This latter point, the national unity, though really highly
centralized at Berlin, especially on the military side, was softened
in its rigour by a number of very wise provisions. A great measure of
autonomy was left to the more important of the lesser States,
particularly Catholic Bavaria; local customs were respected; and,
above all, local dynasties were flattered, and maintained in all the
trappings of sovereign rank.

From that date--that is, for the last forty-four years--there has been
a complete _Northern_ Germany, one strong, centralized, and thoroughly
co-ordinated nation, in which the original Prussian domination is not
only numerically far the greatest element, but morally overshadows all
the rest. The spiritual influence ruling this state issues from Berlin
and from the Prussian soul, although a large minority consist of
contented but respectful Catholics, who, in all national matters,
wholly sympathize with and take their cue from the Protestant North.

So far one may clearly see what kind of power it is that has initiated
the German theory of supremacy which we have described above, is
prepared to lead it to battle, and is quite certain of leading it to
victory.

But we note--the fatal mark in all German history--that the unity is
not complete. The ten millions of Austrian Germans were, when Prussia
achieved this her highest ambition, deliberately left outside the new
German Empire. And this was done because, in Prussian eyes, a
so-called "German unity" was but a means to an end, and that end the
aggrandizement of the Hohenzollern dynasty. To include so many
southern and Catholic Germans would have endangered the mastery of
Berlin. The fact that Austria ruled a number of non-German subjects