d got together a small but efficient
military force. The growing power of the Elector was gained to a great
extent at the expense of the nobles; he took from them many of the
privileges they had before enjoyed. The work he began was continued by
his son, who took the title of King; and by his grandson, who invented
the Prussian system of administration, and created the army with which
Frederick the Great fought his battles.

The result of the growth of the strong, organised monarchy was indeed
completely to alter the position of the nobles. The German barons in the
south had succeeded in throwing off the control of their territorial
lords; they owned no authority but the vague control of the distant
Emperor, and ruled their little estates with an almost royal
independence; they had their own laws, their own coinage, their own
army. In the north, the nobles of Mecklenburg Holstein, and Hanover
formed a dominant class, and the whole government of the State was in
their hands; but those barons whose homes fell within the dominion of
the Kings of Prussia found themselves face to face with a will and a
power stronger than their own; they lost in independence, but they
gained far more than they lost. They were the basis on which the State
was built up; they no longer wasted their military prowess in
purposeless feuds or in mercenary service; in the Prussian army and
administration they found full scope for their ambition, and when the
victories of Frederick the Great had raised Prussia to the rank of a
European Power, the nobles of Brandenburg were the most loyal of his
subjects. They formed an exclusive caste; they seldom left their homes;
they were little known in the south of Germany or in foreign countries;
they seldom married outside their own ranks. Their chief amusement was
the chase, and their chief occupation was war. And no king has ever had
under his orders so fine a race of soldiers; they commanded the armies
of Frederick and won his battles. Dearly did they pay for the greatness
of Prussia; of one family alone, the Kleists, sixty-four fell on the
field of battle during the Seven Years' War.

They might well consider that the State which they had helped to make,
and which they had saved by their blood, belonged to them. But if they
had become Prussians, they did not cease to be Brandenburgers; their
loyalty to their king never swerved, for they knew that he belonged to
them as he did to no other of his subjects.