e 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