[p. 592]
On account of this lack of military as well as of money power Germany cannot be regarded as a state, it is unable to defend itself, …
3.
II.
A state from which the strength has been taken to defend itself against foreign states, which has no power either to administer the supreme administration of justice internally or to maintain its rights over the whole against the individuals who seize them for themselves, must necessarily [be] exposed in war to all plundering and devastation, bear the chief costs of it, which has friend and foe, lose provinces to foreign powers, it must leave justice to politics and fate and, with state power over the individual members annihilated and suzerainty over the vassals lost, contain within itself nothing but sovereign states, of which, by the mere law of power and prudence, the stronger extend themselves and the weaker are swallowed up; such a state must fall into the condition before the Public Peace, only that this condition looks more peaceful through the altered character of men and instruments of force.
A. Fate of Germany against foreign powers
The lands which the German Empire has lost in the course of several centuries make up a long sad list; and the teachers of public law still pride themselves greatly on the great claims which Germany has, and adduce them with the same consoling emotion with which an impoverished nobleman preserves the paintings of his ancestors, the last remnant of his vanished greatness; both are disturbed equally little in their consolation. The claims of the scholars of public law have as yet awakened apprehensions in no minister, and for the paintings of the noble ancestors neither are the creditors greedy, nor does the owner himself come into temptation to sell them, because the price would stand far too far below the value; and those claims, like these pictures, moulder quietly together. Sometimes the owners give themselves the pleasure of dusting them and procuring for themselves innocent amusement in contemplating them.
If claims of the German Empire upon Hungary, Poland, Prussia, Naples etc. are still to be
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.