466 



PltrssiA 



house, common at that time, deprived the elec- 

 torate of some of its original domain-. The Dil- 

 jmtitio Ackillca, however, which came into o|>era- 

 tion on the death of the Elector Alln-rt Achilles 

 ( 1470-86), while it separated Anspach and Branden- 

 burg, legally established the principle of primo- 

 geniture in "both. The most considerable addition 

 to the electorate was the one to which reference baa 

 already been made, and which fell to the Elector 

 John Sigismnnd through his marriage in 1609 with 

 Anne, daughter and heiress of Albert Frederick 

 the Insane, Duke of Prussia. In consequence of 

 this alliance the duchy of Cleves, the countships 

 of Kaveiisherg, the Mark, and Limlmrg. and the 

 extensive duchy of Prussia, now known as East 

 Prussia, became incorporated with the Brandenburg 

 territories, which were thus more than doubled in 

 area. 



The reign of John Sigismund's successor, George- 

 William (1619-40), was distracted by the miseries 

 of the Thirty Years' War, and the country was 

 alternately the prey of Swedish and imperial 

 armies; and on tue accession of George-William's 

 son, Frederick-William (q.v.), the 'Great Elector," 

 in 1640, the electorate was sunk in the lowest 

 depths of social misery and financial emliarrass- 

 ment. But so wise, prudent, and vigorous was the 

 government of this prince that at his death in 1688 

 he left a well-filled exchequer, and a fairly-equipped 

 army of 38,000 men ; while the electorate, which 

 now possessed a population of one and a half 

 million and an area of 43,000 sq. in., had been 

 raised by his genius to the rank of a great Euro- 

 pean power. His successors Frederick I. (q.v. ; 

 1688-1713) and Frederick- William I. (1713-40) 

 each in his own way increased the power and credit 

 of Prussia, which had been in 1701 raised to the 

 rank of a kingdom. The latter monarch was dis- 

 tinguished for his rigid economy of the public 

 money and an extraordinary penchant for tall 

 soldiers, and left to his son Frederick II. (q.v.), 

 Frederick the Great, a compact and prosperous 

 state, a well-disciplined army, and a sum of nearly 

 nine million thaler- in his treasury. Frederick II. 

 (1740-86) dexterously availed himself of the extra- 

 ordinary advantages of his position to raise Prussia 

 to the rank of one of the great polit ical powers of 

 Europe. In the intervals between his great wars 

 he devoted all his energies to the improvement of 

 the state, by encouraging agriculture, trade, and 

 commerce, and reorganising the military, financial, 

 and judicial departments of the state. By his 

 liberal views in regard to religion, science, and 

 government he inaugurated a system whose results 

 reacted on the whole of Europe ; and in Germany 

 more especially he gave a new stimulus to 

 thought, and roused the dormant patriotism of the 

 people. Frederick was not over-scrupulous in his 

 means of enlarging his dominions, as tie proved by 

 sharing in the lirst partition of Poland in 1772, 

 when he obtained ;ts his portion nearly all West 

 Prussia and several other districts in East Prussia. 

 Hi- nephew and successor, Frederick-William II. 

 I I7HI> !t"), aggrandised his kingdom by the second 

 and third partitions of Poland in 1793 and 1795. 

 Frederick-William III. (q.v.; 1797-1840), who had 

 been educated under the direction of his grand - 

 uncle, Frederick the Great, succeeded his father in 

 1797, at a time of extreme difficulty, when con 

 tiuental rulers had no choice lieyond being the 

 opponents, the tools, or the victims of French re- 

 publican ambition. By endeavouring to maintain 

 a neutral attitude Prussia lost her political im- 

 portance, and gained no real friends, but many 

 covert enemies. But the calamities which this line 

 of ixilicy brought U|MHI Prussia roused Frederick- 

 William from Ins apathy, and, with energy, perse- 

 verance, and self denial worthy of all praise, he 



devoted himself, with his great mini-ten Stein, 

 seconded by Count llardcnl>crg, to the reorganisa- 

 tion of the stall'. Ill the years 1S(; III I'M: 

 underwent a complete domestic reorganisation; 

 and after the battle of Waterloo, which restored to 

 Prussia much of the territory lost at the peace of 

 Tilsit in Kso7, the career of progress was continued. 

 Trade received a new impulse through the various 

 commercial treaties made with the maritime nations 

 of the world, the formation of excellent roads, the 

 establishment of -team and sailing packets on the 

 great rivers, and at a later period through the 

 organisation of the Zol I serein (q.v.), and through (In- 

 formation of railways. The most ample and liberal 

 provision was made for the ditlusion of education 

 over every part of the kingdom, and to every d 

 In like manner, the established Protestant Church 

 w r as enriched by the newly -inaugurated system ot 

 government subvention, churches were built, the 

 emoluments of the clergy were raised, and their 

 dwellings improved; but, not content \\ilhthat, 

 the king forcibly united the Lutheran and Reformed 

 Churches in 18J7, a high-handed act most fruitful 

 in discontent and difficulties. This tendency to 

 over- legislation has long been the predominating 

 evil feature of Prussian administration; and the 

 state, without regard to the incongruous elements of 

 which it was composed, was divided and subdivided 

 into governmental departments, which, in their 

 turn, under some head or other, brought every 

 individual act under governmental sujiervision, to 

 the utter annihilation of political independence. 

 The people soon perceived that this administrative 

 machinery made no provision for political and civil 

 liberty, and demanded of the king the 1'ullilment 

 of the promise he had jjiven in 1815 of establishing 

 a representative constitution for the whole king- 

 dom. This demand was not acceded to by the 

 king, and its immediate fruits were strenuous 

 efforts on his part to check the spirit of liberalism. 

 Siding with the pietists of Germany, he introduced 

 a sort of Jesuitical despotism, which was continued 

 by his successor, Frederick-William IV. The 

 Landstiinde or provinci.il estates, organised in 

 accordance with the system of the middle ages, 

 were the sole and inadequate mode of representa- 

 tion granted to Prussia in this reign, notwithstand- 

 ing the pledge made to the nation for a full and 

 general representative government. The accession 

 of Frederick- William IV. (1840 til ) seemed to open 

 a better prospect to the friends of constitutional 

 freedom. A political amnesty was proclaimed, 

 religious toleration was announced, and a contest 

 Ix-twixt the crown and the pope, in which the lirst 

 signs of the coining Kiiltnrkanipf may lie traced, 

 was brought to a close by concessions on the part 

 of the king. Frederick-William, however, was an, 

 enthusiastic upholder of the divine right of kin;:-. 

 and it s<x>n l>ecame apparent that he was in no 

 way prepared to follow up his vague promises of 

 political lilicrty by sharing politic*] power with the 

 people. The Imreaucratic spirit of over governing 

 ln-came daily more and more irksome to the nation, 

 and it was evident that a constitutional struggle 

 was inevitable. The king and his advisers, under- 

 lating the ini|Hirtancc of the movement of 1848 in 

 Germany, thought they hod satisfied the require- 

 ments of the hour by granting a few iinimiiortant 

 reforms and by making equivocal promises of future 

 concessions. A collision ltwixt the troops and 

 the citizens of Berlin, in which blood was shed, 

 awoke the king to the full gravity of the crisis, 

 and he hastened to allay the' gOMTU discontent by 

 the nomination of a lilieral ministry, the recogni 

 tion of a civic guard, and the summoning of a 

 representative chaml>er to discuss the proposed 

 constitution. The conversion of the monarch to 

 liberalism was but temporary ; and although, aftet 



