Prussia. 



Map of the republic which was divided into two parts by the Treaty of Versailles, June 28, 1919. 

 detached portion of East Prussia 



Inset, the 



the war with the French Revolu- 

 tion, to withdraw in 1795, defeated 

 and exhausted ; he completed the 

 partition of Poland (1793-95), 

 adding enormous blocks of Polish 

 territory. His successor, Frederick 

 William III (1797-1840), remained 

 neutral until 1806 and then chal- 

 lenged Napoleon. The catastrophe 

 of Jena and military collapse were 

 the results. The treaty of Tilsit 

 (1807) tore awa} 7 all the territories 

 west of the Elbe, and deprived the 

 kingdom of all the Polish lands 

 acquired in 1793 and 1795. Mem- 

 orable internal ref orma were carried 

 out by Stein and Scharnhorst. 

 Feudalism in the land was largely 

 abolished ; self-government im- 

 posed on the cities ; the adminis- 

 tration was renovated and the 

 army remodelled ; a new and great 

 university was founded at Berlin. 

 In " the War of Liberation " (1813- 

 15) Prussia contributed signally to 

 the overthrow of Napoleon. 



The treaty of Vienna (1815) 

 created a new Prussia. In the west 

 a large block of territory on both 

 banks of the Rhine made Prussia 

 a guardian of the greatest German 

 river ; one-half of Saxony added 

 to the original nucleus on the Elbe 

 made the core of the state ; the 

 elimination of much of the purely 

 Polish territory to the west of the 

 Vistula strengthened the Germanic 

 character of the state, while the 

 fortress of Thorn supplied a cen- 

 tral strategic point for retaining 



the connexion between Konigsberg 

 and Berlin. Between 1815 and 1840 

 the bureaucratic administration 

 was immensely strengthened and 

 improved ; a policy of economic 

 free-trade inaugurated, and the 

 scheme of a great Prussian tariff- 

 union (Zollverein), absorbing the 

 German States into a single fiscal 

 unit under Prussian direction, was 

 promoted with great success. 

 Relations with Austria 



The reign of Frederick William 

 IV (1840-1861) was memorable 

 only for the failure of the Revolu- 

 tion of 1848 to master Prussia, the 

 failure of the king's ambition to 

 unite the German princes and 

 principalities in a league under 

 Prussia, and the complete sub- 

 ordination of Pnissia to Austria in 

 foreign policy. The problem of 

 Prussia's future had not been 

 solved, but postponed. Four 

 solutions in an age of rampant 

 German nationalism were possible : 

 a division of Germany between 

 Austria and Prussia ; a democratic 

 unification of Germany in which 

 Prussia would be absorbed and 

 cease to be a separate state; the 

 unification of Germany by Austria, 

 reducing Prussia to political and 

 military subordination ; or the 

 unification of Germany by Prussia 

 and the exclusion of Austria from 

 the new German state. With the 

 accession of William I (1861) began 

 the decisive age of Bismarck. 



Bismarck made the Prussia of 



the last half of the 19th century. 

 He defied the Liberals within and 

 without the kingdom and was 

 determined to retain Prussia 

 territorially intact as an auto- 

 cratic and militarist monarchy. 

 The war of 1864 enabled him to 

 annex from Denmark the duchies 

 of Schleswig and Holstein, ceded to 

 a condominium of Austria and 

 Prussia ; in 1866 Austria was 

 challenged and defeated at Sado- 

 wa. The German Confederation of 

 1815 was dissolved ; a new North 

 German Confederation, on a feudal 

 basis with the supremacy of 

 Prussia recognized, was set up ; 

 Prussia annexed Schleswig, Hol- 

 stein, Nassau, Hesse. Hanover, and 

 the city of Frankfort ; Austria 

 was excluded from Germany ; 

 the southern German states were 

 left politically independent, but 

 economically at Prussia's mercy. 



Inside the federation Prussia re- 

 mained untouched in structure, gov- 

 ernment, and character; territori- 

 ally she now comprised two-thirds 

 of Germany ; her military alliances 

 with the southern states and her 

 completion of the tariff-union riv- 

 eted her control over Germany. 



Three years of military prepara- 

 tion consummated the work of 

 1866, when in 1870-71 France was 

 overthrown, and Alsae and Lor- 

 raine were annexed to the new 

 German empire, proclaimed at 

 Versailles, Jan. 18, 1871. This 

 empire was virtually the North 



