Even Napoleon the Little, political fool that he was in many respects, at least had one idea that showed his common sense. However, in his day he was laughed out of court for his "theory of nationality," that is to say, he believed that people speaking a common language and living in contiguous territory, have an inalienable right to a common flag. ¶ Now that is precisely what German poets had in mind, in their romantic way, when for well-nigh 100 years past they had been dreaming of a united Fatherland-- Fuer Heim und Herd, fuer Weib und Kind Fuer jedes treue Gut-- Or, in other words, a man's house is his castle and if men will not fight for their hearthstones, then they will soon have no hearthstones. For home and hearth, for wife and child-- These things we prize the most; And fight to keep them undefiled By foreign ruffian host. For German Right, for German Speech, For German household ways, For German homesteads, all and each Strike men, through battle's blaze! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah, Germania! ¶ The words, "Auf, Deutschland, auf, und Gott mit dir!"--"To arms, Germany, and God be with thee!" is a National hymn breathing the solemn thought that Germans are not slaves-- Old feuds, old hates are dashed aside All Germany is one! ¶ Bismarck's work, raw as it may seem in many respects, was consecrated to the great central idea that the German race is one, or as the poet Freiligrath puts it in one of his stirring lines, "Das deutsche Volk ist Eins!" ¶ The whole thing comes down to the inner meaning of the word "patriotism." Tolstoi calls patriotism a frightful vice; Washington regarded patriotism as a virtue of virtues. ¶ Take your choice. ¶ He is even now brooding over the element necessary for the perpetuation of a free and United Germany. He reads his Bible and prepares for the French war. ¶ Bismarck used the masses as the gardener uses manure. The blood of the peasantry manured the ground, out of which was to grow the harvest. CHAPTER XV The Great Year, 1870 56 Bismarck and Von Moltke, over a bowl of sherry punch, discuss "these poor times"--The Emperor-hunt begins. ¶ Volumes have been written to explain the origin of the Franco-Prussian war, and the intricate and inter-related facts are gone over again and again, now with emphasis here, again on the other side. * * * * *