The Circle of Knowledge: A Classified, Simplified, Visualized Book of Answers

Part 123

Chapter 1233,306 wordsPublic domain

Culture is further stimulated in the large towns by public libraries, learned societies, museums, art galleries, and observatories, whilst musical knowledge and appreciation diffuses itself from the highly-reputed conservatories at Leipzig, Dresden, Munich, Frankfort, and Berlin.

=Religion.=--The Constitution provides for entire liberty of conscience and for complete social equality among all religious confessions. The relation between Church and State varies in different parts of the empire. The Jesuit order is interdicted in all parts of Germany, and all convents and religious orders have been suppressed.

Protestantism predominates in the north and middle, and Roman Catholicism in the southeast and west, although very few states exhibit exclusively either form of faith. The Protestants belong chiefly either to the Lutheran confession, which prevails in Saxony, Thuringia, Hanover, and Bavaria east of the Rhine, or to the Reformed or Calvinistic Church, which prevails in Hesse, Anhalt, and the Palatinate. A union between these two churches has taken place in Prussia. There are five Roman Catholic archbishoprics and fourteen Roman Catholic suffragan bishoprics and six bishoprics immediately subject to Rome.

=Defense.=--Military service in Germany is compulsory and universal, with the usual exemptions.

ARMY.--By the regulations in force, every German who is capable of bearing arms must be in the standing army for seven years (generally his twentieth to his twenty-seventh year). Two years must be spent in active service and the remainder in the army of reserve. He then spends five years in the first class of the Landwehr, after which he belongs to the second class till his thirty-ninth year. Besides this, every German, from seventeen to twenty-one and from thirty-nine to forty-five is a member of the Landsturm, a force only to be called out in the last necessity. Those who pass certain examinations require to serve only one year with the colors, and are known as “volunteers.”

The wide stretches of unprotected borderlands have obliged the Germans to consider very carefully the question of frontier defenses. Thus the empire is at present divided into ten “fortress districts,” in which the following are the chief fortified cities: Danzig, Königsberg Posen, Neisse, Spandau, Magdeburg, Küstrin, Mainz, Ulm, Metz, Cologne, Koblenz, Kiel, and Strassburg.

NAVY.--Rapid progress has been made in recent years in the formation of a German navy. Prussia took the initiative in gathering together a fleet, but by 1851 it had grown only to fifty-one vessels, thirty-six of which were small gunboats. However, an advance was made in 1867, when every vessel in the navy flew the national colors (black, white, and red), and during the last twenty-five years the measure of progress has been phenomenal. (See further, Armies and Navies of the World.)

Kiel is the chief naval station on the Baltic, and Wilhelmshaven on the North Sea, these two bases being connected by the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal across the Schleswig-Holstein peninsula. Other naval establishments are Danzig, Cuxhaven, and Sonderburg.

=Chief Cities.=--German cities and towns are officially distinguished as large cities (with one hundred thousand inhabitants and upwards); medium cities (twenty thousand to one hundred thousand inhabitants); small cities (five thousand to twenty thousand inhabitants); and country towns (two thousand to five thousand inhabitants). According to the latest census, the population of cities over fifty thousand was as follows:

CITIES OF PRUSSIA

=Berlin=, capital both of the Empire and of the Kingdom of Prussia, is by far the most important center of population in Germany. It lies on both sides of the Spree, and by the Spandau and Tetlow canals to the Havel it is linked with the systems of the Oder and the Elbe. It is eighty-four miles from Stettin and one hundred and eighty miles from Hamburg, and is the center of the great Prussian state railway system. (See Internal Communications.)

The city itself is served by an Outer Circle (_Ringbahn_) and by the _Stadtbahn_, running east and west through the city. There are electric surface lines, an overhead, or elevated, electric railway, and a shallow underground railway.

On an island in the center of the city stands the Royal Palace, a foursquare pile built at different times between 1451 and the present day. It stands in the Schloss-platz, and is one of the few old buildings in Berlin, dating from the sixteenth century. It contains over six hundred rooms, including the great White Salon, and halls of the Black and Red Eagle orders.

UNTER DEN LINDEN.--From this island stretches westward the noblest street in Berlin, Unter den Linden (“under the lime trees”). The triumphal arch at the west end of the street, the Brandenburg Gate (a copy, made in 1789-93, of the Propylæa at Athens), forms the entrance to the large park (six hundred and thirty acres) of the Thiergarten. In the east is the magnificent avenue of the Siegesallee or Avenue of Victory, adorned with thirty-two marble groups of the rulers of Prussia and Brandenburg. In the Unter den Linden are many splendid public edifices, among which are the Armory, the Opera House, the Royal Library, the new Town Hall, the University, the palaces of William I. and of Frederick III., and the monument to Frederick the Great by Rauch.

In the northeast of the Thiergarten stands the most imposing building of the city, the Imperial Diet or Parliament, erected from designs by Wallot, in 1884-94, at a cost of over five million dollars.

BUSINESS QUARTER.--The Friedrichs-Stadt is the business center of Berlin, and the streets in this section are interesting. The banking street, Behrenstrasse, and the Wilhelmstrasse, the official quarter, where is the imperial chancellor’s palace, lie to the south. Fine shops and restaurants line the Friedrichstrasse, while Viktoriastrasse is one of the many thoroughfares of the fashionable district, southwest. Königstrasse and Kaiser Wilhelmstrasse are the business streets of the city proper.

The Tempelhofn Feld, also to the south, is the parade and review ground of the Berlin garrison.

The most striking bridge is the Schloss-brücke, or Palace bridge, by F. Schinkel, with colossal marble figures. It leads from Unter den Linden, to the Lustgarten, a park in which stands an equestrian statue of Frederick William III.

The Opera Platz contains statues of five generals, by Rauch, and is bounded by the Palace, University, Opera House, and St. Hedwig’s Church, an imitation of the Roman Pantheon. The Schauspielhaus, the leading dramatic theater, is in Gensdarmen Markt. The Schauspielhaus, with the church on each side, is considered one of the finest architectural groups in Berlin.

STATUES AND ART MUSEUMS, ETC.--No city has so many statues and monuments to the national heroes, kingly or military, or to those famed in literature, science and art.

The Royal Library, once in the palace, is now in the new building, built in 1909 on Unter den Linden; it contains nearly five million printed books. The University Library is housed in the same building. There is a large public library and twenty-eight municipal libraries.

The Royal Museum, in the Lustgarten, north of the Schlossplatz, is divided into the Old and the New Museums, containing the treasures of classical and mediæval sculpture, the Egyptian collection, etc. The Old Museum is the finest building in the city, with a grand Ionic portico, adorned with colossal bronze groups, and richly frescoed halls. It has vast collections of antiquities; the halls of Greek, Roman, mediæval, and modern sculptures; and the Hall of the Heroes.

The New Museum is entered from the Old, and contains Kaulbach’s famous mural paintings, the Egyptian museum, an immense collection of casts, twelve cabinets of Northern antiquities four rooms of objects of art, and five hundred thousand engravings. It has a renaissance façade to the east. Opposite is the new Corinthian temple of the National Gallery, which contains a magnificent and world-renowned collection of ancient and modern paintings.

BERLIN SUBURBS.--In recent years there has been a remarkable expansion of the suburban districts of Berlin, residential sites have sprung up in the pine woods and by the lakes of the Havel to the northwest, and Spandau, Charlottenburg, and Potsdam may almost be regarded as suburbs.

POTSDAM, “the Versailles of Prussia,” with its palaces and parks, is sixteen miles from Berlin, among wooded hills and the lakelike expanses of the Havel. Here is the Sans Souci Palace, built by Frederick the Great, and full of reminiscences of him. Near by are the Picture-Gallery, the Orangery (adorned with fine statuary), and the Sicilian Garden. The New Palace has two hundred richly adorned rooms, with fine paintings, and a noteworthy Marble Saloon.

The Marble Palace is north of Potsdam, and has many paintings. Babelsberg is a new Gothic palace, with rich art-treasures. The Royal Palace (1660) is full of relics of the Great Frederick. The Garrison Church contains his tomb and military trophies. The Church of Peace is a noble Ionic basilica, with masterpieces of sculpture. The famous Sans Souci fountains play on summer Sunday afternoons.

INDUSTRIES OF BERLIN.--In its industries Berlin is almost as varied as London, but machinery, especially locomotive and electrical, woolens, dyeing, furniture and metal work are the chief. It is beginning to rival Leipzig in book production, and its breweries are large. Besides being the center of the great trade in corn and other cereals of Eastern Europe, its great banks exercise increasing international influence.

A CENTER OF EDUCATION AND CULTURE.--The famous Freidrich Wilhelm University, founded in 1810, now the largest in numbers in Germany, the splendid technical institution at Charlottenburg, and its numerous schools of all ranks, make Berlin one of the greatest intellectual and educational centers of the world. As the seat of the Imperial Court, and of the Imperial Parliament and administration, it is also the social center of the empire, and its modern wealth and luxury have made it a growing rival to Paris as a city of pleasure.

Since 1878 the city has been practically rebuilt; the sudden growth of population has resulted in much overcrowding and crushingly high rentals. Once deplorable, the sanitation, water supply, and public hygiene are now of the highest standard, and German scientific thoroughness has made it the most highly organized and best administered city in the world.

=Other Prussian Cities.=--Breslau on the Oder, the capital of the mining districts of Silesia, has grown to be the second town of the kingdom, carrying on very extensive manufactures and a great trade by river and railway. It is also the emporium of the flax-growing district of Silesia. About the Rhenish coal fields, which yield half the supply of the kingdom, stand the manufacturing and trading towns of Cologne, Aachen or Aix, Barmen, Düsseldorf, Elberfeld, Crefeld and Dortmund, spinning cotton, wool, linen, and silk; and the famous iron and steel works of Solingen and Essen, where Krupp’s steel guns are made.

Magdeburg, on the Elbe, and Cassel, on the Fulda, are the great manufacturing and trading towns of central Prussia. Much of the internal trade of Germany is still carried on at great annual fairs, and in this respect the two Frankforts (on the Main to the west, and on the Oder to the east) hold the most important place. Hanover, on the Leine, is the point of exchange of the mineral products of the Harz for the goods which come in by Bremen on the Weser, and has important manufactures of its own.

The chief ports belonging to Prussia are the Baltic ones--Königsberg, Danzig, Stettin, Stralsund, Memel, Rostock, Wismar, and Kiel, on the Baltic; Altona, on the Elbe, next Hamburg. Posen, on the Warthe, was the ancient capital of Poland, and is the most important fortress towards the Russian frontier. Wiesbaden is the most important and the oldest of the watering-places which have grown up round the mineral springs of Nassau. Eisleben, where Luther was born, and Erfurt, where he resided, both in Prussian Saxony, are notable points in connection with the history of the Reformation in Germany.

=Dresden and Other Cities of Saxony.=--Dresden, its capital, finely placed on both banks of the Elbe, famous for its art treasures, has also many varied manufactures. Its architecture and its art collections have given it the name of “the German Florence.”

The old bridge, Augustusbrücke (Augustus Bridge), may be taken as the center of the most interesting part of Dresden. Immediately to the east of the Augustusbrücke, on the Alstadt side, stretches the beautiful Brühl Terrasse, whence are fine views over the river. There are high-class concerts in the Belvedere on the Brühl Terrace. Near the flight of steps to the terrace, facing the Royal Palace and Catholic Church, is the Rathaus (Town Hall) with an equestrian statue of King Albert in front.

The Royal Palace, just south of the Augustusbrücke, will be discovered by its lofty tower, three hundred and thirty-one feet high.

The Zwinger, to the west of the Schloss, is a range of buildings of seven pavilions, with the Museum at one corner. In the Museum are the picture gallery, with collections of engravings and drawings, and mineralogical collections, with scientific instruments.

The Picture Gallery is of world renown, containing more than two thousand four hundred paintings, mostly by Italian and Flemish masters. The gem of the collection is Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna;” other masterpieces being Titian’s “Tribute Money,” and Correggio’s “Magdalene” and “La Notte.”

The Green Vault in the Royal Palace contains an unrivaled collection of precious stones, articles wrought in gold, silver, and ivory, etc. The new Hoftheater is one of the finest theaters in Europe. Of the churches the most noted are the Frauenkirche, with its lofty dome (three hundred and ten feet high).

The so-called “Dresden china” is made for the most part at Meissen, fifteen miles from Dresden.

=Leipzig= is not only the seat of a famous university and the great book market of Germany, but has one of the largest annual fairs in the world, to which merchants come from all parts of the earth, even from America and China.

Chemnitz and Zwickau, beside the Saxon coal field, are the great woolen and machine-manufacturing towns of the kingdom. Freiberg is famed for its school of mines.

=Cities of Bavaria.=--Munich (München), the capital, stands in the midst of a bare elevated plain on the left bank of the Isar, one thousand seven hundred feet above sea-level, but has risen to importance as the central point of the great grain-growing plateau of southern Bavaria. It is the great corn depot of the country, and the place of manufacture of its favorite beer. In recent times it has become celebrated as a seat of the fine arts and for its splendid buildings.

Ancient Nürnburg, with its double line of walls, where watches, first called Nürnberg eggs, were invented, is the great seat of industry and commerce in the north of Bavaria, exporting toys which go to all parts of the world. It stands on the Ludwigs Canal, the most important one in the kingdom, uniting the navigable tributaries of the Rhine and Danube.

Augsburg, on the Lech, northwest of Munich, where the Protestants presented the Confession of Faith to Charles V., is a chief center of Bavarian trade and exchange. Würzburg, on the Main, is the old capital of Franconia, the district which was peopled by colonies of Franks in the sixth century.

Speyer or Spire and the fortress of Landau are also important places in the palatinate.

=Cities of Württemberg.=--Stuttgart, where Hegel was born, and where Schiller spent his youth, is the capital, and stands next to Leipzig and Berlin in the printing arts and book trade. The fortress of Ulm, on the Danube, where it leaves Württemberg, has a large transit trade. Heilbronn is another important trading place. Tübingen is the university town.

The little territory belonging to the house of Hohenzollern, which runs into Württemberg on the south, fell by inheritance to the king of Prussia in 1849.

=Cities of Baden, and Elsass-Lothringen= (Alsace-Lorraine).--Carlsruhe, the capital, and Mannheim, at the confluence of the Neckar and Rhine, are its largest towns. Heidelberg (north) and Freiburg (south) are the seats of universities. Baden-Baden in the center, the famous watering-place, gives its name to the Duchy.

The fortress of Strassburg, on the Rhine, in central Elsass, anciently a free imperial city of Germany, is the chief place in the Reichsland and its university town, noted also for its manufacture of leather-work and of beer. The cotton, wool and silk factories and machine works of the province center at Mülhausen in southern Elsass.

The fortresses of Metz and Diedenhofen or Thionville, memorable in the war of 1871, are the chief places in Lothringen.

=Cities of the Smaller States.=--Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck, the remaining free Hanse[6] towns, are republics, each governed by a senate and house of burgesses. Each of them has a small territory besides that occupied by the city.

[6] The Hansa or League of the North German towns was the first trade union of Europe, and dates from the thirteenth century. At one time it included eighty-five towns, and had several foreign factories.

They are the great gates of the external commerce of Germany, and from this have also become important centers for the preparation of foreign products, and of the necessaries of trading (tobacco, sugar-refining, cotton-spinning, shipbuilding). Besides the traffic brought to Hamburg and Bremen by their rivers, all the railways of the northwest converge toward them.

GERMAN COLONIES.--At the commencement of the war these had a total area of 1,134,239 square miles, with a population of about 14,890,000, of whom 24,170 (including garrison and police) were whites. Of these whites about 18,500 were settled Germans.

The following is a list of the principal colonies and regions under the protection or influence of Germany, with approximate estimates of area and population: