the rehabilitation
of an absolutist, bureaucratic, and militarist State, such as Prussia
was--a State in which civil and political liberty was conspicuous by
its absence. But the fact undoubtedly remains that the men in question
did succeed in pumping up a strong patriotic feeling and desire to
free the country from the yoke of the foreigner, even if that only
meant increased domestic tyranny. It must be admitted, however, that
as a matter of fact not inconsiderable internal reforms were owing to
the leading men of this time. Stein abolished serfdom, and in some
respects did away with the legal distinction of classes, thereby
paving the way for the rise of the middle class, which at that time
meant a progressive step. He also conferred rights of self-government
upon municipalities. Hardenberg inaugurated measures intended to
ameliorate the condition of the peasants, while Wilhelm von Humboldt
established the thorough if somewhat mechanical education system which
was subsequently extended throughout Germany. He also helped to found
the University of Berlin in 1809.

But at the same time the curse of Prussia--militarism--was riveted on
the people through the reorganization of the Prussian army by those
two able military bureaucrats, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. In 1813
Prussia concluded at Kalicsh an alliance with Russia, which Austria
joined. In the war which followed Prussia was severely strained by
losses in men and money. But at the Congress of Vienna the Prussian
kingdom received back nearly, but not quite, all it lost in 1807. The
acquirement, however, of new and valuable territories in Westphalia
and along the Rhine, besides Thuringia and the province of Saxony,
more than compensated for the loss of certain Slav districts in the
east, as thereby the way was prepared for the ultimate despotism of
the Prussian King over all Germany. The success of Prussian diplomacy
in enslaving these erstwhile independent German lands in 1815 was
crucial for the subsequent direction of Prussian policy.

It is time now to return once more to the internal conditions in the
Prussian State now dominant over a large part of Northern Germany. A
Constitution had been more than once talked of, but the despotism with
its bureaucratic machinery had remained. Now, after the conclusion of
the Napoleonic wars and the re-drawing of the Prussian frontier lines
by the peace of 1815, the matter assumed an urgency it had not had
before. Following upo