GERMANY 



2477 



GERMANY 



DUCHY OF WARSAW 



AUSTRIAN EMPIRE 



Prussia 

 Confederation 

 of the Rhine 



GERMANY AT THE HEIGHT OF NAPOLEON'S POWER 



The French extended their empire eastward to the Baltic Sea, and included Magdeburg, 

 time Westphalia was a kingdom ruled by Napoleon's brother, Jerome. 



crowned king of Protestant Bohemia, and the 

 result was that gigantic struggle known as the 

 Thirty Years' War. Conditions in Germany 

 during the war were almost indescribable, and 

 at its close in 1648 the country was completely 

 exhausted. Most of the population of the 

 country districts had been killed, enormous 

 debts had been incurred, and many of the in- 

 dustries had been ruined. Moreover, most of 

 the princes had gained, as the price of their 

 aid in the war, practical independence, and 

 instead of one Germany there were about two 

 hundred small states, each of which was only 

 nominally subject to the emperor. The im- 

 perial authority was completely wrecked, and 

 national feeling was dead, except in so far as 

 most of the states had come to look upon 

 themselves as in some way opposed to Austria. 

 Germany to the Time of Napoleon. Mean- 

 while one of the states of Germany was grad- 

 ually acquiring an increased power. This was 

 Prussia, and it is in the rise of this power that 

 the interest in German history centers for a 

 century and a half after the close of the Thirty 

 Years' War (see PRUSSIA, subhead History). In 

 theory the ruler of Prussia, who in 1701 took 

 the title of king, still owed allegiance to the 

 emperor, but in reality there was growing up 



At this 



a determined antagonism between them. A 

 crisis occurred in imperial affairs in 1740, when 

 with the death of Emperor Charles VI (1711- 

 1740) the male Hapsburg line died out, and 

 in accordance with the Pragmatic Sanction 

 (which see) his daughter Maria Theresa at- 

 tempted to assume the imperial title (see 

 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY, subhead History; MARIA 

 THERESA; SUCCESSION WARS, subtitle War of 

 the Austrian Succession). Soon after the close 

 of the War of the Austrian Succession another 

 war broke out, between Maria Theresa and the 

 ambitious king of Prussia, Frederick the Great 

 (which see). By his conduct of the Seven 

 Years' War (which see), Frederick brought 

 Prussia still farther to the fore as the natural 

 enemy of Austria and as the one possible cen- 

 ter for a future united Germany. 



The great European upheaval which fol- 

 lowed upon the French Revolution affected 

 Germany profoundly (see NAPOLEON I), ending 

 even the nominal existence of the empire, for 

 in 1806 Francis II formally resigned the title 

 of Holy Roman emperor and took that of 

 Emperor of Austria. It was Napoleon's idea 

 to isolate Austria and Prussia and to form of 

 the west German states a Confederation of 

 the Rhine, but after his fall the Congress of 



