Prince of Prussia

“ The phenomenal rise of Prussia and its predominance in German affairs gave to its leading city immense influence and remarkable prosperity, Prussia making herself the leader of the movement that finally welded together the twenty-six states now constituting the German Empire, with the Prussian King as Kaiser. It is essentially modern, and, despite the disadvantages of its location, is without doubt one of the handsomest cities of Europe. Notable among its many fine buildings are the Royal Palace and that of the Emperor and Crown Prince, and the Royal Library, containing a million volumes. ”

“ His lordship's notion of the interposition of the king of Prussia in the king's favour, is another phantom raised by calumny to terrify credulity; a phantom which will, I hope, be entirely dissipated, when I have informed the house, that the whole suspicion is without foundation, and that the king of Prussia has made no declaration of any design to support the king, or of opposing us in the performance of our treaties. This prince, my lords, however powerful, active, or ambitious, appears to be satisfied with his acquisitions, and willing to rest in an inoffensive neutrality. ”

“ The Crown Prince of Prussia has less spending money than many a young fellow in Berlin. He is trained to economy, industry, self-control. He is to learn something better than habits of luxury, to rule himself, and thus later the German Empire. ”

“ This Prince, full of burning enthusiasm for the honor of the Prussian State and the army of Frederick the Great, was at the head of the patriotic party which Napoleon called the war party. He criticised that so-called highest statesmanship, which wished Prussia to be friendly with all its neighbors, and in consequence of which it was regarded with suspicion by all the States. “By love of peace,” said Prince Louis, with clear insight, “Prussia maintains a peaceful attitude toward all the powers, and some day when they are ready for war, it will be mercilessly crushed. ”

“ The more the reason, my noble zealot, to win her friendship, who will have validity and power until the crown prince reigns, and this old godless freethinker of a king is in his gravel Then Prussia will commence a new era, and we shall be lords, and guide the machine of state. For such lofty aims one ought to be ready to compromise with his Satanic majesty even. ”

“ Let it not be understood that I have the slightest feeling against Henry of Prussia; it is the prince I have no use for. Personally, he may be a good fellow, and I am inclined to believe he is, and if he were in trouble and I had it in my power to help he would find in me a friend. The amputation of his title would relieve him of his royal affliction and elevate him to the dignity of a man. ”

“ It is on you, immoveable columns of the Prussian monarchy, that the destinies of the king and his august house will forever repose. Never will Prussia cease to exist, while your sons and your grandsons resemble you. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I am sure your Excellency will agree with me. It is Prussia's mission to act towards the west. The German nation longs for unity, longs for a strong and powerful leader; Prussia's calling, Prussia's noblest ambition is and must ever be, to place this leadership in the strong hand of her king. Prussia must struggle to command the whole of Germany; she cannot rest until she has attained this high aim for herself and the whole nation. What is now gained is a step--an important step--on the great path which Prussia's German policy must pursue--but it is not its completion. ”

“ 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's late victory you are better informed, of than we are here. It has given infinite joy to the unthinking public, who are not aware that it comes too late in the year and too late in the war, to be attended with any very great consequences. There are six or seven thousand of the human species less than there were a month ago, and that seems to me to be all. However, I am glad of it, upon account of the pleasure and the glory which it gives the King of Prussia, to whom I wish well as a man, more than as a king. ”

“ Prussian statesmen were not lacking who put the blame for their country's degradation upon many of the social and political conditions which had characterized the "old régime" in all European monarchies, and, as these statesmen were called in counsel by the well-intentioned King Frederick William III (1797-1840) , the years from 1807 to 1813 were marked by a series of internal reforms almost as significant in the history of Prussia as were those from 1789 to 1795 in the history of France. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Judge, then, the wisdom and the veracity of this Prussian gospel by what has happened since this War begun; put, above all, in juxtaposition the conflicting ideals of the Prussian system and the system of the great free Empire to which we belong, for whose defence our soldiers are shedding their precious blood. There isn't a true Dane, a true Pole, a true Frenchman, within the broad dominions of the German Empire, that doesn't in his heart long for the hour when the blood-stained vulture-eagle of Prussia is stretched helpless, with broken wings and battered beak, on the ground. ”

“ There was no tact in scoffing at the King’s “North German sound practical sense” by saying, “Had such language fallen from the King of Hanover or of Saxony, I would have understood it,” and there was more weakness and sentimentality than firmness and statecraft in the hand that added, “But up to the present hour I have regarded Prussia as one of the five great Powers which, since the Peace of 1815, have been the guarantors of treaties, the guardians of civilisation, the champions of right, and ultimate arbitrators of the nations ”

“ In the first place, your majesty, the position of the house of Hapsburg and of Austria in Germany would be deeply compromised by a French alliance. Should your majesty obtain success, half success at the best, public opinion would always regard Prussia as a national martyr, sacrificed to the hereditary enemy of the German nation. This would give Prussia great additional strength, and it would be a fair ground upon which to renew the struggle under more favourable circumstances. ”

“ In fact, it seems now a mere commonplace to assert that Prussia has prospered most when, as under Frederick the Great and William the Great, her policy has been truly German, and that she has fallen back most in the years 1795-1806 and 1848-1852, when the subservience of her Frederick Williams to France and Austria has lost them the respect and support of the rest of the Fatherland. A State that would attract other fragments of the same nation must be attractive, and it must be broadly national if it is to attract. ”

“ I will annihilate this Prussia which dared to take up arms against me, and who knows whether this gallery of Prussian kings will not close with Frederick William III.? Nothing on earth is lasting, and sovereigns now-a-days fall from their thrones as over-ripe apples from trees. The crown of Prussia fell to the ground on the battle-fields of Jena and Auerstadt! ”

“ True, it was soon stated in the newspapers that the whole story of the journey of the king of Prussia had been a mere groundless rumor: but a king I now was, and must, spite of everything, a king remain, and truly one of the most rich and royal who had ever existed; only people did not rightly know what king. ”

“ At this very time, when circumstances appeared singularly favourable to sound political progress in Prussia, and when political wisdom and virtue there were sure to act beneficially on all Germany, the infatuated king is putting everything to hazard,—the throne itself, the peace of the country, and the place of Prussia in Europe,—for nothing else whatever than the gratification of his extravagant notions of prerogative. The position of his son and his son’s wife is extremely hard. ”

“ This must lead him to respect French opinion, on his son's account; and opinion in France is anything but friendly to Prussia. Almost all Frenchmen, from Reds to Whites,—Republicans, Imperialists, Orleanists, and Legitimists,—seem to be of one mind on this point. They all agree that Prussian supremacy is unendurable. They could have seen their country make way for England, or Russia, or even Austria, without losing their temper altogether; but for France to be displaced by Prussia is something that it is beyond their philosophy to contemplate with patience. ”

“ But the German or rather the Prussian, has been moulded into the extraordinary person that he is to-day by a slow process of education extending through several generations. At Marienburg, on the Baltic shore of Germany, stands the ancient castle of the Teutonic Knights recently restored by the German Kaiser. The Knights at one time conquered and occupied much of the territory that is now modern Prussia. A military religious order, they attracted adventurers from all lands and their descendants constitute many of the noble families of Prussia. ”

“ They are all young men who in any field of human endeavour are more than a match for men of their age, and by reason of these qualities, so rare in kings and princes, it has been easy to arouse a great feeling of devotion for the royal house of Prussia among all classes in Germany, with the possible exception of the Social Democrats. ”

“ Frederick William III. was even suspected of a leaning towards French methods of Government; and a Prussian statesman said to the French ambassador:
"You have only the nobles against you: the King and the people are openly for France. The revolution which you have made from below upwards will be slowly effected in Prussia from above downwards: the King is a democrat after his fashion: he is always striving to curtail the privileges of the nobles, but by slow means. In a few years feudal rights will cease to exist in Prussia." ”

“ A conscription, a march, a bivouac, and a battle will form act the first. Then a victory; and a bulletin and an imperial edict, showing that Prussia, both by her language and geographical position, was intended by Providence to belong to France; that Prussians have no dearer wish than to be thrashed and taxed,—the honor of becoming a portion of the Grande Nation being an ample recompense for any misfortune.”
“And so it is, Monsieur,” broke in a bluff, hard-featured veteran, whose coarse and weather-beaten traits bespoke one risen from the ranks; “he is no Frenchman who says otherwise.” ”

“ Prussia's colours appeared nowhere. The two emperors were to settle the affairs of Europe. The King of Prussia was conquered and not wanted. Joy faded from the East Prussian faces.
"Our King is a good man," they said. "We do not find it good that he is so neglected."
The King himself looked neither to the left nor the right. He rode forward, his splendid figure outlined now against the sky, now hid by the soldiers. ”

“ It was at Kydullen, where your majesty showed to the King of Prussia your lifeguards that accompanied you from St. Petersburg to participate in the war against France. When the soldiers marched past you embraced King Frederick William, and exclaimed with tearful eyes: 'Neither of us shall fall alone; either both, or neither!' These words are still resounding in my ears, and in these disastrous days, when Prussia's honor and existence are at stake, they are my only consolation. Your majesty has not fallen, and hence, you will not allow Prussia to fall. ”