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The New Germanic Empire.

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to bow with ourselves at the feet of the Divine Man, and to acknowledge Him as the living embodiment of both truth and love, as the Light of the world, as the Saviour of the lost, as the Author of peace and purity, and as the only Guide of blinded and perishing souls to a blessed and rejoicing immortality !

ART. VII.-(1). L'Armée Prussienne. Par MICHEL CHEVALIER. Paris: Dentu. 1856.

(2.) War Map of the German States. London: Nelson & Sons.

THE present age has been singularly prolific in political revolutions. It has been the lot of no other to witness the accretion of two minor States into extensive kingdoms, upon the downfall of an empire which for centuries had treated them as rebellious vassals. One of these States, who now speaks to Europe in the name of Germany, and who certainly bids fair to unite the whole of Germany under her sceptre, was unknown at the Reformation. The other, who now directs the destinies of Italy, was unknown as an Italian power previous to the Treaty of Utrecht. It is remarkable that these, the last comers into the group of principalities, of which they formed the least promising units, should have finally absorbed the greater portion of their neighbours, within the limits of our generation, and finally laid prostrate their imperial enemy, who had so often cudgelled them into subjection. There is a connection between these two states, an identity of principle and a uniformity of action, independent of the similarity of their destinies and of their recent alliance, which may throw some light on their marvellous success. If they now find themselves at the head of their respective races, the causes which have led their steps from the cradle of barren provinces to the summits of flourishing empires have not been divergent.

The Counts of Savoy, like those of Hohenzollern, trace back their lineage to the tributaries of King Otho, and Charlemagne. For a long period they maintained a precarious existence; Prussia as a fief of Poland, and Savoy as a satrap of the German Emperor, only too happy, under the shelter of such powerful patronage, to escape the fangs of annihilation. Both States, from their beginning, appear to have acted upon the principle of clutching land wherever they could get it, seizing little parcels of territory here and there, and leaving it for time to consoli

date the fragments thus acquired into one compact dominion. If the intervening proprietors could not be ejected by conquest, they were cozened by barter. Those whom neither the sword nor money could subdue were caught in the meshes of Venus. The value of lives was calculated with the accuracy of a modern insurance office, and by the marriage of a young scion with the heir apparent of the property, the reversionary interest of the coveted prize was secured. By adroit tactics of this sort, as well as by military service, the Counts of Savoy extended their sway from Maurienne to Susa and Montserrat, and from Montserrat to Turin. An entrenched position on the northern slopes of the Alps, led almost by a natural consequence, to a position equally fortified with castles on the south; and the command of the mountain passes soon resulted in encroachment on the plain. By similar strategy the Counts of Hohenzollern, from the swamp of Brandenburg, hardly bigger than an English county, dotted the western and northern parts of Germany with demesnes, which served rather to map out the frontiers of their prospective kingdom than as vital members of the same corporate body.

The Jülich and Cleves Duchies were leagues away from Brandenburg, as Brandenburg was from Stettin, and neither of these had any topographical connection with East Prussia. Yet at each European treaty both Prussia and Sardinia came in for some make-weight, which served to round off their dominions, till both were allowed, at the commencement of the eighteenth century, Prussia, by direct stipulation with the Emperor of Austria, and Sardinia, by consent of the great powers, to assume the state and dignity of royal kingdoms. This was the great turning point in their respective destinies. The sword of Frederick, by adding Silesia to Brandenburg, and filling up the gap between East and Central Prussia with Posen, lifted Prussia from the humble condition of a feudatory into that of a rival of the House of Austria. The Congress of Vienna, by adding Genoa to the dominions of Piedmont, enabled her to pursue in Italy a line of her own, free from the tutelage of the same imperial house. In the rest of the rôle there is a perfect identity of means, as well as of ends. Austria, with all the obstinacy of the Hapsburgs, hugged to the last the old principles of an effete feudatory government. Her two young rivals adopted every principle which modern reason and experience prove to be essential to political progress. Prussia, by becoming the arbiter of the commercial, paved her way to become the arbiter of the political destinies of Germany. Sardinia, also by commercial reforms, taught Italy to inaugurate the reconstruction of her

Prussia and Italy-Resemblances and Differences.

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old constitutions. Both states, by an enlightened system of national education, by commercial codes based upon strict reciprocity, by representative institutions, and by the widest religious freedom, appeared in startling advantage by the side of surrounding despotisms. The contrast was one of light and darkness, of science and ignorance, of integrity and corruption, of modern improvement and blind retrogression. The ill-governed were naturally taught to look up to incorporation with the well-governed people as their only chance of escape from political servitude. The first opportunity for political stratagem which presented itself to Cavour dissolved, as if by the stroke of enchantment, the effete governments of Italy, and led to the incorporation with his government of threefourths of the Peninsula. The first opportunity for political stratagem which presented itself to Bismarck has enabled him to repeat the same process in Germany.

But though there are many remarkable points of similarity between the fortunes of Prussia and Italy, these are not unaccompanied with differences which may serve to explain the political situation. The princes of Sardinia have generally proved faithful to the code of honour. Their history is stained with fewer crimes than that of any every other in the annals of Europe. They have been guilty of neither spoliation nor treachery. Indeed, in the wars of Europe, regardless of their political interests, they have generally sided with Austria, to whom their fealty was pledged against France. Prussia contrariwise has been guided in her alliances by no principle, but that of selfish expediency, changing sides in every quarrel she has espoused with the same facility as if the belligerents were only partners in a dance. We do not know that Sardinia, even in her early course, ever annexed a town without the consent of the inhabitants. But Prussia has ruthlessly kidnapped the places she could not obtain by fair means, turning the same deaf ear to the remonstrances of the annexed state as she did to the tall recruits whom she used to kidnap for her army. There is no principle of international law upon which she has not trampled, no act of robbery or perfidy which she has hesitated at perpetrating to accomplish her objects. She first suggested, and was the most unscrupulous agent in carrying out the partition of Poland. The very fief from which she derives her name was obtained by ejecting the knights, whose vested interests she, as the chief of their body, had undertaken by the most solemn obligations of guardianship to defend. Two of the most important limbs of the empire, Posen and Silesia, were seized by acts of buccaneering unsurpassed in the history

of nations. While, as a member of the third coalition, receiving money from Great Britain to equip and despatch 90,000 troops, to Austerlitz, she entered into a stipulation with Napoleon, by which she was allowed to annex the British Hanoverian dominions as the price of her abstention from the conflict. When Napoleon entered on his Russian campaign, Prussia bound herself by solemn compact to guard his rear on the banks of the Vistula, with a force of 30,000 men. She fulfilled her engagement by turning against his outfrozen army the very bayonets he relied upon for its defence. Her last raid against Schleswig Holstein is of a piece with her previous history. She took upon herself, as agent of the Germanic Confederation, to claim these Duchies as members of the Bund. Having, with the assistance of Austria, seized the spoil, she quietly appropriated it to herself, kicked Austria out, and hurled the Confederation into the dust.

This unconquerable craving for expansion and remarkable tenacity of grip, which have characterised the House of Hohenzollern from its earliest years, have been accompanied with a characteristic which might redeem worse faults than rapacity, and certainly presents Prussia in favourable contrast with Sardinia and surrounding nations. She has loaded her subjects with no debt worth mentioning, but has carried out a rigid economy in every department of the State. The kings and electors of Prussia have been the most parsimonious princes who ever occupied a throne. They have reduced their household expenditure to the lowest possible limit, not simply to hoard up wealth for their successors, but to lighten the burdens of the state, and to provide the country with an efficient administrative system, and with a strong arm of defence. The princes of Prussia have been known to melt down their plate, to sleep on camp beds, to dress in frieze, to live on peasants' fare, with a view to keep the national expenditure within the limits of the yearly receipts. The economy they practised themselves, they forced upon every officer in the public service. It is amusing to hear Voltaire describe his disappointment on his first interview with Frederic, when he found that prince in a bare room, with his bed in one corner, and a naked table, lighted with a single taper in the other, when he expected, Frenchman-like, to see him surrounded with gilt trappings and upholstery magnificence of every kind. His father sold his jewels, sent his spoons to the mint, abolished the expense of court ceremonials, and even forewent the use of peruke maker, and of tailors in order to establish a breeding seminary for the army, which the son turned to such notable account. The frugal habits Prussia observed in her im

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poverished state she has not lost sight of in her prosperous years. Even yet the Finance Committee of Prussia exhibits yearly the cleanest balance sheet in Europe. The country, considering its extent, is the lightest taxed and the cheapest to live in in the world. While other nations have contracted large debts in times of peace, she has made her yearly resources provide for her yearly exigencies in times of war. After the recent conflict, she quartered her troops for weeks upon her prostrate opponents, besides mulcting them in heavy expenses, by which, if she collects the proceeds, the late campaign instead of imposing a loss, will confer an actual gain upon her treasury. The States she has incorporated have always been made to pay for the privilege of being annexed, and for the expense which that operation has entailed. By refusing to anticipate her revenues, and to entangle herself in expensive loans, she has been enabled to keep her metallic far ahead of her paper currency. It is this regard for her financial soundness which has made Prussia the most hopeful country in Europe. For her trifle of twenty millions of debt she has provided a sinking fund, which promises to rid the nation of it in twelve years; while Austria and Italy, staggering under the load of immense debts, have no escape from financial beggary, except by heavy national taxation. The consequence is, that the Prussian people find themselves in possession of empire without the pecuniary exigencies and the burdensome debts, which are generally the price at which empire has been purchased. They enjoy all the advantages of a great nation along with the social ease, and freedom from grinding taxation which have been hitherto the exclusive privilege of a small nation. If, therefore, Prussia has evinced a riotous predilection for absorbing surrounding principalities, it has not been without putting in the most incontestable credentials for governing them to the best advantage. If she has forced her rule upon others it has been more to the advantage of the governed than of the administrators. The latter have had more work without increased pay. The States violently incorporated, like the Sabine women, may have screamed out at first, but their subsequent contentment only shows that they have no other wish than to live upon terms of the closest intimacy with their violators.

It is this absorption of the personal interest of the Prussian monarchy in that of the State which gives to that country a peculiar freedom, unrestricted in its social and religious elements, and yet modified by that parental care which the Government, as the father of the State thinks it ought to exercise over every subject. Italy, with all its freedom, has a state religion which

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