Treitschke: His Life and Works

Heinrich von Treitschke, Adolf Hausrath

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781136625954
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 19th Century History
• Index: History

First published in English in 1914, this Routledge Revival is a reissue of Adolf Hausrath's edited collection: Treitschke: His Life and Works.

Treitschke remains one of the most important German historians of the nineteenth century. He is also famous for his nationalist sentiments and political career, rising to prominence during the period of Bismarck's unification of Germany.

This work begins with an introductory biography of Treitschke by theologian Adolf Hausrath. It also contains english translations of eight seminal essays by Treitschke on international relations and German expansionism.

FREEDOM.

WHEN shall we see the last of those timid spirits who find it needful to increase the burden of life by self-created torture, to whom every advance of the human mind is but one sign more of the decay of our race—of the approach of the Day of Judgment? The great majority of our contemporaries are again beginning, thank Heaven! to believe quite sturdily and heartily in themselves; yet we are weak enough to repeat some, at least, of the gloomy predictions of those atrabilious spirits. It has become a commonplace assumption that all-conquering culture will at last supplant national morality by a morality of mankind, and transform the world into a cosmopolitan, primitive pap. But the same law holds good of nations as of individuals, who show less differentiation in childhood than in mature years. In other words, if a people has vitality enough to keep itself and its nationality going in the merciless race-struggle of history, every advance in civilisation will certainly bring its external life in closer contact with other peoples, but it will bring into clearer relief its more refined, its deeper idiosyncrasies. We all follow the Paris fashions, we are linked with neighbouring nations, by a thousand different interests; yet our feelings and ideas, so far as the French and British intellectual world is concerned, are undoubtedly more independent than they were seven hundred years ago, when the peasant all over Europe spent his life fettered by patriarchal custom, whilst the ecclesiastic in every country derived his knowledge from the same sources, and the nobility of Latin Christendom created for itself a common code of honour and morality under the walls of Jerusalem. That lively exchange of ideas between nations, on which the present generation rightly plumes itself, has never been a mere give-and-take.

We are fortified in this consoling knowledge when we see how the ideas of a German classic about the highest object of human thought—about freedom—have recently been developed in a very individual way by two distinguished political thinkers of France and England. When Wilhelm von Humboldt's essay on the limits of the operations of the State appeared for the first time in complete form a few years ago, some sensation was caused by that brilliant work in Germany too. We were rejoiced to get a deeper insight into the evolution of one of our chief men. The more refined minds delightedly detected the inspiring breath of the Golden Age of German humanity, for it is indeed only in Schiller's nearly-related letters on the aesthetic education of the human race that the bright ideal of a beautiful humanity, which fascinated Germans during that period, has been depicted with equal eloquence and distinction. The gifted youth who had just had his first look into the self-complacent red-tapeism of Frederick William II's bureaucracy, and had turned away, chilled by its lifeless formalities, in order to live a life of aesthetic leisure at home—he was certainly to be forgiven for thinking very poorly of the State. Dalberg had asked him to write the little book—a prince who had the intention of lavishing profusely on his country all the good things of life by means of an administration that would know everything and look after everything. The young thinker emphasized all the more keenly the fact that the State is nothing but an institution for purposes of security; that it must never again interfere directly or indirectly with a nation's morals or character; that a man was...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Title Page
• CONTENTS
• THE LIFE OF TREITSCHKE
• THE ARMY
• INTERNATIONAL LAW
• FIRST ATTEMPTS AT GERMAN COLONISATION
• TWO EMPERORS
• GERMANY AND THE NEUTRAL STATES
• AUSTRIA AND THE GERMAN EMPIRE
• THE ALLIANCE BETWEEN RUSSIA AND PRUSSIA
• FREEDOM