To-day we are holding the poor Prussian professor mainly accountable for the greatest and latest crime of Prussian militarism. But those dogmatic professors are only the abject disciples of the Hohenzollern King. There is not one aphorism which is not to be found in the thirty volumes of Frederick’s writings. He has perfected the theory of the military State, and he has acted consistently on the theory. It is highly significant that his very first public act, almost never mentioned by his biographers, was his spoliation of the Prince-Bishop of Liége (an historical precedent tragically suggestive at the present day). The Prince-Bishop of Liége had committed the heinous crime of resisting the impressment of his subjects kidnapped by the recruiting sergeants of the Prussian King. On the strength of that theory, Frederick attacked the defenceless daughter of the Austrian Emperor who had saved his life at Custrin. On the strength of that theory he betrayed every one of his allies. On the strength of that theory he committed his most odious crime—he murdered the Polish nation. V. We are told that Frederick the Great was an incomparable political virtuoso. We are told that he showed heroic fortitude in disaster, after Kollin and Kunersdorff. But so did Cæsar Borgia after the sudden death of Alexander VI. We are told that he was tolerant of all creeds. But that was only because he disbelieved all creeds, and he believed, with Gibbon, that “all creeds are equally useful to the statesman.” We are reminded that he was an amazing economist, husbanding and developing the national finances. But his finances were only the sinews of war. We are told that he protected literature and art, but, like religion, he found literature an instrument useful for his political designs. We are reminded that he was himself the servant of the State. But in serving the State he only served his own interests, because the State was incarnated in himself, and in husbanding his resources he was only acting like a miser who is adding to his hoard. We are finally told that as the result of his life-work Frederick succeeded in creating the most marvellous military machine of modern times. We forget that, as is the way with most military machines, the Prussian machine ten years after Frederick’s death had become a pitiful wreck in the hands of his immediate successor, and that it required the genius of Bismarck to manufacture another Prussian military machine to be used once more for the enslavement of Europe. CHAPTER VI THE APOTHEOSIS OF GOETHE