No doubt there is a certain amount of truth in this view.

The truculence of German foreign policy is to be partly attributed to that form of swollen self-consciousness and self-complacency to which all nations are subject more or less, and which is most likely, one would suppose, to be found in countries where a nationality had recently succeeded in making itself into a nation.

The natural instinct to regard one's own nation as the peculiar people of God and to look down on other nations as "lesser breeds without the law" is a phenomenon which must be constantly reckoned with in any comprehensive treatment of nationalism.
Every nation has its own variety of it; in England it is Jingoism, in France Chauvinism, in Italy Irredentism, in Russia Pan-Slavism, and so on.
These are instances of over-development of the national idea, due either to some confusion between race and nationality, or to simple national megalomania, which usually subsides after a healthy humiliation, such as we suffered in England, for example, in the Boer War or as Russia suffered in her struggle with the Japanese.
[Footnote 1: The student is advised to read the chapter on Germany before beginning this section.] Yet a careful examination of the German body-politic will reveal symptoms unlike those to be found in any other nation.

German nationalism is over-developed in one direction because it is under-developed and imperfect in other directions.

Apply our three tests to the German nation, and it will be found to fail in them all.