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 appear-ance, 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.