The Circle of Knowledge: A Classified, Simplified, Visualized Book of Answers

Chapter XV: From the Founding of the German Empire to the Close of the European (6)

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=The Third Republic.=--The news of Sedan created intense excitement at Paris, and the popular indignation against Napoleon and his party was without bounds. Gambetta proclaimed the republic; and a provisional government of national defense was at once formed, with General Trochu for president and Jules Favre for vice-president. The empress took refuge in England.

The German army entered Rheims on the 5th, and on the 15th they had closely approached Paris. A sortie by General Ducrot on the 19th was repulsed, and a few days later the actual investment of the city was begun. The German headquarters were established at Versailles. A portion of the French government of national defense remained in the capital; another portion, in order to be in communication with the provinces, was established at Tours. Toul surrendered on the 23rd. Strasburg capitulated in the night of September 27-28. Soissons and Schlettstadt capitulated respectively on October 16 and 24, and on the 27th Metz also yielded, Bazaine surrendering one hundred and seventy-three thousand men.

In the meantime the situation of Paris had become hopeless; and on January 28 arrangements for its capitulation had been concluded and provision made for a general armistice. On February 17, 1871, Thiers was chosen chief executive of the republic. On the 26th the preliminary treaty of peace was signed at Versailles, by which France ceded to Germany the greater part of Alsace and Lorraine, and agreed to pay as war indemnity five milliards of francs. The definitive treaty with Germany had been signed at Frankfort on the 10th of May.

In 1873 the Thiers administration was overthrown and replaced by one under Marshal MacMahon. In 1875 a Parliamentary Republic was established, and still remains under the guarantees of the constitution. In 1877 MacMahon was succeeded by Grevy. By this time the republic was fairly firmly established and withstood many attacks. A policy of colonial expansion was adopted, particularly in Egypt, but in spite of the dual control France and England established in 1879, France, in 1882, refused to help England in Egypt, and lost any control she had there.

The Triple Alliance of 1883 isolated France, but in 1890 she confronted the Triple Alliance with the Dual Alliance--between France and Russia--and made great attempts to establish colonial power.

The outstanding events of 1914, 1915 and 1916 were those connected with France’s participation in the European war as the leading military power of the Entente Allies. (See further under Great Wars of History.)

=Books of Reference.=--The chief histories are those of Henri
Martin, Michelet, Dareste, Lavalee, Sismondi, Kitchin Lavisse, and
Durny. These works cover the general history of France. See, in
addition, Tocqueville’s _The Ancient Regime_; Taine’s _French
Revolution_; Carlyle’s _History of the French Revolution_; Fyffe’s
_History of Europe_; Hazlitt’s _Life of Napoleon Bonaparte_.

COLONIES AND DEPENDENCIES

The colonies and dependencies of France (including Algeria and Tunis) have an area roughly estimated at about 4,000,000 square miles with a population of about 41,600,000. Algeria, however, is not regarded as a colony but as a part of France, and Tunis is attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The area and population of the colonial domain of France at the beginning of the European war was as follows:

================================+==========+==========
COLONIES AND YEAR OF ACQUISITION| AREA IN |POPULATION
| SQ. MI. |
--------------------------------+----------+----------
=In Asia=: | |
India (1679) | 196| 277,000
Annam (1884) |} |
Cambodia (1862) |} |
Cochin-China (1861) |} 309,980|16,317,000
Tonking (1884) |} |
Laos (1892) |} |
+----------+----------
Total Asia | 310,176|16,594,000
+----------+----------
=In Africa=: | |
Algeria (1830-1902) | 343,500| 5,231,850
Sahara (----) | 1,544,000| 800,000
Tunis (1881) | 45,779| 1,500,000
Senegal (1637-1880) |} |{ 915,000
Upper Senegal & Niger (1893) |} |{4,415,000
Guinea (1843) |} |{1,498,000
Ivory Coast (1843) |}1,585,810|{ 890,000
Dahomey (1893) |} |{ 749,000
Mauritania (1893) |} |{ 400,000
Congo (1884) | 669,280| 5,000,000
Reunion (1649) | 970| 201,000
Madagascar (1643-1896) | 226,015| 2,701,000
Mayotte (1843) | 840| 96,000
Somali Coast (1864) | 5,790| 180,000
+----------+----------
Total Africa | 4,421,934|24,576,850
+----------+----------
=In America=: | |
St. Pierre and Miquelon (1635)| 96| 6,000
Guadeloupe (1634) | 688| 182,000
Martinique (1635) | 378| 182,000
Guiana (1626) | 34,000| 27,000
+----------+----------
Total America | 35,222| 397,000
+----------+----------
=In Oceania=: | |
New Caledonia (1854-1887) | 7,200| 55,800
Tahiti, etc. (1841-1881) | 1,544| 30,000
+----------+----------
Total Oceania | 8,744| 85,000
+----------+----------
Grand Total | 4,776,126|41,653,650
--------------------------------+----------+----------

SOVEREIGNS AND PRESIDENTS OF FRANCE

Giving, in order, the Royal Houses to which the French sovereigns
belonged; Period of Rule in Chronological order; names of kings,
emperors, regents and presidents; dates of birth and death of each;
their genealogy or lineage; and other important personal facts.

THE MEROVINGIANS

=420-428.=--Pharamond (?-?); life obscure.

=428-448.=--Clodion (?-?); son of Pharamond; king of the Salic Franks.

=448-457.=--Merovaeus (411?-457); founder of the Merovingian Dynasty.

=458-481.=--Childeric (?-481); son of Merovaeus, king of the Franks.

=481-511.=--Clovis I. (465-511); son of Childeric; real founder of the Frankish monarchy. At his death his four sons divided the empire.

Childebert; Paris.
Clodomir; Orleans.
Thierry; Metz; and
Clotaire; Soissons.

=558-561.=--Clotaire I.; sole ruler (497-561); fourth son of Clovis. Upon his death the kingdom was divided between four sons: viz.

Charibert, ruled at Paris.
Gontram, in Orleans and Burgundy.
Sigebert, at Metz and Chilperic, at Soissons; both assassinated by
Fredegonde.

=575-596.=--Childebert II. (570-596); son of Sigebert and Princess Brunehaut; ruled under the regency of his mother; poisoned.

=613-628.=--Clotaire II. (584-628); son of Chilperic I.

=628-638.=--Dagobert I., the Great (602-638); son of Clotaire II.; divided the kingdom between his two sons:

Clovis II., Burgundy and Neustria.
Sigebert II., Austrasia.

=670-673.=--Childeric II. (649-673); son of Clovis II.; assassinated, with his queen and his son Dagobert, in the forest of Livri.

=687-714.=--Pepin II., of Heristal (?-714); ruled the whole kingdom of the Franks during the reigns of Dagobert II., Clovis III., Childebert III., and Dagobert III.

=715-720.=--Chilperic II. (?-720); deposed by Charles Martel, mayor of the palace in 717, restored in 720, but soon dies at Noyon.

=720-737.=--Thierry IV. (712-737); son of Dagobert III.; reigned under the influence of Charles Martel who took the title “duke of the Franks.”

=737-741.=--Interregnum, till death of Charles Martel, 741.

=742-752.=--Childeric III. (?-755); son of Childeric II.; last of the Merovingians; made king by Pepin, 742; deposed by him, 752.

THE CARLOVINGIANS

=751-768.=--Pepin the Little (714-768); son of Charles Martel.

=768-814.=--Charlemagne, or Charles the Great (742-814); son of Pepin the Short; Charles crowned Emperor of the West, by Leo III., 800. Carloman reigned with him three years.

=814-840.=--Louis I., _le Debonnaire_ (778-840); son of Charles the Great; emperor; dethroned, but restored.

=843-877.=--Charles the Bald (823-877); younger son of Louis le Debonnaire, king; emperor in 875; poisoned by Zedechias, a Jewish physician.

=877-879.=--Louis II. (846-879); son of Charles the Bald.

=879-884.=--Louis III. (863-882) and Carloman (?-?); sons of Louis II.; the former died 882, and Carloman reigned two years alone.

=884-888.=--Charles the Fat (839-888); son of Louis the German; usurps right of Charles the Simple.

=888-898.=--Count Eudes (?-898); Eudes, or Hugh, count of Paris.

=898-922.=--Charles the Simple (879-929); son of Louis the Stammerer; Charles III. (or IV.) was deposed, and died in prison in 929; he married Edgiva, daughter of Edward the Elder, of England, by whom he had a son, King Louis IV.

=922-936.=--Raoul (Rudolph of Burgundy) (?-?); Rudolph, or Raoul, duke of Burgundy; elected king, but never acknowledged by the southern provinces.

=936-954.=--Louis IV. (921-954); son of Charles the Simple; taken by his mother into England, died by fall from his horse.

=954-986.=--Lothaire (941-986); son of Louis IV.; ruled with his father from 952, succeeds him at fifteen years of age, protected by Hugh the Great; poisoned.

986-987.--Louis V. (966-987); son of Lothaire; poisoned (supposed by his queen, Blanche); last of race of Charlemagne.

HOUSE OF CAPET

=987-996.=--Hugh Capet, the Great (?-996); eldest son of Hugh the Abbot; usurps the rights of Charles of Lorraine, uncle of Louis IV. From him this race of kings is called Capetians.

=996-1031.=--Robert II. (971-1031); son of Hugh Capet; surnamed the Sage; died lamented.

=1031-1060.=--Henry I. (1011?-1060); son of Robert II.

=1060-1108.=--Philip I., the Fair (1052-1108); son of Henry I.; succeeded at eight years of age; ruled at fourteen.

=1108-1137.=--Louis VI. (le Gros) (1078-1137); son of Philip I.

=1137-1180.=--Louis VII. (1120-1180); son of Louis VI.; surnamed the Young; reigned with his father for some years.

=1180-1223.=--Philip II., Augustus (1165-1223); son of Louis VII.; succeeds at fifteen; crowned at Rheims in his father’s lifetime.

=1223-1226.=--Louis VIII. (1187-1226); son of Philip Augustus.

=1226-1270.=--Louis IX., or St. Louis (1215-1270); son of Louis VIII.; succeeded at fifteen, under his mother as guardian and regent; died in camp before Tunis.

=1270-1285.=--Philip III., the Bold (1245-1285); son of Louis IX.

=1285-1314.=--Philip IV., the Fair (1268-1314); son of Philip III.; king in his seventeenth year.

=1314-1316.=--Louis X. (1239-1316); son of Philip IV.; surnamed _Hutin_, an old word for headstrong, or mutinous.

=1316-1321.=--Philip the Hardy (1294-1322) second son of Philip IV.

=1322-1328.=--Charles IV., the Fair (1294-1328); youngest son of Philip the Fair.

HOUSE OF VALOIS

=1328-1350.=--Philip VI., of Valois (1293-1350); son of Charles of Valois.

=1350-1364.=--John II., the Good (1319-1364); son of Philip VI.; died suddenly in the Savoy in London.

=1364-1380.=--Charles V., the Wise (1337-1380); son of John II.

=1380-1422.=--Charles VI. (1368-1422); son of Charles V.

=1422-1461.=--Charles the Victorious (1403-1461); son of Charles VI.

=1461-1483.=--Louis XI. (1423-1483); son of Charles VII.; able but cruel.

=1483-1498.=--Charles VIII. (1470-1498); son of Louis XI.; the Father of his People; great-grandson of Charles V.

=1498-1515.=--Louis XII. (1462-1515); a descendant of the younger son of Charles V.

=1515-1547.=--Francis I. (1494-1547); son of Charles, Count of Angoulême; called the Father of Letters; great-great-grandson of Charles V.

=1547-1559.=--Henry II. (1519-1559); son of Francis I.; died of accidental wound by comte de Montmorency at the tournament for nuptials of his sister with the duke of Savoy.

=1559-1560.=--Francis II. (1543-1560); eldest son of Henry II.; married Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots.

=1560-1574.=--Charles IX. (1550-1574); second son of Henry II.; Catherine de’ Medici, his mother, regent.

=1574-1589.=--Henry III. (1551-1589); third son of Henry II.; elected king of Poland; last of the house of Valois; stabbed by Jacques Clement, a Dominican friar.

HOUSE OF BOURBON

=1589-1610.=--Henry IV., the Great (1553-1610); son of Antoine de Bourbon, King of Navarre; son-in-law of Henry II.; assassinated by Francis Ravaillac.

=1610-1643.=--Louis XIII., the Just (1601-1643); son of Henry IV.

=1643-1715.=--Louis XIV., the Great (1638-1715); son of Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria.

=1715-1774.=--Louis XV. (1710-1774); great-grandson of Louis XIV.

=1774-1793.=--Louis XVI. (1754-1793); grandson of Louis XV.; ascended the throne in his twentieth year; married the archduchess Marie Antoinette, of Austria, May, 1770; dethroned, July, 1789; guillotined, January, 1793, and his queen, October following.

=.........=--Louis XVII., son of Louis XVI., never reigned; and died in prison, supposed by poison, June, 1795, aged ten years two months.

THE FIRST REPUBLIC

=1792-1795.=--National convention; first sat September 21, 1792; it consisted of seven hundred and fifty members.

=1795-1799.=--Directory nominated. November 1, 1795; the Directory (Lareveillère Lepaux, Letourneur, Rewbell, Barras, and Carnot) nominated November; abolished, and Bonaparte, Ducos, and Siéyès appointed an executive commission, November, 1799.

THE CONSULATE

=1799-1804.=--Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821); Cambacérès (1753-1824); and Lebrun (1739-1824), appointed consuls, December, 1799. Napoleon appointed consul for ten years, May, 1802; for life, August, 1802.

THE EMPIRE

(Established by the Senate, May 18, 1804.)

=1804-1814.=--Napoleon (Bonaparte) I. (1769-1821), decreed Emperor, May 18, 1804. He renounced the thrones of France and Italy, and accepted the Isle of Elba for his retreat, April 5, 1814. Again appeared in France, March 1, 1815. Was defeated at Waterloo, June 18, 1815. Abdicated in favor of his infant son, June 22, 1815. Banished to St. Helena, where he died, May 5, 1821.

=.........=--Napoleon II. (1811-1832); never reigned; he was Napoleon’s son by his second wife, Maria Louisa of Austria, and later created Duke of Reichstadt, and King of Rome.

RESTORATION OF THE BOURBONS

=1814-1824.=--Louis XVIII. (1755-1824); brother of Louis XVI.; married Marie-Josephine-Louise of Savoy; entered Paris, and took possession of the throne, May, 1814; obliged to flee, March, 1815; returned July, same year; died without issue.

=1824-1830.=--Charles X. (1757-1836); younger brother of Louis XVIII.; married Marie-Thérèse of Savoy; deposed July, 1830. He resided in Great Britain till 1832, and died at Gratz, in Hungary.

HOUSE OF ORLEANS

=1830-1848.=--Louis Philippe (1773-1850); son of Louis-Philippe, duke of Orleans, called _Egalité_, descended from Philippe, duke of Orleans, son of Louis XIII.; married, 1809, Maria-Amelia, daughter of Ferdinand I., king of the Two Sicilies; raised to the throne as king of the French, 1830; abdicated, 1848; died in exile, in England.

THE SECOND REPUBLIC, 1848

=February 22 to December 19, 1848.=--The revolution commenced in a popular insurrection at Paris, February, 1848. The royal family escaped by flight to England; a provisional government was established, monarchy abolished, and France declared a republic.

=1848-1852.=--Charles Louis Napoleon (1808-1873); declared by the National Assembly President of the Republic of France; and proclaimed next day, December 20, 1848; elected for ten years, December, 1851.

THE SECOND EMPIRE

=1852-1870.=--Napoleon III. (1808-1873); nephew of Napoleon I.; formerly president of the French Republic as Charles Louis Napoleon; elected Emperor, November, 1852; proclaimed, December, 1852; surrendered himself a prisoner to the King of Prussia at Sedan, September, 1870; deposed at Paris, September 4; died at Chislehurst, England, and buried there.

THE THIRD REPUBLIC

=1870-1871.=--Committee of Public Defense.

=1871-1873.=--I. Louis Adolphe Thiers (1797-1877); appointed President of the French Republic by the National Assembly, 1871; resigned, 1873.

=1873-1879.=--II. Marshal M. E. Patrice Maurice MacMahon (1808-1893); elected president, 1873.

=1879-1887.=--III. François Paul Jules Grévy (1807-1891); elected president, January, 1879; reelected, 1885; resigned, December, 1887.

=1887-1894.=--IV. Marie-François Sadi-Carnot (1837-1894); elected president, December, 1887; assassinated, June, 1894.

=1895-1899.=--V. Jean Pierre Paul Casimir-Perier (1847-1907); elected president, June, 1894; resigned, January, 1895.

=1899-1906.=--VI. François Felix Faure (1841-1899); elected president, January, 1895; died, February, 1899.

=1906-1913.=--VII. Emile François Loubet (1838- ----); elected president, February, 1899.

=1913- ----.=-- VIII. Raymond Poincaré (1860- ----); elected president, 1906.

GERMAN EMPIRE.

=GERMANY= (from Lat. Germania) is the English name of the country which the natives call Deutschland, and the French L’Allemagne; while internationally it is known as the German Empire (Das Deutsches Reich), especially since 1871.

The German Empire is composed of a federation of twenty-five states, with one common imperial province, the names of which, with their areas and populations, are given on a subsequent page. Heligoland was ceded by Britain to Germany in 1890.

=Divisions of the Empire.=--The political divisions or states of the German Empire, together with their areas and population at the last census, are given in the subjoined table:

===============================+=======+==========
STATES |AREA IN|POPULATION
| SQ. | AT LAST
| MILES | CENSUS
-------------------------------+-------+----------
KINGDOMS | |
1. Prussia |134,616|40,163,333
2. Bavaria | 29,292| 6,876,497
3. Saxony | 5,789| 4,802,485
4. Württemburg | 7,534| 2,435,611
GRAND-DUCHIES | |
5. Baden | 5,823| 2,141,832
6. Hesse | 2,966| 1,282,219
7. Mecklenburg-Schwerin | 5,068| 639,879
8. Saxe-Weimar | 1,397| 417,166
9. Mecklenburg-Strelitz | 1,131| 106,347
10. Oldenburg | 2,482| 482,430
DUCHIES | |
11. Brunswick | 1,418| 494,387
12. Saxe-Meiningen | 953| 278,792
13. Saxe-Altenburg | 511| 216,313
14. Saxe-Coburg-Gotha | 764| 257,208
15. Anhalt | 888| 331,047
PRINCIPALITIES | |
16. Schwarzburg-Sondershausen| 333| 89,984
17. Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt | 363| 100,712
18. Waldeck-Pyrmont | 433| 61,723
19. Reuss, Junior Branch | 122| 152,765
20. Reuss, Elder Branch | 319| 72,616
21. Schaumburg-Lippe | 131| 46,650
22. Lippe-Detmold | 469| 150,749
FREE-TOWNS | |
23. Lübeck | 115| 116,533
24. Bremen | 99| 298,736
25. Hamburg | 160| 1,015,707
REICHSLAND | |
26. Alsace-Lorraine | 5,604| 1,871,702
+-------+----------
TOTAL |208,780|64,903,423
-------------------------------+-------+----------

=Location and Extent.=--This combination of Germanic States extends now from the Alps and the Bohemian mountains on the south to the Baltic on the north; and from the borders of France, Belgium, and Holland, on the west, to those of Russia on the east; the greatest distance across it from east to west and from north to south being about five hundred miles. The coast-line measures about nine hundred and fifty miles. The most remarkable features of the coast are the expansions of the river mouths in the Baltic; the lagoons called the Kurische Haff, Frische Haff, and Stettiner Haff; the estuaries of the Elbe and Weser; and the rounded inlets of Jade Bay and the Ems mouth, on the North Sea.

The mountains on the south and the sea on the north give natural frontiers for the most part, but west and east artificial boundaries are marked out, which correspond only in a few parts with the ethnographic limits of Germanic and Romanic peoples on the one side, and Germanic and Slavonic on the other.

=Surface Characteristics.=--The surface of the empire falls naturally into three divisions: the lowlands in the north, the table-land of the south, and the basin of the Middle Rhine.

THE LOWLANDS are part of the Great European plain, and are largely occupied with sandy tracts, with here and there deposits of peat. They are well watered, and in certain districts fertile, while the monotony of their level is broken by two lines of hills whose heights vary from five hundred to eight hundred feet, and which may be said to extend roughly from the Mecklenberg to the Vistula, and from the moors of Lüneburg in Hanover to Silesia.

TABLE-LANDS.--In the southern plateau of Bavaria, the Fichtelgebirge is clearly the pivot round which the other mountain systems revolve. Thus, to its northwest there rises the Thuringian Forest and the Harz Mountains, and to the northeast the Erzgebirge, the Riesengebirge, and the Sudetic Mountains. Southwest radiate the Franconian and Swabian Juras and the Schwarzwald or Black Forest heights. Westward stretch the Taunus Mountains, while beyond these, and divided only by the Rhine, are the ridges of the Vosges. In the extreme southeast of Bavaria the Tyrolese or Noric Alps follow the northern bank of the Inn, and from this range rises the Zugspitze (nine thousand seven hundred feet), which is the highest summit in the whole empire. Between Basle and Mannheim, the Middle Rhine is splendidly sheltered by the Vosges and the Black Forest, which guard its course to left and right. (See further under the Rhine.)

=Rivers.=--By far the greater part of the country is drained northwards to the Baltic and the North Sea by its navigable highways, the Vistula, Oder, Elbe, Weser, and Rhine. The southeastern corner alone belongs to the upper basin of the Danube, flowing towards the Black Sea. (See Danube.)

The Vistula and the Oder are Baltic waterways, but more important from a commercial point of view are the Elbe, with its chief affluents the Mulde, Havel, and the Saale, and the great Rhine, which both empty into the North Sea, along with the smaller Ems and the Weser, which latter is the only purely German stream. This fact is worth noticing, as the sources of the Oder, Elbe, and Vistula must be traced in Austria, and sections only of the Rhine and Danube traverse the empire.

=Climate.=--Broadly speaking, the general contours are not favorable to climate; for the level exposed flats, north and east offer no resistance to the passage in winter of the dry, piercing winds from Siberia and the Arctic, while to the south and west the mountainous tracts form effectual barriers against the moist Anti-trades. Extremes of temperature increase eastward in proportion to the distance from the Atlantic. In the warmer latitudes of the south, the elevations counteract the natural tendency to grow hotter, so that Ratisbon has the same temperature as Hamburg. In the Upper Harz the rainfall reaches sixty-six inches, but the mean annual precipitation is only about twenty inches. On the whole the climate may briefly be described as continental. It should be noted that the general slope of the country is from the southeast to northwest, that is, away from the sun, and also that the Rhine valley is so delightfully sheltered that it reaps the full benefit of its warm latitude, and thus enjoys excellent weather conditions.

=Internal Communications.=--The commercial prosperity of the empire may in some measure be traced to the excellence of the railways, the majority of which are managed by the state. Berlin is splendidly provided with communications by rail, and it may with truth be said that it is within twenty-four hours’ reach of almost every point in the empire. Further, the trunk systems have many of them an international importance; for the great Oriental express from Paris to Constantinople traverses the line from Strassburg to Vienna through Munich, while Paris is linked with the remote Siberia by means of the lines from Cologne to Berlin and from Berlin to Warsaw. Berlin is also directly connected with Breslau, Hamburg, Danzig, and Königsberg. From Frankfort-on-Main, which is the trading center between north and south Germany, lines radiate to Cologne, Ostend, Antwerp, Flushing, Rotterdam, and Berlin northward, and in a southerly direction to Strassburg, Basle, Munich, and Vienna, while east and west it is joined up with Dresden, Breslau and Metz.

Domestic commerce has been further facilitated by an elaborate network of canals. By far the most important of these is the Kaiser-Wilhelm Canal (sixty-one miles long), which unites the North Sea and the Baltic. The Dortmund-Ems (one hundred and fifty miles long) and the Elbe-Trave (forty-three miles long) have only recently been completed. Since the building of the Rhine and Rhone canal through Mulhaüsen, it has been possible for a barge to pass from Rotterdam to Marseilles without unloading.

The union of the Danube and Rhine is effected by the Ludwigs canal, and that of the Seine and Rhine by the Rhine and Marne Canal. A number of canals, including the Teltow (opened in 1906), serve to connect the Spree, and therefore Berlin, with the Oder and the Elbe, the Oder and Vistula being joined by what is known as the Bromberger Canal.

=Productions and Industries.=--Following this distribution of climate, the forests which still cover a great part of Germany, and form a feature of its landscapes, are chiefly of the hardier pines in the north and east, and of deciduous trees in the south and west. About sixty-one per cent of the surface of the empire is suitable for cultivation, the forests occupy twenty-five per cent, and the uncultivable moors and mountain tracts only eight per cent.

AGRICULTURE.--There are sixty-five million acres of cultivated soil, and over twenty-one million acres of grass and pasture lands. Rye and oats are the chief grains, the former flourishing in the north despite the drawbacks of poor climate and soil. Almost as much land is devoted to potatoes as to rye; for the sandy plains of western Prussia and Pomerania seem to suit this crop equally well. Flax, hemp, and the beet--the last for the sugar industry--are grown in Saxony and in the Baltic provinces, especially in Hanover. The vine covers the dry, sunny slopes of the Vosges, and is also extensively grown along the Rhine. The rich alluvial soils of the sheltered valleys in the southwest are also favorable to the production of tobacco and hops, which are accordingly cultivated with success in Baden, Hesse, and Bavaria.

MINERALS.--Germany is rich in minerals, especially in coal and iron. The great industrial activity of the country very largely depends on the fact that these two minerals are found together, and moreover in proximity to navigable water-courses. In the Rhine basin the coal beds follow the courses of the Ruhr, Saar, and Ill, and excellent iron ore is found in both the Ruhr and Saar coal fields. Coal is also found in Silesia, while the Saxon mines in the Elbe basin yield chiefly the lignite variety.

Almost one half of the zinc produced in the world is mined in Germany, the chief centers being at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), in Rhenish Prussia, and Königshütte, on the Oder coal fields, while nearly half the silver of Europe is produced from the silver, lead, and copper ores found in the Harz Mountains, Silesia, and the mines of Freiberg (Saxony). Most of the German copper comes from the Harz and Erzgebirge Mountains. Large quantities of rock and potassium salts are produced in Hanover, Saxony, Thuringia, and Anhalt. The mineral springs of Baden-Baden, Wiesbaden, Ems, etc., are world famous.

MANUFACTURES.--The industrial development of the empire proceeded at an almost unprecedented rate throughout the last century. The following catalogue will give some idea of the local distribution of the various industries: Iron goods and machinery are manufactured in Prussia, Saxony, Alsace-Lorraine, and Bavaria; steel goods in Rhenish Prussia. Woolens and worsteds are produced in Saxony and the Rhine province; cotton goods in Prussia, Saxony, Baden, Bavaria and Alsace-Lorraine; silk at Elberfeld (Rhenish Prussia) and in Baden; and linen goods in Westphalia, Silesia, and Saxony. The Rhine and Moselle districts are important centers for light wines; Bavaria is famous for its toys, like Nuremberg for its watches and pencils, and Meissen, Dresden, and Berlin, etc., for their porcelain. Finally there are manufactories up and down the country of chemicals, beer, sugar, tobacco, leather (in Hesse-Darmstadt), and paper.

=People and Language.=--The German-speaking inhabitants of the empire are about ninety-three per cent of the total population; but a considerable proportion of these are not of the Germanic stock. Among the peoples retaining their own language (about four and one-fourth millions) are Poles (exclusively in eastern and northeastern Prussia), Wends (in Silesia, Brandenburg, and Saxony), Czechs (in Silesia), Lithuanians (in eastern Prussia), Danes (in Sleswick), French (in Rhenish Prussia, Alsace and Lorraine) and Walloons (about Aix-la-Chapelle in Rhenish Prussia). The Germans are divided into High and Low Germans; the language of the former is the cultivated language of all the German states; that of the latter, known as Platt-Deutsch, is spoken in the north and northwest. (See further, Teutonic peoples, in Book of Races.)

=Education and General Culture.=--Germany stands conspicuously foremost in the field of state education, and so far is without rival for the admirable systemization and for the variety and thoroughness of the technical trainings provided. It is established by law that every child from the age of six to fourteen must attend one of the elementary schools (“Volkschulen”), or some other recognized scholastic institution.

There are also a number of fully-equipped Technical High Schools, with the power of granting degrees, and some one thousand four hundred secondary schools (gymnasia, realschulen, oberrealschulen, etc.); numerous special schools of technology, agriculture, forestry, mining, commerce, military science, etc. There are twenty-one universities in the empire: at Königsberg, Berlin, Breslau, Greifswald (in Pomerania, southeast of Stralsund), Kiel, Halle, Göttingen, Münster, Bonn, Marburg, Rostock, Giessen, Jena, Leipzig, Heidelberg, Freiburg, Strassburg, Tübingen, Munich, Erlangen, and Würzburg. All of these have the four faculties of theology, law, medicine, and philosophy, and many are some of the oldest foundations of their kind in Europe.

Outside the country the best known are probably Berlin, Munich, Leipzig, and Bonn, which also have the largest numbers of undergraduates, and Göttingen, Strassburg, Heidelberg, and Jena. Four teach theology according to the Roman Catholic doctrine, while in four others the theological faculty is open to both Protestants and Roman Catholics; the remaining universities are Protestant.

Culture is further stimulated in the large towns by public libraries, learned societies, museums, art galleries, and observatories, whilst musical knowledge and appreciation diffuses itself from the highly-reputed conservatories at Leipzig, Dresden, Munich, Frankfort, and Berlin.

=Religion.=--The Constitution provides for entire liberty of conscience and for complete social equality among all religious confessions. The relation between Church and State varies in different parts of the empire. The Jesuit order is interdicted in all parts of Germany, and all convents and religious orders have been suppressed.

Protestantism predominates in the north and middle, and Roman Catholicism in the southeast and west, although very few states exhibit exclusively either form of faith. The Protestants belong chiefly either to the Lutheran confession, which prevails in Saxony, Thuringia, Hanover, and Bavaria east of the Rhine, or to the Reformed or Calvinistic Church, which prevails in Hesse, Anhalt, and the Palatinate. A union between these two churches has taken place in Prussia. There are five Roman Catholic archbishoprics and fourteen Roman Catholic suffragan bishoprics and six bishoprics immediately subject to Rome.

=Defense.=--Military service in Germany is compulsory and universal, with the usual exemptions.

ARMY.--By the regulations in force, every German who is capable of bearing arms must be in the standing army for seven years (generally his twentieth to his twenty-seventh year). Two years must be spent in active service and the remainder in the army of reserve. He then spends five years in the first class of the Landwehr, after which he belongs to the second class till his thirty-ninth year. Besides this, every German, from seventeen to twenty-one and from thirty-nine to forty-five is a member of the Landsturm, a force only to be called out in the last necessity. Those who pass certain examinations require to serve only one year with the colors, and are known as “volunteers.”

The wide stretches of unprotected borderlands have obliged the Germans to consider very carefully the question of frontier defenses. Thus the empire is at present divided into ten “fortress districts,” in which the following are the chief fortified cities: Danzig, Königsberg Posen, Neisse, Spandau, Magdeburg, Küstrin, Mainz, Ulm, Metz, Cologne, Koblenz, Kiel, and Strassburg.

NAVY.--Rapid progress has been made in recent years in the formation of a German navy. Prussia took the initiative in gathering together a fleet, but by 1851 it had grown only to fifty-one vessels, thirty-six of which were small gunboats. However, an advance was made in 1867, when every vessel in the navy flew the national colors (black, white, and red), and during the last twenty-five years the measure of progress has been phenomenal. (See further, Armies and Navies of the World.)

Kiel is the chief naval station on the Baltic, and Wilhelmshaven on the North Sea, these two bases being connected by the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal across the Schleswig-Holstein peninsula. Other naval establishments are Danzig, Cuxhaven, and Sonderburg.

Cathedral

Royal Palace

National Monument

=PANORAMIC VIEW OF THE HEART OF BERLIN, SHOWING THE MUSEUM OF ART, LUSTGARTEN, NEW CATHEDRAL, ROYAL PALACE, AND NATIONAL MONUMENT.=]

=Chief Cities.=--German cities and towns are officially distinguished as large cities (with one hundred thousand inhabitants and upwards); medium cities (twenty thousand to one hundred thousand inhabitants); small cities (five thousand to twenty thousand inhabitants); and country towns (two thousand to five thousand inhabitants). According to the latest census, the population of cities over fifty thousand was as follows:

CITIES OF PRUSSIA

=Berlin=, capital both of the Empire and of the Kingdom of Prussia, is by far the most important center of population in Germany. It lies on both sides of the Spree, and by the Spandau and Tetlow canals to the Havel it is linked with the systems of the Oder and the Elbe. It is eighty-four miles from Stettin and one hundred and eighty miles from Hamburg, and is the center of the great Prussian state railway system. (See Internal Communications.)

The city itself is served by an Outer Circle (_Ringbahn_) and by the _Stadtbahn_, running east and west through the city. There are electric surface lines, an overhead, or elevated, electric railway, and a shallow underground railway.

On an island in the center of the city stands the Royal Palace, a foursquare pile built at different times between 1451 and the present day. It stands in the Schloss-platz, and is one of the few old buildings in Berlin, dating from the sixteenth century. It contains over six hundred rooms, including the great White Salon, and halls of the Black and Red Eagle orders.

UNTER DEN LINDEN.--From this island stretches westward the noblest street in Berlin, Unter den Linden (“under the lime trees”). The triumphal arch at the west end of the street, the Brandenburg Gate (a copy, made in 1789-93, of the Propylæa at Athens), forms the entrance to the large park (six hundred and thirty acres) of the Thiergarten. In the east is the magnificent avenue of the Siegesallee or Avenue of Victory, adorned with thirty-two marble groups of the rulers of Prussia and Brandenburg. In the Unter den Linden are many splendid public edifices, among which are the Armory, the Opera House, the Royal Library, the new Town Hall, the University, the palaces of William I. and of Frederick III., and the monument to Frederick the Great by Rauch.

In the northeast of the Thiergarten stands the most imposing building of the city, the Imperial Diet or Parliament, erected from designs by Wallot, in 1884-94, at a cost of over five million dollars.

BUSINESS QUARTER.--The Friedrichs-Stadt is the business center of Berlin, and the streets in this section are interesting. The banking street, Behrenstrasse, and the Wilhelmstrasse, the official quarter, where is the imperial chancellor’s palace, lie to the south. Fine shops and restaurants line the Friedrichstrasse, while Viktoriastrasse is one of the many thoroughfares of the fashionable district, southwest. Königstrasse and Kaiser Wilhelmstrasse are the business streets of the city proper.

The Tempelhofn Feld, also to the south, is the parade and review ground of the Berlin garrison.

The most striking bridge is the Schloss-brücke, or Palace bridge, by F. Schinkel, with colossal marble figures. It leads from Unter den Linden, to the Lustgarten, a park in which stands an equestrian statue of Frederick William III.

The Opera Platz contains statues of five generals, by Rauch, and is bounded by the Palace, University, Opera House, and St. Hedwig’s Church, an imitation of the Roman Pantheon. The Schauspielhaus, the leading dramatic theater, is in Gensdarmen Markt. The Schauspielhaus, with the church on each side, is considered one of the finest architectural groups in Berlin.

STATUES AND ART MUSEUMS, ETC.--No city has so many statues and monuments to the national heroes, kingly or military, or to those famed in literature, science and art.

The Royal Library, once in the palace, is now in the new building, built in 1909 on Unter den Linden; it contains nearly five million printed books. The University Library is housed in the same building. There is a large public library and twenty-eight municipal libraries.

The Royal Museum, in the Lustgarten, north of the Schlossplatz, is divided into the Old and the New Museums, containing the treasures of classical and mediæval sculpture, the Egyptian collection, etc. The Old Museum is the finest building in the city, with a grand Ionic portico, adorned with colossal bronze groups, and richly frescoed halls. It has vast collections of antiquities; the halls of Greek, Roman, mediæval, and modern sculptures; and the Hall of the Heroes.

The New Museum is entered from the Old, and contains Kaulbach’s famous mural paintings, the Egyptian museum, an immense collection of casts, twelve cabinets of Northern antiquities four rooms of objects of art, and five hundred thousand engravings. It has a renaissance façade to the east. Opposite is the new Corinthian temple of the National Gallery, which contains a magnificent and world-renowned collection of ancient and modern paintings.

BERLIN SUBURBS.--In recent years there has been a remarkable expansion of the suburban districts of Berlin, residential sites have sprung up in the pine woods and by the lakes of the Havel to the northwest, and Spandau, Charlottenburg, and Potsdam may almost be regarded as suburbs.

POTSDAM, “the Versailles of Prussia,” with its palaces and parks, is sixteen miles from Berlin, among wooded hills and the lakelike expanses of the Havel. Here is the Sans Souci Palace, built by Frederick the Great, and full of reminiscences of him. Near by are the Picture-Gallery, the Orangery (adorned with fine statuary), and the Sicilian Garden. The New Palace has two hundred richly adorned rooms, with fine paintings, and a noteworthy Marble Saloon.

The Marble Palace is north of Potsdam, and has many paintings. Babelsberg is a new Gothic palace, with rich art-treasures. The Royal Palace (1660) is full of relics of the Great Frederick. The Garrison Church contains his tomb and military trophies. The Church of Peace is a noble Ionic basilica, with masterpieces of sculpture. The famous Sans Souci fountains play on summer Sunday afternoons.

INDUSTRIES OF BERLIN.--In its industries Berlin is almost as varied as London, but machinery, especially locomotive and electrical, woolens, dyeing, furniture and metal work are the chief. It is beginning to rival Leipzig in book production, and its breweries are large. Besides being the center of the great trade in corn and other cereals of Eastern Europe, its great banks exercise increasing international influence.

A CENTER OF EDUCATION AND CULTURE.--The famous Freidrich Wilhelm University, founded in 1810, now the largest in numbers in Germany, the splendid technical institution at Charlottenburg, and its numerous schools of all ranks, make Berlin one of the greatest intellectual and educational centers of the world. As the seat of the Imperial Court, and of the Imperial Parliament and administration, it is also the social center of the empire, and its modern wealth and luxury have made it a growing rival to Paris as a city of pleasure.

Since 1878 the city has been practically rebuilt; the sudden growth of population has resulted in much overcrowding and crushingly high rentals. Once deplorable, the sanitation, water supply, and public hygiene are now of the highest standard, and German scientific thoroughness has made it the most highly organized and best administered city in the world.

=Other Prussian Cities.=--Breslau on the Oder, the capital of the mining districts of Silesia, has grown to be the second town of the kingdom, carrying on very extensive manufactures and a great trade by river and railway. It is also the emporium of the flax-growing district of Silesia. About the Rhenish coal fields, which yield half the supply of the kingdom, stand the manufacturing and trading towns of Cologne, Aachen or Aix, Barmen, Düsseldorf, Elberfeld, Crefeld and Dortmund, spinning cotton, wool, linen, and silk; and the famous iron and steel works of Solingen and Essen, where Krupp’s steel guns are made.

Magdeburg, on the Elbe, and Cassel, on the Fulda, are the great manufacturing and trading towns of central Prussia. Much of the internal trade of Germany is still carried on at great annual fairs, and in this respect the two Frankforts (on the Main to the west, and on the Oder to the east) hold the most important place. Hanover, on the Leine, is the point of exchange of the mineral products of the Harz for the goods which come in by Bremen on the Weser, and has important manufactures of its own.

The chief ports belonging to Prussia are the Baltic ones--Königsberg, Danzig, Stettin, Stralsund, Memel, Rostock, Wismar, and Kiel, on the Baltic; Altona, on the Elbe, next Hamburg. Posen, on the Warthe, was the ancient capital of Poland, and is the most important fortress towards the Russian frontier. Wiesbaden is the most important and the oldest of the watering-places which have grown up round the mineral springs of Nassau. Eisleben, where Luther was born, and Erfurt, where he resided, both in Prussian Saxony, are notable points in connection with the history of the Reformation in Germany.

Erected by Frederick the Great, at a cost of $2,250,000. The principal rooms are the Shell Saloon, the rooms of Frederick the Great, the Marble (concert) room, and ball room.]

=Dresden and Other Cities of Saxony.=--Dresden, its capital, finely placed on both banks of the Elbe, famous for its art treasures, has also many varied manufactures. Its architecture and its art collections have given it the name of “the German Florence.”

The old bridge, Augustusbrücke (Augustus Bridge), may be taken as the center of the most interesting part of Dresden. Immediately to the east of the Augustusbrücke, on the Alstadt side, stretches the beautiful Brühl Terrasse, whence are fine views over the river. There are high-class concerts in the Belvedere on the Brühl Terrace. Near the flight of steps to the terrace, facing the Royal Palace and Catholic Church, is the Rathaus (Town Hall) with an equestrian statue of King Albert in front.

The Royal Palace, just south of the Augustusbrücke, will be discovered by its lofty tower, three hundred and thirty-one feet high.

The Zwinger, to the west of the Schloss, is a range of buildings of seven pavilions, with the Museum at one corner. In the Museum are the picture gallery, with collections of engravings and drawings, and mineralogical collections, with scientific instruments.

The Picture Gallery is of world renown, containing more than two thousand four hundred paintings, mostly by Italian and Flemish masters. The gem of the collection is Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna;” other masterpieces being Titian’s “Tribute Money,” and Correggio’s “Magdalene” and “La Notte.”

The Green Vault in the Royal Palace contains an unrivaled collection of precious stones, articles wrought in gold, silver, and ivory, etc. The new Hoftheater is one of the finest theaters in Europe. Of the churches the most noted are the Frauenkirche, with its lofty dome (three hundred and ten feet high).

The so-called “Dresden china” is made for the most part at Meissen, fifteen miles from Dresden.

=Leipzig= is not only the seat of a famous university and the great book market of Germany, but has one of the largest annual fairs in the world, to which merchants come from all parts of the earth, even from America and China.

Chemnitz and Zwickau, beside the Saxon coal field, are the great woolen and machine-manufacturing towns of the kingdom. Freiberg is famed for its school of mines.

=Cities of Bavaria.=--Munich (München), the capital, stands in the midst of a bare elevated plain on the left bank of the Isar, one thousand seven hundred feet above sea-level, but has risen to importance as the central point of the great grain-growing plateau of southern Bavaria. It is the great corn depot of the country, and the place of manufacture of its favorite beer. In recent times it has become celebrated as a seat of the fine arts and for its splendid buildings.

Ancient Nürnburg, with its double line of walls, where watches, first called Nürnberg eggs, were invented, is the great seat of industry and commerce in the north of Bavaria, exporting toys which go to all parts of the world. It stands on the Ludwigs Canal, the most important one in the kingdom, uniting the navigable tributaries of the Rhine and Danube.

Augsburg, on the Lech, northwest of Munich, where the Protestants presented the Confession of Faith to Charles V., is a chief center of Bavarian trade and exchange. Würzburg, on the Main, is the old capital of Franconia, the district which was peopled by colonies of Franks in the sixth century.

Speyer or Spire and the fortress of Landau are also important places in the palatinate.

=Cities of Württemberg.=--Stuttgart, where Hegel was born, and where Schiller spent his youth, is the capital, and stands next to Leipzig and Berlin in the printing arts and book trade. The fortress of Ulm, on the Danube, where it leaves Württemberg, has a large transit trade. Heilbronn is another important trading place. Tübingen is the university town.

The little territory belonging to the house of Hohenzollern, which runs into Württemberg on the south, fell by inheritance to the king of Prussia in 1849.

=Cities of Baden, and Elsass-Lothringen= (Alsace-Lorraine).--Carlsruhe, the capital, and Mannheim, at the confluence of the Neckar and Rhine, are its largest towns. Heidelberg (north) and Freiburg (south) are the seats of universities. Baden-Baden in the center, the famous watering-place, gives its name to the Duchy.

The fortress of Strassburg, on the Rhine, in central Elsass, anciently a free imperial city of Germany, is the chief place in the Reichsland and its university town, noted also for its manufacture of leather-work and of beer. The cotton, wool and silk factories and machine works of the province center at Mülhausen in southern Elsass.

The fortresses of Metz and Diedenhofen or Thionville, memorable in the war of 1871, are the chief places in Lothringen.

=Cities of the Smaller States.=--Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck, the remaining free Hanse[6] towns, are republics, each governed by a senate and house of burgesses. Each of them has a small territory besides that occupied by the city.

[6] The Hansa or League of the North German towns was the first
trade union of Europe, and dates from the thirteenth century. At one
time it included eighty-five towns, and had several foreign
factories.

They are the great gates of the external commerce of Germany, and from this have also become important centers for the preparation of foreign products, and of the necessaries of trading (tobacco, sugar-refining, cotton-spinning, shipbuilding). Besides the traffic brought to Hamburg and Bremen by their rivers, all the railways of the northwest converge toward them.

GERMAN COLONIES.--At the commencement of the war these had a total area of 1,134,239 square miles, with a population of about 14,890,000, of whom 24,170 (including garrison and police) were whites. Of these whites about 18,500 were settled Germans.

The following is a list of the principal colonies and regions under the protection or influence of Germany, with approximate estimates of area and population:

====================+=========+===================+=========+==========
COLONIES AND | DATE OF | METHOD OF |ESTIMATED| ESTIMATED
DEPENDENCIES | ACQUISI-| GOVERNMENT |AREA SQ. |POPULATION
| TION | |MILES |
--------------------+---------+-------------------+---------+----------
IN AFRICA | | | |
Togoland | 1884 | Imperial Governor | 33,700 | 1,000,000
Kamerun | 1884 | Imperial Governor | 191,130 | 3,000,000
German South West | | | |
Africa |1884-1890| Imperial Governor | 322,450 | 120,000
German East Africa|1885-1890| Imperial Governor | 384,180 |10,000,000
| | +---------+----------
Total African | | | |
Possessions |1884-1890| | 931,460 |14,120,000
| | +---------+----------
IN ASIA | | | |
Kiauchau Bay | 1897 | Imperial Governor | 200 | 33,000
IN THE PACIFIC | | | |
_German New | | | |
Guinea_ | | | |
Kaiser Wilhelm’s| |} {| }|
Land |1885-1886|} {| 70,000}|
Bismarck Archi- | |} {| }| 300,000
pelago | 1885 |} {| 20,000}|
Caroline Islands| 1899 |} {| ... |
Palau or Pelew | |}Imperial Governor{| |
Islands | 1899 |} {| 560}|
Marianne Islands| 1899 |} {| 250}|
Solomon Islands | 1886 |} {| 4,200}| 56,000
Marshall | |} {| }|
Islands, etc. | 1886 |} {| 150}|
_Samoan Islands_ | | | |
Savii | 1899 |}Imperial Governor{| 660}| 37,000
Upolu | 1899 |} {| 340}|
| | +---------+----------
Total Pacific | | | |
Possessions |1884-1899| | 96,160| 393,000
--------------------+---------+-------------------+---------+----------

HISTORY OF GERMANY

The earliest information we have of the Germans, the peoples and the
tribes who dwelt among the dense forests that stretched from the
Rhine to the Vistula and from the Danube to the Baltic Sea, comes to
us from the Romans.

=First Contact with Romans.=--The first tribes of Germanic race to come into collision with the arms of Rome were the Cimbri and Teutones, who in 113 B. C. had invaded Styria, and there met with defeat from the troops of the consul Papirius. When in 58 B. C. Cæsar began his campaigns in Gaul, he found several hordes of Germans, mostly Marcomanni and Suevi, settled between the Rhine and the Vosges, and even on the western side of these hills.

Appealed to by the Gauls of those regions to free them from their German oppressors, Cæsar inflicted a crushing defeat upon their ambitious chieftain, Ariovistus, and chased him and his followers across the Rhine. In the period 166-74 Aurelius was engaged in beating back a formidable incursion of the Marcomanni and Quadi into Roman territory. From the third century we no longer read of single tribes, but of great confederations of tribes, as the Goths, Alemanni, Franks, Frisians, Saxons, Thuringians, and others. Of the history of Germany itself we learn little more that is authentic until we come down to the times of the Franks, by whom the kingdoms of France and Germany were subsequently formed.

Henceforward, till the time of Charlemagne, Germany was occupied by a number of chieftains, who were perpetually at war with one another, except when invasions from without forced them into transitory alliance.

=Charlemagne=, or Charles the Great, the Frankish king, was crowned emperor of Rome by the pope in 800, and after his death his empire was partitioned among his four sons, and the result of the family struggles which followed was the separation of Germany from Gaul and of both from Burgundy and Italy by the Treaty of Verdun in 843. (See history of France; also Empire of Charlemagne.)

A separate kingdom of Germany was then formed under Lewis the German. A temporary reunion of the dominions of Charlemagne--with the exception of Burgundy--was effected under Charles the Fat in 884, but he was deposed in 887 and the final separation into the East and West Frankish kingdoms was accomplished.

The inroads of the Norsemen were checked in 891 by Arnulf, but they were followed by the savage attacks of the Hungarians during the reign of Louis the Child, with whom ended the race of Charlemagne in 911.

=Under Feudal System.=--The royal power had now almost vanished, and the system of granting fiefs had resulted in the formation of a class of powerful local rulers--the dukes of the great groups or confederations of tribes. The maintenance of central authority at all was probably due only to external danger from Slavs, Norsemen, and Magyars, and even this could not prevent constant warfare between the great feudal lords. Conrad of Franconia, elected by the leading nobles, was unable to enforce his authority, and was, at his own suggestion, succeeded by his great enemy, Henry, Duke of Saxony.

at the western terminus of the Unter den Linden, was erected 1789, at a cost of three hundred and seventy thousand dollars, after the Propylæa of Athens, and is regarded as the finest archway in Europe next to the Arc de Triomphe at Paris. The Quadriga or four-horse car of Victory, by Schadow, was taken to Paris by the French in 1806, and returned 1814.]

=Henry I. Establishes Order.=--A born leader of men, statesman and general, Henry I. (919-936) introduced a new civil and military organization. He created the burgher class by the foundation of towns, compelling every tenth freeman to labor on buildings, and these towns he made the centers for judicial administration, ceremonies and festivals, markets, and trade. He broke the power of the Magyars, subdued Danes and Slavs, and before his death private war had ceased.

=Otto the Great Revives the Holy Roman Empire.=--His son, Otto the Great (936-973), consolidated the royal power, and reduced the great Duchies to submission, keeping them in his own hands or in those of members of his family. In 951 he entered Italy to settle the affairs of the Lombard kingdom, but returned to cope with a revolt terminated only by the vital danger of an invasion by the Magyars, whose power was finally crushed in 955. Crowned Emperor by the Pope in 962, he set an example to subsequent German kings, who claimed the Imperial and Lombard crowns as of right; but the precedent led also to the continued absences of the German rulers in Italy and the severance of their interests from those of their own proper dominions. The sense of German nationality grew in his reign, yet this was accompanied by a weakening of central authority and the development of the power of the great vassals, dukes, and princes, ecclesiastical and secular.

=Under the House of Franconia.=--After his death constant civil war increased their power until their growing independence was checked by Conrad II. (1024-1039), the first of the Franconian Emperors, who rendered the mediate nobles, vassals of the great lords, less dependent on their feudal superiors, and formed a close alliance with the towns. His son, Henry III. (1039-1056), further strengthened the royal power, put down private war, and in 1043 proclaimed a general peace.

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The Circle of Knowledge: A Classified, Simplified, Visualized Book of AnswersChapter XV: From the Founding of the German Empire to the Close of the European (6)

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