The three Hohenzollern kings, all named Frederick William, who reigned from the death of Frederick the Great (1786) to the accession of William I (1861) did not count much personally.  The first and third of those mentioned were decidedly weakminded, and the third towards the close of his reign became insane.  But the ideas already initiated in Germany continued to expand.  The Zollverein was established, the Teutonic Federation became closer, and the lead of Prussia more decided.  With the joint efforts of William I and Bismarck the policy became more governmental, more positive, and more deliberate—­the policy of consolidation and of aggrandisement; and with this definite programme in view, Bismarck engineered the three wars of 1864, 1866, and 1870, against Denmark, Austria, and France.  They all three had the effect of confirming the military power of Prussia.  The first war gave her a much desired increase of access to the North Sea; the second led to the treaty with Austria, and ultimately to the formation of the Triple Alliance; the third ended in the definite establishment of the Prussian hegemony, the crowning of William I as Emperor, and the union and consolidation of all the German States under him; but alas! it left a seed of evil in the wresting of Alsace-Lorraine from France.  For France never forgave this.  Bismarck and Moltke knew she would not forgive, and were sorely tempted to engineer a second war which should utterly disable her; but this war never came off.  The seed of Revenge, however, remained with France, and the seed of Fear with Germany; and these two things were destined to lead to a harvest of disaster.

In 1866 Treitschke came to Berlin.  Though Saxon by birth, he became ultra-Prussian in sympathy and temperament.  Somewhat deaf, and by no means yielding or facile in temper, he was not cut out for a political career.  But politics were his interest; his lectures on history were successful at Leipzig and had still more scope at Berlin.  He became the strongest of German Unionists, and with a keen but somewhat narrow mind took an absolute pleasure in attacking every movement or body of people that seemed to him in any way to stand in the path of Germany’s advancement, or not to assist in her consolidation.  Thus he poured out his wrath in turn on Saxony (his own land) and on Hanover, on the Poles, the Socialists, and the Catholics, and ultimately in his later years on Britain.[13]

He conceived, following the lines of the Prussian tradition, that Germany had a great military mission to fulfil.  Her immense energy and power, which had bulked so large in the early history of Europe, and which had been so sadly scattered during the religious wars, was now to come to its own again.  She was to make for herself a great place in Europe, and to expand in colonies over the world.  It was a pleasing and natural ambition, and the expression of it gave a great vogue and popularity to Treitschke’s lectures.  The idea was enormously reinforced