Europe Books

Chapter I. — FIFTH CRISIS IN THE KAISER'S SPECTRE-HUNT. The Crown-Prince's young Life being, by perverse chance, involved and as it were absorbed in that foolish question of his English Marriage, we have nothing for it but to continue our sad function; and go on painfully fishing out, and reducing to an authentic form, what traces of him there are, from that disastrous beggarly... more...

Chapter I. — BRANNIBOR: HENRY THE FOWLER. The Brandenburg Countries, till they become related to the Hohenzollern Family which now rules there, have no History that has proved memorable to mankind. There has indeed been a good deal written under that title; but there is by no means much known, and of that again there is alarmingly little that is worth knowing or remembering. Pytheas, the Marseilles... more...

Chapter I. — KURFURST FRIEDRICH I. Burggraf Friedrich, on his first coming to Brandenburg, found but a cool reception as Statthalter. ["Johannistage" (24 June) "1412," he first set foot in Brandenburg, with due escort, in due state; only Statthalter (Viceregent) as yet: Pauli, i. 594, ii. 58; Stenzel, Geschichte des Preussischen Staats (Hamburg, 1830, 1851), i. 167-169.] He came as... more...

Chapter I. — DOUBLE-MARRIAGE IS DECIDED ON. We saw George I. at Berlin in October, 1723, looking out upon his little Grandson drilling the Cadets there; but we did not mention what important errand had brought his Majesty thither. Visits between Hanover and Berlin had been frequent for a long time back; the young Queen of Prussia, sometimes with her husband, sometimes without, running often over to... more...

Chapter I.—SANS-SOUCI. Friedrich has now climbed the heights, and sees himself on the upper table-land of Victory and Success; his desperate life-and-death struggles triumphantly ended. What may be ahead, nobody knows; but here is fair outlook that his enemies and Austria itself have had enough of him. No wringing of his Silesia from this "bad Man." Not to be overset, this one, by never such... more...

Chapter I.—THE CAMPAIGN OPENS. Seldom was there seen such a combination against any man as this against Friedrich, after his Saxon performances in 1756. The extent of his sin, which is now ascertained to have been what we saw, was at that time considered to transcend all computation, and to mark him out for partition, for suppression and enchainment, as the general enemy of mankind. "Partition... more...

Chapter I.—PRELIMINARIES TO A FOURTH CAMPAIGN. The posting of the Five Armies this Winter—Five of them in Germany, not counting the Russians, who have vanished to Cimmeria over the horizon, for their months of rest—is something wonderful, and strikes the picturesque imagination. Such a Chain of Posts, for length, if for nothing else! From the centre of Bohemia eastward, Daun's Austrians are... more...

Chapter I. — BRITANNIC MAJESTY AS PALADIN OF THE PRAGMATIC. Part, is now perhaps conceivable to readers. But as to the Second, the Germanic or Pragmatic Part,—articulate History, after much consideration, is content to renounce attempting these; feels that these will remain forever inconceivable to mankind in the now altered times. So small a gentleman; and he feels, dismally though with heroism,... more...

Chapter I.—WHAT FRIEDRICH HAD READ IN THE MENZEL DOCUMENTS. The ill-informed world, entirely unaware of what Friedrich had been studying and ascertaining, to his bitter sorrow, for four years past, was extremely astonished at the part he took in those French-English troubles; extremely provoked at his breaking out again into a Third Silesian War, greater than all the others, and kindling all Europe... more...

Chapter I.—FIFTH CAMPAIGN OPENS. There were yet, to the world's surprise and regret, Three Campaigns of this War; but the Campaign 1760, which we are now upon, was what produced or rendered possible the other two;—was the crisis of them, and is now the only one that can require much narrative from us here. Ill-luck, which, Friedrich complains, had followed him like his shadow, in a strange and... more...