Freiherr vom Stein by Max LehmannReview by: Guy Stanton FordThe American Historical Review, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Jul., 1921), pp. 779-781Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1836754 .

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Lehmann: Freiherr voni Stein 779

that Russia and Austria came to terms concerning Serbia by August 2, and that Austria did not declare war on Russia until August 5; and in explaining the entrance of the United States into the war (pp. 564-566), no mention is -made of the killing of American citizens, the destruction of American property, or intrigues against our internal peace.

The -treatise, however, in spite of minor blemishes, is a work of merit. It is well proportioned, authoritative, and comprehensive. The facts and views presented, the points of view and relative emphasis, are evidence that the author is in touch with the newest thought and infor- mation in the field of recent European history. From the great mass of material available his keen eye for the essential has enabled him to make a judicious and discriminating selection, and he has presented his facts in a compactly organized and coherent form.

The treatise, moreover, is unique. It covers a period which nowhere else is given unified treatment, and presents a great fund of information not found in any other single volume. It is not based on research, and so makes no addition to the sum of historical knowledge, but it is new in that it views European development since the French Revolution from the standpoint of the Great War and its results to date, and thus has a new perspective, and in consequence some new interpretations of events. It will make a superior text-book, because it deals with essentials, and is clear, coherent, concrete, and not overloaded with detail. It will also serve as a valuable introduction for the uninformed reader to that great period in the progress of European civilization since the French Revo- lution, a period which is given organic and vital unity by the stupendous extension of democracy and by the Industrial Revolution with its mani- fold results.

At the close of each chapter is a brief, classified, well-selected, and therefore useful bibliography. The thirty-two maps include four devoted to ethnology and economic resources, and five on Africa and Asia.

EARL E. S PERRY.

Freiherr vomn Stein. Von MAX LEHMANN. Neue Ausgabe in einem Bande. (Leipzig: S. Hirzel. I92I. Pp. 623. M. 6o.) BETWEEN I902 and I905, Max Lehmann, professor of history at

Gottingen, published his chief work, a three volume life of Baron Stein. The Prussian reformer had waited long for an adequate treatment. Pertz, his associate in publishing the Monumnenta, had edited six volumes in which he combined in an indistinguishable and uncritical mass, ex- cerpts from the Stein archives, comments of his own, and summaries of Stein's own comments and documents. The lesser biographies that followed, such as Neubauer, as well as lintited biographical material in Seeley's Life and Times of Stein, were based on Pertz. A thorough study of the man, his period, and the old Prussian state on the eve of the reform era was much needed.

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78o Reviews of Books

Professor Lehmann was equipped as are few men for the task of making such a study. He had long worked in archives and as a writer had contributed much to our knowledge of Prussia during the revolution- ary and Napoleonic era, chiefly in his excellent life of Scharnhorst. His biography of Stein was to crown his long life of productive scholarship and be a definitive treatment. It must be said that though it may have fallen short of this high aim, it was a very distinguished and illuminating biographical history.

Its reception was not one of unmixed commendation, for Lehmanni's views of the ancien regime in Prussia were decidedly unfavorable and he attributed the spirit and even in a degree the form of Stein's measures distinctly to the influence of the French Revolution, especially during its early years under the Constituent Assembly. The latter view Lehmann unfortunately elevated to the position of a thesis and developed aggres- sively in his chapter on Stein's city ordinance of i8o8, where some para- graphs originating in the draft of his subordinate Frey were translations from the French municipal law of I79I.

Such views, whether right or wrong, coming from a thoroughly bourgeois Prussian professor, steeped in, and expounding, the period of liberal dominance in Prussian history, were sure to arouse a typical German professorial Federkrieg-and a five-foot shelf of controversial literature resulted. The chief proponent of the Teutonism of Stein and his measures was Ernst von Meier, who was well qualified to take the field against such a practised and bitter controversialist as Lehmann. For the first time his own methods against Naude were turned on him. Not only was his thesis repudiated, but his Mnisuse of his sources in sup- pressing, misapplying, and glossing over Stein's essentially hostile atti- tude to everything French was hurled at him, and a steady barrage of Gegenschrif ten followed the heavy ordnance of Meier's two volumes on Franzbsische Einfliisse auf die Staats- und Rechtsenwickelung Preus- sens im XIX. Jahrhundert.

It must be said that on the whole Lehmann and his chief supporter Delbriick came off second best. Hintze's adverse judgment is by no means to be quoted unreservedly, but more judicious writers like Otto Giercke felt that Lehmann had gone too far. At the same time no dis- passionate critic called for a complete rewriting of the biography of Stein. The book was accepted for its real merits, and the first edition was practically exhausted by I9I4.

Under present conditions a reprinting of three volumes was im- possible. Lehmann has now compressed them, and by omitting all foot- notes has in two-fifths as many pages given about one-half the material in the first edition. The special student will regret as keenly as does the author all the omitted parts, especially the survey of old Prussia in the second volume. If the first edition is not at hand this section may be found in the Historische Zeitschrift, vol. XC.

In the view of the controversy over the first edition one turns most

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Fortesque: History of the British Army 7 8 I

eagerly to see what effect it has on Lehmann's choice of material to omit. So far as the reviewer has been able to determine, every contro- verted paragraph and sentence has been religiously reprinted in abso- lutely unmodified form. Indeed, in the abbreviation, they stand out all the more aggressively and disproportionately. Lehmann has evidently felt that his personal character was at stake in reasserting verbatim et literatim even the passages that a dispassionate observer must adjudge as discredited by hostile critics. Even a German professor ought to know when to retreat, and character in the world of scholarship is quite as often proved by the admission of mistakes as by their repetition.

The only essentially new sentence I have found in this edition is the cryptic conclusion: " Bedroht f and sich Steins Ideenwelt erst, als aberma,ls imperialistische Tendenzen emporkamen, durch die dann staats- und kulturfeindliche Machte entfesselt wurden."

And yet it is not a lame conclusion to say that Lehmann's work is in- dispensable for any student of the man or period. Only the passages where he brings out Stein's debt to the German past and to the English institutions and ideas, and especially to Adam Smith, must be emphasized in the reading. The alternative is to wade through much still pertinent critical literature. Even if the validity of the thesis about French influ- ence has been sadly riddled, the Prussian noble of Stein's day will find, as he deserves to find, few defenders as ardent as Ernst von Meier was before I9I4.

GuY STANTON FORD.

A History of the British Army. By the Honorable JOHN W. FORTESCUE, LL.D., Hon. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Volumes IX., I8I3-I8I4, and X., I8I4-I8I5. (London: Macmil- lan and Company. I920. PP. xxv, 534; xviii, 458; and separate volume containing thirty maps. ?4 4s.) THESE two volumes of Mr. Fortescue's excellent work, containing

almost a thousand printed pages, deal with the events of only three years, but they were, indeed, three most memorable years in a military point of view. Beginning with the spring of I8I3, the general situation in Europe is briefly but lucidly reviewed. The independent operations of the British troops on the east coast of Spain are necessarily treated apart. Their commander, Sir John Murray, whose failure was suffi- ciently discreditable, is bitterly denounced as a cowardly and dishonorable man, unworthy to hold a commission or wear a uniform. His successor, Lord William Bentinck, was not much more fortunate, and his liberal opinions excite Mr. Fortescue's strong displeasure. A taint of political prejudice, unfortunately, is evident in many passages, especially in sev- eral rather spiteful allusions and foot-notes referring to the real or imaginary errors of Sir-William Napier, in his famous History of the

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