[p. 586]
|586| protection of Germany is unreliable. The Austrian contingent cannot be included here, for the emperor, on account of the weakness or unreliability of the army of the Empire, is compelled to conduct the war as monarch of other kingdoms with far greater exertions than his obligations as an estate towards the Empire required, and to let Germany enjoy the extent of his power elsewhere. In the case of the remaining contingents, however, the duties as estates of the Empire and the care for the estate’s own land, or other peculiar interests alien to the interest of Germany, come into collision; accordingly it can then happen that one estate furnishes no contingent at all, according to its own judgement and without regard to the duties as an estate of the Empire, another, when it has put it in the field, enters into peace or treaties of neutrality with the enemy of the Empire while the war is still continuing, withdraws in the midst of the most critical situations and leaves the attacked fellow estate to its own weakness and the devastating superior force of the enemy. If the laws of the Empire give the estates the right to conclude alliances with foreign powers and so to have a choice between them and Germany, and the legal clause, in so far as such alliances do not contradict the duties towards emperor and Empire, has been made ambiguous or wholly eliminated by a chief principle of the German laws, and votes of the estates in the Imperial Diet can therefore go to the effect that their other connections do not permit them to take part in the setting up of a contingent of the Empire and the payment of the contributions to the war, then this relation brings about a condition of helplessness for other estates, and this effect again itself becomes the cause of increasing the weakness of the Empire. For because Germany will not give itself a constitution that would put it in a position to protect its members against external enemies, the estate that is in danger is wholly put into the state of nature, not only entitled but, by regard for self-preservation, obliged to look after itself as well as it can; it would be most unnatural and absurd to demand that it should rely on a protection which, as all the world knows, is unable to protect and is withheld lawfully and rightfully by the right of concluding alliances. It becomes necessary for the weaker to put themselves under the protection of foreign powers, which can make war and peace wholly independently, and to let neutrality and protection be guaranteed by them
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