ed and sensitive people like the Poles--still more so in a highly
civilised national State such as Belgium or France. It is an absurdity that
only a theatrical monarch could conceive and a crime that only a military
autocracy could attempt to enforce.

In the sixteenth century the Reformation, spreading throughout the North of
Europe, undermined the basis of the Teutonic Order. The Grand Master of
the time transformed himself into a Lutheran Prince holding the hereditary
Duchy of Prussia as a vassal of the King of the neighbouring Slavonic
State of Poland. In 1611 the Duchy was amalgamated with the territory of
Brandenburg farther west, and in 1647 the enlarged Prussian territories
won their emancipation from Poland. Prussia now became a distinct State,
essentially German in character (as opposed to the Poles and Lithuanians on
its Eastern border), but still remaining for a time outside the community
of the other German States.

The union between Prussia and Brandenburg had brought Prussia under the
rule of the House of Hohenzollern, which, although originally a South
German family, had borne rule in Brandenburg since 1415. Under the
Hohenzollerns Prussia rapidly increased in territory and influence until in
1701 the ruler of the day, the grandfather of Frederick the Great, took on
himself the title of King. Under Frederick the Great, Prussia's career of
conquest and aggrandisement continued. Seizing a convenient opportunity, he
invaded and annexed the Austrian province of Silesia, and later joined with
Austria and Russia in promoting the shameful Partition of Poland. The old
conquering and "civilising" policy of the Teutonic Knights was continued,
but under new conditions and in a brutal and cynical spirit which rendered
it impossible of success. "The surest means of giving this oppressed nation
better ideas and morals," wrote Frederick the Great, in words quoted
with approval by Prince Buelow, "will always be gradually to get them to
intermarry with Germans, even if at first it is only two or three of them
in every village." This spirit in Prussian policy may have extinguished the
ancient Prussians, but it has not yet begun to Germanise the Poles, and has
gone far to de-Germanise the Alsatians. But it explains the utterances and
justifies the sincerity of those who believe that to-day, as in the early
days of her history, Prussia is fighting on behalf of "culture."

Prussia remains to-day, what she has been for the la