New-York tribune., 1918-11-28
\ TO WISE man will venture to fore
VI cast the immediate future in Ger

~ cast the immediate future in Ger
many on the strength of such evil
dence as is available. Yet it will sur
prise no one that there should be dis
closed on the morrow of the great defeat
separatist tendencies in South Germany
and anti-Prussian sentiments in Western
Germany. Both have their foundation
in history
The present German Empire was
founded upon the fact of military VIC
tory. At the outset of the Franco-Prus-
sian War both the French and the
Prussians calculated upon the aid of the
South Germans. Napoleon III was
wrong and Bismarck right, but there was
basis for the French belief that the
states which had only little more than
half century before been members of
the Confederation Of the Rhine and had
sympathized with Austria in the recent
war would stand with France rather
than Prussia.
Bismarck, on his part, reasoned that
the real unifcation of Germany could
take place only when the two sections
had been participants in a great and
victorious campaign. He procured the
war, as he boasted in his recollections, by
editing the Ems dispatch. South Ger
many did march with Prussia, and after
Sedan and Metz came the great scene in
the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, soon
to see the peace congress, when William l
was crowned German Emperor
But even after victory it required all
OF Bismarck's skill to bring the South
German states to the point There we're
personal jealousies and there were his
toric rivalries. Bavaria had once as
pired to the leadership in Germany; the
Bavarlan dynasty was far older than
the Hohenzollern, and between North and
South Germany was the great religious
difference of opinion which in the past
had contributed to Bavarian alignment
with France and with Austria rather
than with Prussia in previous centuries.
After 1871 there was an unmistakable
march toward unity; the two sections of
the new country lost their old rivalries.
Prussia steadily acquired greater and
N~SN~AiN%e@iANJ
and expansionist ideas laid hold of the
minds of the Bavarians as we'll as of
the younger generation in Baden and
Wurtemberg. Yet there remained a GER
tain measure of antipathy.
The great question now is whether the
defeat and the complete upset of the
Prusslan military gospel and prestige
will abolish what was possible only be-
cause of military victory. Between
Prussia and Bavaria, as we'll as the other
southern states, there remain great diff
ferences. The German Austrians. who
have just proclaimed their separation
from the Hapsburg empire and their de-
sire for union with Germany, are far
more closely related ia history and in
character to Bavaria than to Prussia
and union of Bavaria, Baden.
Wurtemberg and German Austria, either
in single state or more probably in
federation of states which would fol-
low the precedent of the old Confedera-
ton of the Rhine, would be logical
The south is more apt, too, to cling
to conservative ideas. Republicanism
which may be swept aside for the Boil
shevistic ideas in Prussia, is far more
likely to prevail in the south, and if the
north becomes Bolshevistic while the
south elects the republican forms. then
there will be new line of cleavage Re-
llglop, political forms and the traditions
of history which is only relatively re-
mote may easily prove stronger than the
influences due to Bismarckian policy and
derived from military victory now be-
come military disaster
At all events, the possibilities must
be in all minds now. We may see a
South German state, numbering between
100000 and 100000 inhabitants; J