Bismarck fed the youthful nation upon a diet of blood and iron, and its appetite has grown by what it fed on.

The success of 1870 turned the nation's head; the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine gave it the first taste of conquest.

Germany began to imagine that German character and German culture possessed some magical and unique quality which would alone account for this success.

Dreams of a European Empire, of infinite expansion, of world-power, floated before the national consciousness.

The German people were no longer content, to use Mazzini's words, "to elaborate and express their idea, to contribute their stone also to the pyramid of history"; they now craved to impose their idea upon the world at large, and to place their stone on the top of the pyramid.