y the eighteenth century, however, Germany had recovered; if it was overshadowed culturally by France, so was the rest of Europe. The ambitions of Louis XIV threatened some German states, but not Germany as a whole. Indeed, one of the German states, Prussia, emerged as a Great Power in its own right in the course of the century. The other German-speaking Great Power, Austria, gradually became a distinct entity from the rest of Germany.
If the impact of Louis XIV had been limited, that of his successor Napoleon was profound, on several levels. He shattered Prussia's armies in a few battles, and subjected all of Germany to French rule. The French, however, did not simply superimpose themselves over the older medieval structures; they swept them aside. The French also introduced revolutionary ideas, and among these ideas was nationalism in the strict sense, as opposed to the diffuse national feelings of earlier times.
The Congress of Vienna could not genuinely restore the old Germany, a holdover from the Middle Ages. Both the material power of the princes and the systems of beliefs and assumptions that supported them ("ideology" is too strong a word), had been shattered. The question was whether the German national ferment would take a liberal or conservative direction. The spasm of 1848 decided the question in favor of conservatism (Seton-Watson, n.d., p. 94). A restored Prussia had become the leader of the German states, and the path chosen by Prussia--and united Germany, after 1871, was authoritarian and militaristic.
The new Germany might have run afoul of the established Great Powers in any case; the system did not easily adjust to a new Great Power in the heart of Europe, as it did to peripheral America and remote Japan. Had Germany turned in a more liberal direction after the triumph of 1870 against France, a peaceful adjustment might have been attainable, but intoxication with victory made it nearly impossibl...