10. Causes of the Collapse
The fall of any body is always measured by the distance between its present position and that which is originally occupied. The same thing holds for the downfall of peoples and states. But this lends prime importance to the original position, or rather elevation. Only that which rises above the ordinary limits can be noticeable in its fall. What makes the collapse of the Empire so hard and so horrible for every thinking and feeling person is that the fall came from a height which today, in face of the calamity of our present degradation, it is hard even to imagine.
The very founding of the Empire seemed to be gilded by the magic of happenings that exalted the whole nation. After a victorious course without parallel there grew up an Empire for their sons and grandsons, the reward of immortal heroism. Whether consciously or unconsciously is immaterial; the Germans all felt that the noble fashion of its founding raised this Empire, which owed its existence to no jobbing of parliamentary factions, above the stature of other states. It was not in the chatter of a parliamentary word-battle, but in the thunder and roar of the front around Paris that the solemn act took place, the manifestation of the will of the Germans, princes and people, to form one Empire in the future, and once more to exalt the Imperial Crown into a symbol. And it was not done by a knife in the back; not deserters and blackguards were the founders of Bismarck’s State, but the regiments at the front.
This unique birth and fiery baptism alone were enough to surround the Empire with the light of a historic glory such as only the oldest states—and they seldom—could enjoy.
And what an ascent now set in!
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