A Short History of Germany

Conditions--First Hapsburg and First Hohenzollern--Swiss Freedom--Intellectual Awakening--The Golden Bull--Hussite War--A Hohenzollern Receives a Mortgage on the Territory of Br...

Triple Game between Francis I., Henry VIII., and Charles IV.--Leo X.--Luther--The Diet of Worms--Protestantism Born--Margrave of Brandenburg Usurps Sovereignty over Prussia--The...

A Protestant Germany--A Divided Protestantism--True Meaning of the Struggle--Unfruitful Waiting--The Renaissance--Music, Art, Letters, Born Anew--Thought Awakened--Copernicus--G...

Romano-Germanic Empire Perishing--European Conditions--Louis XIV.--Decay of National Spirit--Rise of Brandenburg--Combination against Louis XIV.--Spanish Succession--Under Frede...

Frederick the Great--His Childhood--Von Katte's Execution--Frederick at Potsdam--Frederick II., King of Prussia--Maria Theresa, Empress--War of Austrian Succession--Silesia--Per...

War over American Boundary between England and France--Maria Theresa Joins France--Her Policy--A Combination against Frederick II.--Seven Years' War--Peace of Hubertsburg--Siles...

Marie Antoinette Married to the French Dauphin Louis--Unsuspected Conditions--Joseph II.--Reforms by a Progressive Hapsburg are a Failure--Romanticism Replaces Sentimentalism in...

The Beginnings of the Storm--The United States of America and France--The Thought-Currents Which Moved toward a Vortex--Execution of King and Queen--France a Ruin but Free--A Re...

Revolt of Bavarian Peasants--The "League of Virtue"--Invasion of Russia--Burning of Moscow--Retreat--General York Leads a Popular Movement--Prussia at War with Napoleon--The Bat...

Reconstruction--The Act of Union--Sentiment of the People--Concessions--Francis II. Died--A Republic in France--Blaze of Revolutionary Fires in Europe--A National Parliament Gra...

Napoleon III. Plans the Overthrow of Prussian Dominion--Vacant Throne in Spain--A Hohenzollern Candidate--Benedetti and King William--War Declared by France--Metz--Sedan--King W...

Foundation building is neither picturesque nor especially interesting, but it is indispensable. However fair the structure is to be, one must first lay the rough-hewn stones upo...

At the time of this first invasion the German race was divided into tribes with no affinity for each other, who were indeed much of the time in fierce conflict among themselves....

During the three centuries after Hermann had arrested the flood of Roman conquest, a civilization of the simplest sort was slowly developing in Germany, where society was divide...

As some winged seed is wafted from a fair garden into a dark, distant forest, and there takes root and blossoms, so was the seed-germ of Christianity caught by the wind of desti...

One century after Charlemagne, the kingship of Germany ceased to be hereditary. The great nobles, or vassals as they were called, elected the King, who was crowned at Aix. And t...

There are three conditions in national life of which all nations more or less partake. One is where the elements combine with a tendency toward organic development; another, whe...

Germany, which had always been a loosely compacted mass, was at the close of the Hohenstaufen dynasty composed of 60 independent cities, 116 priestly rulers, and 100 reigning du...

It was not alone in Germany that the old was vanishing. The movement in that country was part of a general condition prevailing in England, France, and Spain; all with the same...

The period of Maximilian's reign was a bridge which spanned two colossal events: the discovery of America and the Reformation. When this Emperor died in 1517, a greater work was...

It was the invincible march of Protestantism in the land of its birth which brought about this buttressing of the old belief and this adopting of fresh methods for its efficiency.

For seven hundred years, from the treaty of Verdun (843), to Charles V. (1520), Germany had held the leading position in Europe as the head of the "Holy Roman Empire." The reali...

It was into such a world as this that Frederick the Great was ushered in 1712. Few children, be they princes or peasants, have ever had a more unhappy childhood. If he had not b...

There had been a time when two nations in Europe could fight each other to the death without disturbing their neighbors, but since there had developed in the sixteenth century t...

At the close of the Seven Years' War, Maria Theresa had spent the twenty-three years of her reign in a fruitless struggle with Frederick. Instead of dismembering his kingdom and...

The energies which were to transform the face of Europe had been gradually centering in France. They commenced when Voltaire and Rousseau made it the fashion to scoff at the Chu...

The eighteenth century closed upon a strangely altered Europe. France was the ruling power on the Continent. Prussia had hidden herself in a timid neutrality, and left Austria t...

To the man guiding these astounding changes it seemed a very small matter then that a handful of Tyrolese peasants were in revolt against the French King in Bavaria; nor that a...

Now came the difficult task of reconstruction and redistribution of territory. In what form should they arise out of this chaos? The dream of the people, like that of Hermann ei...

King William's youth was far behind him. He had already spent a long life (sixty-four years) and had never expected to occupy a throne. He had not the brilliant qualities of his...

There was a man in France to whom these overturnings were especially distasteful. Napoleon III., sitting in brand-new splendor upon his newly created throne, was industriously e...