Middle Danube and of the Upper Elbe.  Four years later again, in 1870, Prussia having arranged, after various political experiments which need not be here detailed, for the support of all the German States except Austria, fought a war with France, in which she was immediately and entirely successful, and in the course of which the rulers of the other German States consented (1) to give the Hohenzollern-Prussian dynasty supreme military power for the future over them, under the hereditary title of German Emperors; (2) to form a united nation under the more or less despotic power of these emperors.

This latter point, the national unity, though really highly centralized at Berlin, especially on the military side, was softened in its rigour by a number of very wise provisions.  A great measure of autonomy was left to the more important of the lesser States, particularly Catholic Bavaria; local customs were respected; and, above all, local dynasties were flattered, and maintained in all the trappings of sovereign rank.

From that date—­that is, for the last forty-four years—­there has been a complete Northern Germany, one strong, centralized, and thoroughly co-ordinated nation, in which the original Prussian domination is not only numerically far the greatest element, but morally overshadows all the rest.  The spiritual influence ruling this state issues from Berlin and from the Prussian soul, although a large minority consist of contented but respectful Catholics, who, in all national matters, wholly sympathize with and take their cue from the Protestant North.

So far one may clearly see what kind of power it is that has initiated the German theory of supremacy which we have described above, is prepared to lead it to battle, and is quite certain of leading it to victory.

But we note—­the fatal mark in all German history—­that the unity is not complete.  The ten millions of Austrian Germans were, when Prussia achieved this her highest ambition, deliberately left outside the new German Empire.  And this was done because, in Prussian eyes, a so-called “German unity” was but a means to an end, and that end the aggrandizement of the Hohenzollern dynasty.  To include so many southern and Catholic Germans would have endangered the mastery of Berlin.  The fact that Austria ruled a number of non-German subjects far larger than her Austrian population would further have endangered the Hohenzollern position had Austria been admitted to the new German Empire, and had the consolidation of all Germans into one true state been really and loyally attempted.  Lastly, it would have been impossible to destroy the historic claims to leadership of the Imperial Hapsburgs, and that, more than anything else, was the rivalry the Hohenzollerns dreaded.  Once more had the Germans proved themselves incapable of, and unwilling to submit to, the discipline of unity.  What part, then, was Austria, thus left out, to play in the international activity of Prussia in the future?  What part especially was she to play when Prussia, at the head of Northern Germany, should go out to impose the will of that Germany and of herself upon the rest of the world?  That is the next question we must answer before we can hope to understand the causes of the present war in their entirety.