The establishment of German unity in our own day after a victorious struggle with France renders it difficult to imagine the voluntary submission of a great part of the race to a French sovereign, or to excuse a policy which, like that of 1806, appears the opposite of everything honourable and patriotic. But what seems strange now was not strange then. No expression more truly describes the conditions of that period than one of the great German poet who was himself so little of a patriot. "Germany," said Goethe, "is not a nation." Germany had indeed the unity of race; but all that truly constitutes a nation, the sense of common interest, a common history, pride, and desire, Germany did not possess at all. Bavaria, the strongest of the western States, attached itself to France from a well-grounded fear of Austrian aggression. To be conquered by Austria was just as much conquest for Bavaria as to be conquered by any other Power; it was no step to German unity, but a step in the aggrandisement of the House of Hapsburg. The interests of the Austrian House were not the interests of Germany any more than they were the interests of Croatia, or of Venice, or of Hungary. Nor, on the other hand, had Prussia yet shown a form of political life sufficiently attractive to lead the southern States to desire to unite with it. Frederick's genius had indeed made him the hero of Germany, but his military system was harsh and tyrannical. In the actual condition of Austria and Prussia, it is doubtful whether the population of the minor States would have been happier united to these Powers than under their own Governments. Conquest in any case was impossible, and there was nothing to stimulate to voluntary union. It followed that the smaller States were destined to remain without a nationality, until the violence of some foreign Power rendered weakness an intolerable evil, and forced upon the better minds of Germany the thought of a common Fatherland. [What German unity desirable.]