A hundred years ago
From the 'Spectator,' 3 September 1870—The Papers have been teeming for the last few weeks with the various German songs which have become popular during the present war in the German armies and cities,—the many that ex- press the yearning for German unity, the many which express permanent attachment to the Rhine as a German river and frontier, and determination that it shall so remain; and the few, finally, which pour forth the, till recently, rather obsolete feeling of loyalty to the Prussian King and German leader. The rationale of all these songs is very simple; something of picturesque geographical allusion to the characteristic features of Germany, generally clinging to the Rhine as the frontier most en- dangered,—often, too, warm repudiation of the fine geographical divisions which have hitherto weakened Germany,—and always, ardent ex- pressions of the devotion of the Germans to the German cause,—of their willingness to die for it, and their confidence in its triumph. To these features there is sometimes added a strong expression of the German resolve to secure complete internal freedom, and to devote the German genius to the pacific conquests of labour and science; but the songs which contain these elements have, naturally enough, not been the best adapted to the present crisis; and one or two of the verses even of the loyal song with which King William's victories have been greeted, were, ¬ exactly unsuitable to the occasion, still not such as would have been com- posed expressly for it. .
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