[Illustration:  The Great Elector of Brandenburg]

Prussia

The 18th century also saw the rise of a new kingdom in Europe.  You will recall that there was a county in Germany named Brandenburg, whose count was one of the seven electors who chose the emperor.  The capital of this county was Berlin.  It so happened that a number of Counts of Brandenburg, of the family of Hohenzollern, had been men of ambition and ability.  The little county had grown by adding small territories around it.  One of these counts, called “the Great Elector,” had added to Brandenburg the greater part of the neighboring county of Pomerania.  His son did not have the ability of his father, but was a very proud and vain man.  He happened to visit King William III of England, and was very much offended because during the interview, the king occupied a comfortable arm chair, while the elector, being simply a count, was given a chair to sit in which was straight-backed and had no arms.  Brooding over this insult, as it seemed to him, he went home and decided that he too should be called a king.  The question was, what should his title be.  He could not call himself “King of Brandenburg,” for Brandenburg was part of the Empire, and the emperor would not allow it.  It had happened some one hundred years before, that, through his marriage with the daughter of the Duke of Prussia, a Count of Brandenburg had come into possession of the district known as East Prussia, at the extreme southeastern corner of the Baltic Sea.  Between this and the territory of Brandenburg lay the district known as West Prussia, which was part of the Kingdom of Poland.  However, Prussia lay outside the boundaries of the Empire, and the emperor had nothing to say about what went on there.  Therefore, the elector sent notice to all the kings and princes of Europe that after this he was to be known as the “King of Prussia.”  It was a situation somewhat like the one we have already referred to, when the kings of England were independent monarchs and yet subjects of the kings of France because they were also dukes of Normandy.

[Illustration:  Frederick The Great]

The son of this elector who first called himself king had more energy and more character than his father.  He ruled his country with a rod of iron, and built up a strong, well-drilled army.  He was especially fond of tall soldiers, and had agents out all over Europe, kidnapping men who were over six feet tall to serve in his famous regiment of Guards.  He further increased the size of the Prussian kingdom.