"
"The day of glory" was to be the day of military power. Carlyle said of
Germany and France in November, 1870, "that noble, patient, deep, pious,
and solid Germany should be at length welded into a nation, and become
Queen of the Continent, instead of vaporing, vainglorious,
gesticulating, quarrelsome, restless, and oversensitive France, seems to
me that hopefulest public fact that has occurred in my time." How did
Germany attain to this position of "Queen of the Continent"? By creating
and maintaining, with utmost intelligence and skill, the strongest army
in Europe--an army which within six years had been used successfully
against Denmark, Austria, and France. Germany became "Queen" by virtue
of her military power.
In the same paper Carlyle said of the French Revolution, of which he was
himself the great portrayer: "I often call that a celestial infernal
phenomenon, the most memorable in our world for a thousand years; on the
whole, a transcendent revolt against the devil and his works, (since
shams are all and sundry of the devil, and poisonous and unendurable to
man.)" Now, the French Revolution was an extraordinary outbreak of
passionate feeling and physical violence on the part of the French
Nation, both at home and abroad; and it led on to the Napoleonic wars,
which were tremendous physical struggles for mastery in Europe.
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