Chapter Chapter 45 · The Extraordinary Rise Of A Little State In A Dreary Part Of

NORTHERN GERMANY, CALLED PRUSSIA

The history of Prussia is the history of a frontier district. In

the ninth century, Charlemagne had transferred the old centre of

civilisation from the Mediterranean to the wild regions of northwestern

Europe. His Frankish soldiers had pushed the frontier of Europe

further and further towards the east. They had conquered many lands

from the heathenish Slavs and Lithuanians who were living in the plain

between the Baltic Sea and the Carpathian Mountains, and the Franks

administered those outlying districts just as the United States used

to administer her territories before they achieved the dignity of

statehood.

The frontier state of Brandenburg had been originally founded by

Charlemagne to defend his eastern possessions against raids of the wild

Saxon tribes. The Wends, a Slavic tribe which inhabited that region,

were subjugated during the tenth century and their market-place, by the

name of Brennabor, became the centre of and gave its name to the new

province of Brandenburg.

During the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,

a succession of noble families exercised the functions of imperial

governor in this frontier state. Finally in the fifteenth century,

the House of Hohenzollern made its appearance, and as Electors of

Brandenburg, commenced to change a sandy and forlorn frontier territory

into one of the most efficient empires of the modern world.

These Hohenzollerns, who have just been removed from the historical

stage by the combined forces of Europe and America, came originally

from southern Germany. They were of very humble origin. In the

twelfth century a certain Frederick of Hohenzollern had made a lucky

marriage and had been appointed keeper of the castle of Nuremberg. His

descendants had used every chance and every opportunity to improve

their power and after several centuries of watchful grabbing, they

had been appointed to the dignity of Elector, the name given to those

sovereign princes who were supposed to elect the Emperors of the old

German Empire. During the Reformation, they had taken the side of the

Protestants and the early seventeenth century found them among the most

powerful of the north German princes.

During the Thirty Years War, both Protestants and Catholics had

plundered Brandenburg and Prussia with equal zeal. But under Frederick

William, the Great Elector, the damage was quickly repaired and by a

wise and careful use of all the economic and intellectual forces of the

country, a state was founded in which there was practically no waste.

Modern Prussia, a state in which the individual and his wishes

and aspirations have been entirely absorbed by the interests of

the community as a whole—this Prussia dates back to the father

of Frederick the Great. Frederick William I was a hard working,

parsimonious Prussian sergeant, with a great love for bar-room stories

and strong Dutch tobacco, an intense dislike of all frills and

feathers, (especially if they were of French origin,) and possessed of

but one idea. That idea was Duty. Severe with himself, he tolerated no

weakness in his subjects, whether they be generals or common soldiers.

The relation between himself and his son Frederick was never cordial,

to say the least. The boorish manners of the father offended the finer

spirit of the son. The son’s love for French manners, literature,

philosophy and music was rejected by the father as a manifestation

of sissy-ness. There followed a terrible outbreak between these two

strange temperaments. Frederick tried to escape to England. He was

caught and court-martialed and forced to witness the decapitation of

his best friend who had tried to help him. Thereupon as part of his

punishment, the young prince was sent to a little fortress somewhere

in the provinces to be taught the details of his future business of

being a king. It proved a blessing in disguise. When Frederick came to

the throne in 1740, he knew how his country was managed from the birth

certificate of a pauper’s son to the minutest detail of a complicated

annual Budget.

As an author, especially in his book called the “Anti-Macchiavelli,”

Frederick had expressed his contempt for the political creed of the

ancient Florentine historian, who had advised his princely pupils to

lie and cheat whenever it was necessary to do so for the benefit of

their country. The ideal ruler in Frederick’s volume was the first

servant of his people, the enlightened despot after the example of

Louis XIV. In practice, however, Frederick, while working for his

people twenty hours a day, tolerated no one to be near him as a

counsellor. His ministers were superior clerks. Prussia was his private

possession, to be treated according to his own wishes. And nothing was

allowed to interfere with the interest of the state.

In the year 1740 the Emperor Charles VI, of Austria, died. He had

tried to make the position of his only daughter, Maria Theresa, secure

through a solemn treaty, written black on white, upon a large piece

of parchment. But no sooner had the old emperor been deposited in the

ancestral crypt of the Habsburg family, than the armies of Frederick

were marching towards the Austrian frontier to occupy that part of

Silesia for which (together with almost everything else in central

Europe) Prussia clamored, on account of some ancient and very doubtful

rights of claim. In a number of wars, Frederick conquered all of

Silesia, and although he was often very near defeat, he maintained

himself in his newly acquired territories against all Austrian

counter-attacks.

Europe took due notice of this sudden appearance of a very powerful

new state. In the eighteenth century, the Germans were a people who

had been ruined by the great religious wars and who were not held in

high esteem by any one. Frederick, by an effort as sudden and quite as

terrific as that of Peter of Russia, changed this attitude of contempt

into one of fear. The internal affairs of Prussia were arranged so

skillfully that the subjects had less reason for complaint than

elsewhere. The treasury showed an annual surplus instead of a deficit.

Torture was abolished. The judiciary system was improved. Good roads

and good schools and good universities, together with a scrupulously

honest administration, made the people feel that whatever services were

demanded of them, they (to speak the vernacular) got their money’s

worth.

After having been for several centuries the battle field of the French

and the Austrians and the Swedes and the Danes and the Poles, Germany,

encouraged by the example of Prussia, began to regain self-confidence.

And this was the work of the little old man, with his hook-nose and

his old uniforms covered with snuff, who said very funny but very

unpleasant things about his neighbours, and who played the scandalous

game of eighteenth century diplomacy without any regard for the truth,

provided he could gain something by his lies. This in spite of his

book, “Anti-Macchiavelli.” In the year 1786 the end came. His friends

were all gone. Children he had never had. He died alone, tended by a

single servant and his faithful dogs, whom he loved better than human

beings because, as he said, they were never ungrateful and remained

true to their friends.