creator, with his disappearance the equilibrium is endangered. Right
ceases to reign, force asserts itself, and Bismarck, ironhanded,
invincible, holds sway over a scared, unresisting, one may say a
_soulless_ world.

This is the turning-point. The one man theory apparently endures; but
physically and morally, the vision of disintegration rises,
threatening all; and whence the "New Order" is to come, above all
morally, none divine.

We reach here the close of the preliminary period. Up to the 4th of
September, 1870, and for a few years beyond, State policy is the
proper name for whatever occurs; we deal to a large extent with
mathematical quantities, with impersonal obstructions. Statesmen and
statecraft are in their place, and fill it; individuals, however
distinguished, are, as it were, sheathed in collective symbols and
represented by principles. Documentary evidence suffices now!
Treaties, minutes, diplomatic reports, instruments of all
descriptions, are really the requisite agents of this inanimate
diplomatic narration. State papers are the adequate expression, the
exclusive speech of mere states, and of this speech Heinrich v. Sybel
is one of the foremost living masters.

It would be next to impossible to find anywhere a loftier, clearer, or
more minutely correct record of what preceded and caused the war of
'70, than in the earlier volumes of Sybel's "History"; for up to the
reverses of France, and the substitution of German for French
predominance, we are still--in all connected with Germany,--in
presence of the Prussia of the past, of the Prussia whose social
conditions were fixed by Frederick the Great. Men are simply pawns
upon the board; their fate has no influence on others--the fate of
kings, queens, and high chivalric orders, is alone of any import to
the constituted realm. Nations obey and question not. They are
represented by mouldy, defunct formulae, and as yet no living popular
voice, save that of the revolution of 1789, has been raised to ask
where was the underlying life of the innominate crowd? But the
revolution spoke too loudly, and like the tragedy queen in Hamlet,
"protested too much."

In external Europe, and mostly in over-drilled Prussia, the _elite_
only spoke, and under strict military surveillance, exercised by
privilege of birth, the officer's uniform remained the sign of all
title to pre-eminence.

For these reasons this history must be accepted as the perfect
chronicle of the