France as well as Denmark, Carlyle and his school made some effort to
justify their Germanism, by pitting what they called the piety and
simplicity of Germany against what they called the cynicism and ribaldry
of France. But nobody could possibly pretend that Bismarck was more
pious and simple than Hans Andersen; yet the Carlyleans looked on with
silence or approval while the innocent toy kingdom was broken like a
toy. Here again, it is enormously probable that England would have
struck upon the right side, if the English people had been the English
Government. Among other coincidences, the Danish princess who had
married the English heir was something very like a fairy princess to the
English crowd. The national poet had hailed her as a daughter of the
sea-kings; and she was, and indeed still is, the most popular royal
figure in England. But whatever our people may have been like, our
politicians were on the very tamest level of timidity and the fear of
force to which they have ever sunk. The Tin Soldier of the Danish army
and the paper boat of the Danish navy, as in the story, were swept away
down the great gutter, down that colossal _cloaca_ that leads to the
vast cesspool of Berlin.

Why, as a fact, did not England interpose? There were a great many
reasons given, but I think they were all various inferences from one
reason; indirect results and sometimes quite illogical results, of what
we have called the Germanisation of England. First, the very insularity
on which we insisted was barbaric, in its refusal of a seat in the
central senate of the nations. What we called our splendid isolation
became a rather ignominious sleeping-partnership with Prussia. Next, we
were largely trained in irresponsibility by our contemporary historians,
Freeman and Green, teaching us to be proud of a possible descent from
King Arthur's nameless enemies and not from King Arthur. King Arthur
might not be historical, but at least he was legendary. Hengist and