were spread by the Germans only in order to conceal the real danger of
Pan-Germanism.

1. The original theory of Pan-Germanism was the consolidation and unity of
the whole German nation corresponding to the movement of the Italians for
national unity. In fact it was a German, Herder, who first proclaimed the
principle of nationality and declared the nation to be the natural organ of
humanity, as opposed to the idea of the state as an artificial
organisation: "Nothing seems to be so opposed to the purpose of government
as an unnatural extension of territory of a state and a wild confusion of
holding different races and nations under the sway of a single sceptre." It
was this humanitarian philosophy recognising the natural rights of all
nations, great or small, to freedom which inspired the first Czech
regenerators such as Dobrovsky, Jungman and Kollar.

The legitimate claims of the Germans to national unity became unjust and
dangerous for Europe when the Germans began to think of subduing the whole
of Central Europe to their hegemony, which meant the subjugation of some
100 million Slavs and Latins. At first it was Austria which, as the head of
the former Holy Roman Empire, and the traditional bulwark of Germany in the
east (Osterreich--an eastern march), aspired to be the head of the
Pan-German Empire. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Austrian Emperor
became the head of the German Confederation. Prussia at that time entirely
gave way and left the leadership to Metternich's system of absolutism.

By and by, it became obvious that Austria was, on account of her non-German
population, internally weak, condemned to constant employment of violence
and reaction, and therefore unfit to stand at the head of a strong modern
Pan-Germany. Prussia therefore, as the greatest of the homogeneous German
states, became Austria's rival and was accepted by the Frankfurt Assembly