MODERN GROWTH IN HISTORY

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 345, 28 January 1937, Page 3

MODERN GROWTH IN HISTORY

RISE OF GERMAN NATIONALISM IN EUROPE, n MOVEMENTS OF ENTHUSIASM LIFTING COUNTRY FROM BARBARISM.

The fact that German nationalism is a modern growth makes it contrast in many features -with the older nationalisms of England and France, and some reasons of historical geography help to account for that lateness of development as well as for some of its characteristics, writes Professor H. J. Fleure in the “Manchester Guardian.” For the development of national sentiment the addition of a network of roads and cities to a rural basis is a prime necessity, and the development of such a network beyond the Roman Empire’s frontier of Rhine and Danube began seriously only about one thousand years ago, though cities of Roman origin had already long existed on and near those rivers and had, as it were, pointed the way of civilisation to the peoples outside the frontier. This gave special prestige to the ecclesiastics, who were, in a sense, trustees of the Roman heritage in the cities like Koln, Cc&lenz, Mainz, Worms, Speyer,. Strasburg, and so on in the movement of revival after the Dark Ages. - The idea of the ' city then

spread across the Rhine as . well as across the Danube from Ulm, Augsburg, Regensburg, Passau, Linz, and Vienna. Sometimes it was a bishop who played a great part in the establishment of a city, as at Munster, Wuraburg, Bamberg, etc., and in such cases the cathedral w r as often a specially dominant feature of the cities planned. Sometimes military leaders were important, as at Nurnberg. This spread of cities accompanied a revival of trade and the new cities were concerned to attract traders, while also other cities grew' largely through the efforts of traders. Amongst. these last we count Frankfurt-am-Main and the Hanse sities of the north.

Enthusiastic Movement. In this way a large part of Ger* many came to have a sprinkling ofi cities largely as a result of movements of enthusiasm lifting the country out of comparative barbarism. A part of that enthusiasm was the feeling for the Roman tradition, and the more powerful rulers became occupied with the idea of attempting to revive the Roman Empire. Meanwhile in France the rulers near the Seine were extending their local influence and developing the kingdom of France. Paris at the centre of a fertile basin gave considerable impetus to the growth of a feeling of Uhity, which was enhanced also by the struggle against the English. Mid-Germany, bn the other hand, is a tangled area of mountains and valleys separating the northel-n plain, the future Prussia, from the basins of the south, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, etc. Thus physical geography helped the early development of national feeling in France and hindered it in Germany. On the other hand, the city focusing on its Rathaus became a characteristic German feature, more influential than the city in provincial France where, save near the border, there is not often an important historic f ’hotgT de ville.”

Failure of Tradition. When the Renaissance arrived the ! classical tradition was emphasised in France, where it was old and firmly fixed, tut in Germany east of the Rhine there was a wholesale secession from the Roman Church, save in the areas where the early bishops and abbots had been largely in control. Though there were wars of religion in France one side triumphed very definitely, albeit at a high cost. In Germany the Thirty Years’ War meant devastation and a further postponement of the development of the national idea. The tangled valleys of mid-Ger-many gave little domains to numerous princelings, and, if these could not continue to play a gteat direct part in politics, they often became notable patrons of the arts. Germ’any had thus become a land of many political subdivisions and much urban idealism. The development of canals on the northern plain, begun after the Thirty Years’ War, gave a network of communications fostering the unity that was to be-

come Prussia, much larger than any of the other German States. It w’as largely from the growth of Prussia as a unit and the misfortunes /which it went through during its growth that there ultimately arose- the notion of German unity, pressed forward under Bismarck and greatly promoted by the introduction of railways.

No Racial Basis, Whereas, therefore, the idea of the nation is centuries old Hi France and has a clear basis in physical geography and language, and has had a considerable religious basis in the past, nationalism in Germany could not rest in the same way on a physical basis because of the divisions of midGermany, nor could it rest on language, for there are millions of Germans whose forefathers have never been citizens of the German nation, nor on religion, because of the division between Catholics and Protestants. The search for an ideological basis of nationalism in Germany has been a special feature of the last 80 years and helps to account for several features of modern Germany that are strange and unwelcome to us whose nationalism is as old as that of France. It

may be stated very deliberately that the so-called racial basis is a delusion. It is true that the Germans are mainly of the Alpine or Central European race with a sprinkling of the tall, fair, Nordic type, especially in the North-West, but that Nordic type is ndt by any means the determining factor that some dreamers would make it. The type region of the Nordic race is undoubtedly Sweden, a country w r hich contrasts most markedly with Germany in its ideas of nationalism and of toleration. The facts that national unity is a young thing in Germany, that representative institutions for the whole nation have not had any prolonged hold on the German people, and that an ideological basis Tor nationality is difficult to find are points that need to be borne in mind in making any picture of German nationalism.