evi-dence forthcoming for the grave charges brought


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against this German statesman, I think it is time to

60 MAX MULLER

remind liis accusers tliat there ought to be no differ-

ence between private and public morality, and that totake away the character of a public man by vagueaccusations, is as grave a breach of the Ninth Com-mandment as to repeat idle reports affecting the cha-racter of private individuals.

I shall now follow Sir Harry step by step. Let ussuppose, first of all, that Count Bismarck was as darka conspirator as Count Benedetti. ' Did the people ofGermany know the secret diplomacy of these two menbefore we knew it in England ? and do you expectthat on the eve of an invasion or in the throes of a

deadly war Germany should first have convoked herParliament, and, by crushing majorities or bloodyemeuteSy have hurled Count Bismarck from power ?Is that the way in which England would have dealtwith her Prime Minister when the safety of the coun-try was at stake ? Ay, even in times of peace, doesthe moral indignation of the English people alwaysassume the form of annihilating majorities in Parlia-ment ? I do not wish to retaliate ; but I may referSir Harry to the histories of Lord Macaulay and LordStanhope, or even to the recollections of his own longParliamentary career.

I now advance one step. I deny that the acts of aForeign Minister must be judged according to thesame rigid laws that govern the acts of private per-

TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 61

sons. Wliat an admission ! Sir Harry would exclaim.Who but a German could have made it ? Bear withme for one moment. A man of high honour maydecline to act as counsel in criminal or civil cases ; butif he is once engaged for the defence^ he is bound inhonour to think of the interests of his client, and toleave it to the other side to discover and lay open theweak points of his case. A Foreign Minister is thecounsel of his country, and he is bound by the sim-plest rules of prudence not to disclose many a secretof which, as a private person, he might decline tobecome the depositary. He has to listen to proposalsof compromise, and, for argument's sake, to take intoconsideration eventualities which, as a private indivi-dual, he might indignantly decline to entertain. Do yousuppose that Lord Palmerston had never to listen fora moment to suggestions about Turkey and Egypt,

about Savoy and Nice, and was he driven from officeby an indignant people ? If Sir Hamilton Seymourhad published to the world the proposals of the Em-


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peror Nicholas about " the Sick Man,'' he would havebrought on the very war which it was his object to pre-vent. But when the war had broken out, the Eng'lishGovernment had no hesitation in publishing the de-spatches of this able and honourable diplomatist.

I now advance a step further, and unless Sir Harry

Yerney can produce crushing proof to the contrary,

62 MAX MULLER

I maintain against him and against everybody that^during the years which alone concern us_, from 1866to 1870, Count Bismarck's policy has been patrioticand peaceful, sans reproclie, though, no doubt, alsosans peur.

You know the political history of Germany from thebeginning of this century. You know that ever sinceJena one idea has pervaded every German heart, fromthe least to the greatest, to re-establish a UnitedGermany, to save the country from its divided andhelpless state, to rescue it from its political nullity.You know of the many noble efforts to realize thisgreat national purpose, and of the many failures.You know how, long before Italian unity was dreamtof, German patriots were everywhere at work to undothe mischief so carefully planned by the Congress ofVienna ; you know how such men as Jahn, Ai'ndtUhland, were hunted down as demagogues because

they wanted a United Germany, instead of thirty-eight rags; you know how Gagern succumbed atFrankfort ; how Radowitz died of a broken spirit afterOlmiitz; how Bunsen retired in despair. You knowhow Austria attempted once more to rally the Sove-reigns of Germany round her ancient banner; howshe faile

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Full Text of Letters on the War Between Germany and France