lation reflects the state of mind of a vigorous nation deprived, by historical accidents, of its natural
share of power. Germany had owed its international position to the Holy Roman Empire, but the
Emperor had gradually lost control of his nominal subjects. The last powerful Emperor was
Charles V, and he owed his power to his possessions in Spain and the Low Countries. The
Reformation and the Thirty Years' War destroyed what had been left of German unity, leaving a
number of petty principalities which were at the mercy of France. In the eighteenth century only
one German state, Prussia, had successfully resisted the French; that is why Frederick was called
the Great. But Prussia itself had failed to stand against Napoleon, being utterly defeated in the
battle of Jena. The resurrection of Prussia under Bismarck appeared as a revival of the heroic past
of Alaric, Charlemagne, and Barbarossa. (To Germans, Charlemagne is a German, not a
Frenchman.) Bismarck showed his sense of history when he said, "We will not go to Canossa."
Prussia, however, though politically predominant, was culturally less advanced than much of
Western Germany; this explains why many eminent Germans, including Goethe, did not regret
Napoleon's success at Jena. Germany, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, presented an
extraordinary cultural and economic diversity. In East Prussia serfdom still survived; the rural
aristocracy were largely immersed in bucolic ignorance, and the labourers were completely
without even the rudiments of education. Western Germany, on the other hand, had been in part
subject to Rome in antiquity; it had been under French influence since the seventeenth century; it
had been occupied by French revolutionary armies, and had acquired institutions as liberal as
those of France. Some of the princes were intelligent, patrons of the arts and sciences, imitating
Renaissance princes in their courts; the most notable example was Weimar, where the Grand
Duke was Goethe's patron. The princes were, naturally, for the most part opposed to German
unity, since it would destroy their independence. They were therefore anti-patriotic, and so were
many of the eminent men who depended on them, to whom Napoleon appeared the missionary of
a higher culture than that of Germany.
Gradually, during the nineteenth century, the culture of Protestant Germany became increasingly
Prussian. Frederick the Great, as a free-thinker and an admirer of French philosophy, had
struggled to