It only changes the tale from a tragedy of choice to a tragedy of chance.

And the tragedy was that, for a second time, we were at one with the Germans.
But if England had nothing to fight for but a compromise, Prussia had nothing to fight for but a negation.

She was and is, in the supreme sense, the spirit that denies.

It is as certain that she was fighting against liberty in Napoleon as it is that she was fighting against religion in Maria Theresa.

What she was fighting for she would have found it quite impossible to tell you.