Prince Henry of Prussia

“ The Italian shrugged his shoulders. “You must ask his wife.”
“Or Baron Kalkreuth, who has lingered here for seven months because of his wounds,” said Giurgenow, with a loud laugh. “Besides, Prince Henry is averse to this war, all his sympathies are on our side. If the fate of war should cost the King of Prussia his life, we would soon have peace and leave this detestable Berlin—this dead, sandy desert, where we are now languishing as prisoners.”
“The god of war is not always complaisant,” said the Frenchman, grimly. “He does not always strike those whom we would gladly see fall ”

“ The foreigner who is interested in the future of Germany is naturally inclined to raise the question: Is it an advantage or merely a burden for the Prussian State to possess so large a royal family? He need only ask any honest German who is not afraid to say what he thinks, whether princes who live a life apart, cut off from modern ideas and interests, and antagonistic to every Liberal tendency, are a blessing or a curse to their dynasty and their country. There can be little doubt as to the answer he will receive.
A more interesting personality is that of Prince Henry, the Emperor’s brother. ”

“ The verdict showed the new ideal of kingship which had grown up during Henry's reign, and which made itself deeply felt over the whole land when in the days of his successor the duties of righteous government were thrown aside for the vainglories of religious chivalry. But the patriarch heard the answer with bitter disappointment, and was not appeased by promises of money and forces for the war. "Not thus will you save your soul nor the heritage of Christ," he declared. "We come to seek a king, not money; for every corner of the world sends us money, but not one a prince." ”

“ On the other hand, we cannot wholly disregard the contemporary evidence (for all other has been left out of the account) which attributes to him a certain laxity of life during the years that preceded his accession to the throne. Such a laxity is only too probable in a young prince. The temptations to which the young kinsmen of the ruler are exposed, before they feel the responsibilities of power, are the weak point of the system of hereditary monarchy. It would have been scarcely indeed a miracle, but certainly a most uncommon experience, if Henry had passed through them altogether unscathed. ”

“ It would be tedious to give all the details of Henry’s proceedings that may be found in the public documents of the time. On the whole, we get from these sources the picture of a vigorous young prince, who must of course have been assisted by older counsellors, but who was not a mere puppet in their hands. He is making head to the best of his abilities and means against a formidable rebellion. He is much hampered by want of money, and the King and the Council try to help him. As time goes on, more means and more power are put into his hands. ”

“ In the gross and on the whole war also brings great gain to those who conquer, and therefore to a whole nation. You must hear Henry talk on that subject. He says Prussia shines out grandly. In the army universal exultation reigns, and enthusiastic thankfulness and love for the generals who have led it to victory. And in this way there arises for German civilisation, for commerce—or perhaps he said for the prosperity of Germany, I have forgot the exact term—its historical mission—in short, you should hear him talk himself. ”

“ It would not be possible to find a greater contrast than was presented between France, distracted by factions struggling for the power which a lunatic king dropped from his hands, and England, harmonious and enthusiastic, welcoming back after a brilliant victory its vigorous prince, and united in giving him all the help that he demanded. If the darling scheme of the Plantagenets, the union of the two crowns, had been within the limits of possibility, Henry would certainly have effected it. ”

“ As in former times the effect of the connexion of Germany with Italy was altogether mischievous, because to expedite his Italian journey the king 847 had added to the great privileges of the princes and had repressed the energies of the towns.
After Henry’s death the electors, again fearing lest the German crown should become hereditary, refused to choose the late king’s young son, John of Bohemia, as their ruler, although the candidature of this prince was supported Louis the Bavarian and Frederick of Austria. by the powerful archbishops Baldwin of Trier and Peter of Mainz. ”

“ Henry was a pious and peace-loving prince, who favoured church reform, sought earnestly to suppress private warfare, and alone among the early emperors is said to have been innocent of simony. Although under his rule Germany enjoyed considerable tranquillity, and a period of wealth and progress set in for the towns, yet his secular and ecclesiastical policy showed signs of weakness. ”

“ A king every inch of him, though without the trappings of a king; in a Spartan simplicity of vesture. In 1786 his speakings and his workings came to finis in this world of time. Editors vaguely account this man the creator of the Prussian monarchy, which has since grown so large in the world.
He was born in the palace of Berlin, about noon, on January 24, 1712; a small infant, but of great promise and possibility. Friedrich Wilhelm, Crown Prince of Prussia, father of this little infant, did himself make some noise in the world as second king of Prussia. ”

“ For some time after William of Normandy seized the English throne the relations of the King of England to the King of France—it might be more correct to say, the king who reigned at Paris—were those of an over-powerful vassal to a weak suzerain. When Henry the Second actually ruled over a larger part of France than the prince who was nominally its sovereign, this reversal of the ordinary state of things, according to which the lord was the superior, the vassal the inferior, was complete. ”

“ Practically they became independent sovereigns, and to make their victory more complete serious restraints were laid upon the freedom of the towns. Before this date King Henry had begun to take a personal part in the government and was already involved in a quarrel with Otto II., duke of Bavaria. He disliked the Privilege of Worms and, favouring the towns against the princes, his policy was diametrically opposed to that of the emperor; however, in 1232 he went to Italy and promised to 844 obey his father’s commands. ”

“ Among these candidates was Henry of Bavaria, son Henry II. of Duke Henry the Quarrelsome and a great-grandson of Henry the Fowler, and at Mainz in June 1002 this prince was chosen German king as Henry II. Having been recognized as king by the Saxons, the Thuringians and the nobles of Lorraine, the new king was able to turn his attention to the affairs of government, but on the whole his reign was an unfortunate one for Germany. For ten years civil war raged in Lorraine; in Saxony much blood was shed in petty quarrels ”

“ An order of knighthood founded by Henry, King of Jerusalem, during the third Crusade, its original members being followers of Frederick Barbarossa. In 1230, under their Grand Master, Hermann von Salza, the Teutonic knights marched against the Pagans of the Baltic shore of what is now known as Prussia. This country, which was a fief of Poland, they held until 1526, when Albert of Brandenburg, then Grand Master, made a treaty with Sigismund of Poland, by which Prussia was erected into a Grand Duchy, with Albert as Grand Duke. The order was dissolved by Napoleon in 1809. ”

“ To increase their number, he scoured all Europe, other monarchs being not unwilling to secure his good will by providing him with the coveted men, for whom his almost insane passion made him willing to give any price. But the real significance of his reign in relation to Prussia's subsequent history, is the impulse which he gave to her military tastes, and his success in establishing firmly the absolute authority of the monarch. The power of feudal lords had already been shattered; it required only a strong army and a strong will to destroy it altogether. ”

“ The King of Prussia had covered himself with glory, to which he put the finishing stroke, by not demanding any compensation for the expenses of the war. All parties have been satisfied except the Emperor, who has disordered his finances, ruined his Kingdom of Bohemia with immense fines, has not obtained any advantage over his adversary, and consequently has destroyed among his own troops the opinion they had of their superiority, and, in fine, has sustained a loss the most sensible for a young Prince just beginning to reign, the reputation of justice and moderation. ”

“ Henry secured eastern or Lower Bavaria. In the course of a long reign Louis, who was called the Stern, became the most powerful prince in southern Germany. He was the uncle and guardian of Conradin of Hohenstaufen, and when this prince was put to death in Italy in 1268, Louis and his brother Henry inherited the domains of the Hohenstaufen in Swabia and elsewhere. He supported Rudolph, count of Habsburg, in his efforts to secure the German throne in 1273, married the new king’s daughter Mechtild, and aided him in campaigns in Bohemia and elsewhere. ”

“ In short, it is a questionable case; undoubtedly a questionable outlook for Prussian mankind; and the appearance of this little Prince, a third trump-card in the Hohenzollern game, is an unusually interesting event. The joy over him, not in Berlin Palace only, but in Berlin City, and over the Prussian Nation, was very great and universal;—still testified in manifold dull, unreadable old pamphlets, records official and volunteer,—which were then all ablaze like the bonfires, and are now fallen dark enough, and hardly credible even to the fancy of this new Time. ”

“ The Prussian army is composed of men engaged in business at home and anxious to return; the North does not love the South, and divisions may arise. The King of Prussia is an old man, and he may die. Without absolutely counting upon a French army raising the siege, there are levées forming in Lyons and elsewhere, and the Germans will find their communications seriously menaced. ”

“ Prussia, acknowledged as an equal by the monarchies of Europe, stands forth without rival as the unquestioned leader of the northern Germany, and is biding her time until the hour shall strike, which will permit her to wrest from the House of Habsburg the leadership of the German people, and inherit from it the duty of defending the German Fatherland. ”

“ Had he succeeded, the whole face of Europe would have been changed, Southern Germany would have been secured for Protestantism, and the Thirty Years’ War averted. He failed as men fail who stand ahead of their age. The German princes shrank from a contest with the emperor, France from a struggle which would be fatal to Catholicism; and Henry, left alone to bear the resentment of the House of Austria, and chained to a wife he loathed, turned savagely on Cromwell. The nobles sprang on him with a fierceness that told of their long-hoarded hate. ”

“ These are no mere trifles below the dignity of history; they help to explain the extraordinary hold Henry obtained over popular imagination. Suppose there ascended the throne to-day a young prince, the hero of the athletic world, the finest oar, the best bat, the crack marksman of his day, it is easy to imagine the enthusiastic support he would receive from thousands of his people who care much for sport, and nothing at all for politics. ”

“ Still, a thousand interests and jealousies, local and dynastic, old prescriptive rights, and a constitutional slowness and sluggishness in the Germanic temperament, stood in the way of a united fatherland, and had to be got rid of or overcome by force before the dream of the nationalists could become a reality.
Prussia, founded by rapine, built up and strengthened by war and conquest, has always been a heartless, self-seeking state. The youngest of the great European states, and for a long time one of the most inconsiderable, she has gradually grown to be the first military power of the world. ”

“ The genius of the nation has been directed to the perfection of military discipline and military weapons. The government is always prepared for war, and has been rarely averse to it. It has ever been ready to seize a province or pick a quarrel. The late war with France was as much the fault of Prussia as of the government of Napoleon. The great idea of Prussia is military aggrandizement; it is no longer a small kingdom, but a great empire, more powerful than either Austria or France. It believes in new annexations, until all Germany shall be united under a Prussian Kaiser. ”

“ The King’s Ministers were not the representatives of the majority in Parliament, but friends and counsellors of his own choice, often, of course, his own kinsmen. Edward the First had been the support of his feeble father, and the Third Edward had had an able lieutenant in the Black Prince. All that is recorded in authentic documents about Prince Henry tends to make us believe that his behaviour as successor to the crown resembled that of those great predecessors in his place. ”

“ He made himself personally acquainted with every village and landed estate in his kingdom, which he treated as if it were a great private enterprise and interest, for which he was responsible.
He was a reformer without heart; a King intent upon the well-being of his people, without tenderness; a leader prepared, if need be, not to lead, but to drag Prussia with a rough hand up the rugged path of virtue and prosperity; and determined to make his nation great, whether it wanted to be or not! ”