Читать книгу Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights - Kelly Miller - Страница 155

This appointment marked the establishment of the Hohenzollerns in Brandenburg, and, in fine, fixes the birth of the military spirit in Germany.

Other princes of the German Reich maintained armies, but the Hohenzollerns were destined to imprint upon the nation the military ideal. In the beginning history says that Burgrave Frederick tried all the arts of peace, but it was only with the army of Franks and some artillery that he was able to batter down the castles of the robber lords and bring order into Brandenburg.

Thomas Carlyle gives a list of twelve electors who strove in turn to consolidate the power of Prussia, so that when Frederick the Great became King of Prussia he found much of the work done. Among the rulers of these strenuous days to whom the Kaiser Wilhelm may point as having handed down to him the warlike spirit are Kurfuerst Joachim I, of Brandenburg (1529), who introduced Roman law and established a supreme court for all the provinces at Berlin; Kurfuerst Joachim II, of Brandenburg (1542), whom history describes as an unscrupulous despot, fond of luxury and display, and who changed his religion because it was an advantage politically for him to do so; Margrave Georg Frederick von Ansbach (1564), who caused the eyes of sixty peasants to be bored out upon winning the Peasants' war, and Kurfuerst Frederick William der Grosse, of Brandenburg (1652), known as the "Great Elector," a fighter, who had two clearly defined aims: to build up agriculture and maintain a big army.

For years the Hohenzollerns and their aides were fighting unfriendly neighbors and quarrelsome princes, and when after the lapse of time the Thirty Years' War finally turned Germany into a field of blood, the Great Elector emerged from the strife with the support of about 25,000 well drilled soldiers, and freed his country from foreign foes.