The Saxon name itself withdrew in the end from the old Saxony to the lands conquered from the Slave. ♦Bernhard duke of Saxony, 1180-1212.♦ On the fall of Henry the Lion, the duchy of Saxony, cut short by the grant to the archbishops of Köln, was granted to Bernhard of Ballensted, the founder of the Ascanian House. ♦Sachsen-Lauenburg.♦ Of the older Saxon land his house kept only for a while the small district north of the Elbe which kept the name of Sachsen-Lauenburg, and which in the end became part of the Hannover electorate. ♦1423.♦ But it was in Thuringia and the conquered Slavonic lands to the east of Thuringia that a new Saxony arose, which kept on somewhat of the European position of the Saxon name down to modern times. This new Saxony, with Wittenberg for its capital, grew, through the addition of Thuringia and Meissen, into the Saxon Electorate which played so great a part during the three last centuries of the existence of the German kingdom. ♦Divisions and unions.♦ But in Saxony too the usual divisions took place. Lauenburg parted off; so did the smaller duchies which still keep the Saxon name. ♦1547.♦ The ducal and electoral dignities were divided, till the two, united under the famous Maurice, formed the Saxon electorate as it stood at the dissolution of the kingdom. It was in short a new state, one which had succeeded to the name, but which could in no other way be thought to represent, the Saxony whose conquest cost so many campaigns to Charles the Great.

Another power which arose in the marchland of Saxon and Slave, to the north of Saxony in the later sense, was the land known specially as the Mark, the groundwork of the power which has in our own day risen to the head of Germany. The North Mark of Saxony became the Mark of Brandenburg. ♦Reign of Albert the Bear, 1134-1170.♦ In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, under Albert the Bear and his house, the Mark greatly extended itself at the expense of the Slaves. ♦Union with Bohemia, 1373-1415.
House of Hohenzollern, 1415.♦ United for a time with the kingdom of Bohemia, it passed into the house of the Burgraves of Nürnberg, that House of Hohenzollern which has grown step by step till it has reached Imperial rank in our own day. The power thus formed presently acquired a special character by the acquisition of what may be called a German land out of Germany, a land which gave them in the end a higher title, and which by its geographical position led irresistibly to a further increase of territory. ♦Union of Brandenburg and Prussia, 1611-1618.♦ Early in the seventeenth century the Electors of Brandenburg acquired by inheritance the Duchy of Prussia, that is merely Eastern Prussia, a fief, not of the Empire but of the crown of Poland, and which lay geographically apart from their strictly German dominions. ♦Prussia independent of Poland, 1656; becomes kingdom, 1701.♦ The common sovereign of Brandenburg and Prussia was thus the man of two lords; but the Great Elector Frederick William became a wholly independent sovereign in his duchy, and his son Frederick took on himself the kingly title for the land which was thus freed from all homage. Both before and after the union with Prussia, the Electors of Brandenburg continued largely to increase their German dominions. ♦1523-1623.♦ A temporary possession of the principality of Jägerndorf in Silesia, unimportant in itself, led to great events in later times. ♦Westfalian possessions of Brandenburg, 1614-1666.
1702-1744.♦ The acquisition, at various times in the seventeenth century, of Cleve and other outlying Westfalian lands, which were further increased in the next century, led in the same way to the modern dominion of Prussia in western Germany. ♦Acquisitions in Pomerania, 1638-1648.
1713-1719.♦ But the most solid acquisition of Brandenburg in this age was that of Eastern Pomerania, to which the town of Stettin, with a further increase of territory, was added after the wars of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden. The events of the Thirty Years’ War also increased the dominions both of Brandenburg and Saxony at the expense of the neighbouring ecclesiastical princes. ♦Later acquisitions of Prussia.♦ The later acquisitions of the House of Hohenzollern, after the Electors of Brandenburg had taken the kingly title from their Prussian duchy, concern Prussia as an European power at least as much as they concern Brandenburg as a German power. ♦German character of the Prussian Monarchy.♦ Yet their proper place comes in the history of Germany. Unlike the other princes who held lands within and without the German kingdom, the Kings of Prussia and Electors of Brandenburg have remained essentially German princes. Their acquisitions of territory out of Germany have all been in fact enlargements, if not of the soil of Germany, at least of the sphere of German influence. And, at last, in marked contrast to the fate of the rival House of Austria, the whole Prussian dominions have been incorporated with the new German Empire, and form the immediate dominion of its Imperial head. ♦Spread of the name of Prussia.♦ The outward sign of this change, the outward sign of the special position of Brandenburg, as compared with Holstein or Austria, is the strange spread of the name of Prussia over the German dominions of the King of Prussia. No such spread has taken place with the name of Denmark or of Hungary.

Within Germany the greatest enlargement of the dominion of Prussia—as we may now begin to call it instead of Brandenburg—was the acquisition of by far the greater part of Schlesien or Silesia, hitherto part of the Bohemian lands, and then held by the House of Austria. This, it should be noted, was an acquisition which could hardly fail to lead to further acquisitions. ♦Geographical character of the Prussian dominions.♦ The geographical characteristic of the Prussian dominions was the way in which they lay in detached pieces, and the enormous extent of frontier as compared with the area of the country. The kingdom itself lay detached, hemmed in and intersected by the territory of Poland. The electorate, with the Pomeranian territory, formed a somewhat more compact mass; but even this had a very large frontier compared with its area. The Westfalian possessions, the district of Cottbus, and other outlying dominions, lay quite apart. The addition of Silesia increased this characteristic yet further. ♦Position of Silesia.♦ The newly won duchy, barely joining the electorate, ran out as a kind of peninsula between Saxony, Bohemia, and Poland. Silesia, first as a Polish and then as a Bohemian fief, had formed part of a fairly compact geographical mass; as part of the same dominion with Prussia and Brandenburg, it was an all but isolated land with an enormous frontier. ♦Acquisitions from Poland, 1772-1795.♦ The details of the Polish acquisitions of Prussia will be best given in our survey of Poland. ♦Their geographical character.♦ But it should be noted that each of the portions of territory which were added to Prussia by the several partitions has a geographical character of its own. ♦1772.♦ The addition of West-Prussia—that is the geographical union of the kingdom and the electorate—was something which could not fail in the nature of things to come sooner or later. ♦1793.♦ The second addition of South-Prussia might seem geographically needed in order to leave Silesia no longer peninsular. ♦1795.♦ The last, and most short-lived addition of New-East-Prussia had no such geographical necessity as the other two. Still it helped to give greater compactness to the kingdom, and to lessen its frontier in comparison with its area.

Another acquisition of the House of Hohenzollern during the eighteenth century, though temporary, deserves a passing notice. ♦East-Friesland, 1744.♦ Among its Westfalian annexations was East-Friesland. The King of Prussia thus became, during the last half of the eighteenth century, an oceanic potentate, a character which he presently lost, and which, save for a moment in the days of confusion, he obtained again only in our own day.

A large part of Saxony, both in the older and in the later sense, thus came to form part of a dominion containing both German and non-German lands, but in which the German character was in every way predominant. Other parts of Saxony in the same extended sense also came to form part of the dominions of princes who ruled both in and out of Germany, but in whom the non-German character was yet more predominant. ♦Holstein:♦ The old Saxony beyond the Elbe, the modern Holstein, passed into the hands of the Danish Kings. ♦its relation to Sleswick.♦ Its shifting relations towards Denmark and Germany and towards the neighbouring land of Sleswick, as having become matter of international dispute between Denmark and Germany, will be best spoken of when we come to deal with Denmark. The events of the Thirty Years’ War also made the Swedish kings for a while considerable potentates in northern Germany. ♦German territories of Sweden, 1648-1815.♦ The Peace of Westfalia confirmed to them Western Pomerania and the town of Wismar on the Baltic, and the bishoprics of Bremen and Verden which gave them an oceanic coast. ♦1720.♦ But these last lands were, as we have seen afterwards, ceded to Hannover, and the Pomeranian possessions of Sweden were also cut short by cession to Brandenburg. But the possession of Wismar and a part of Pomerania still gave the Swedish kings a position as German princes down to the dissolution of the Empire.

These are the chief powers which rose to historical importance within the bounds of Saxony, in the widest sense of that word. To trace every division and union which created or extinguished any of the smaller principalities, or even to mark every minute change of frontier among the greater powers, would be impossible. ♦Free cities of Saxony.
The Hanse Towns.♦ But it must be further remembered that the Saxon circles were the seats of some of the greatest of the free cities of Germany, the leading members of the Hanseatic League. In the growth of German commerce the Rhenish lands took the lead, and, in the earliest days of the Hansa, Köln held the first place among its cities. ♦Lübeck, Bremen, Hamburg.♦ The pre-eminence afterwards passed to havens nearer to the Ocean and the Baltic, where, among a crowd of others, the Imperial cities of Lübeck and Bremen stand out foremost, and with them Hamburg, a rival which has in later times outstripped them. And at this point it may be noticed that Lübeck and Bremen specially illustrate a law which extended to many other of the episcopal cities of Germany. ♦The cities and the bishoprics.♦ The Bishop became a prince, and held a greater or smaller extent of territory in temporal sovereignty. But the city which contained his see remained independent of him in temporal things, and knew him only as its spiritual shepherd. Such were the archbishopric of Bremen and the bishopric of Lübeck, principalities which, after the change of religion, passed into secular hands. Thus we have seen the archbishopric of Bremen pass, first to Sweden, and then to Hannover. But the two cities always remained independent commonwealths, owning no superior but the Emperor.

The next among the great duchies, that of Eastern Francia, Franken, or Franconia, is of much less importance in European history than that of Saxony. ♦Bishops of Würzburg Dukes.♦ It gave the ducal title to the Bishops of Würzburg; but it cannot be said to be in any sense continued in any modern state. ♦Extent of the Circle.♦ Its name gradually retreated, and the circle of Franken or Franconia took in only the most eastern part of the ancient duchy. ♦The Rhenish Circles.♦ The western and northern part of the duchy, together with a good deal of territory which was strictly Lotharingian, became part of the two Rhenish circles. Thus Fulda, the greatest of German abbeys, passed away from the Frankish name. In north-eastern Francia, the Hessian principalities grew up to the north-west. Within the Franconian circle lay Würzburg, the see of the bishops who bore the ducal title, the other great bishopric of Bamberg, together with the free city of Nürnberg, and various smaller principalities. ♦Ecclesiastical States on the Rhine.♦ In the Rhenish lands, both within and without the old Francia, one chief characteristic is the predominance of the ecclesiastical principalities, Mainz, Köln, Worms, Speyer, and Strassburg. The chief temporal power which arose in this region was the Palatinate of the Rhine, a power which, like others, went through many unions and divisions, and spread into four circles, those of Upper and Lower Rhine, Westfalia, and Bavaria. ♦Bavaria.♦ This last district, though united with the Palatine Electorate, was, from the early part of the fourteenth century, distinguished from the Palatinate of the Rhine as the Oberpfalz or Upper Palatinate. To the south of it lay the Bavarian principalities. These, united into a single duchy, formed the power which grew into the modern kingdom. But neither this duchy nor the whole Bavarian circle at all reached to the extent of the ancient Bavaria which bordered on Italy. ♦Shiftings between Bavaria and the Palatinate, 1623.
Electorate of Bavaria, 1648.♦ The early stages of the Thirty Years’ War gave the Rhenish Palatinate, with its electoral rights, to Bavaria; the Peace of Westfalia restored the Palatinate, leaving Bavaria as a new electorate. ♦Union of the two, 1777.♦ Late in the eighteenth century, Bavaria itself passed to the Elector Palatine, thus forming what may be called modern Bavaria with its outlying Rhenish lands. ♦Cession to Austria, 1778.♦ This acquisition was at the same time partly balanced by the cession to Austria of the lands east of the Inn, known as the Innviertel. ♦Archbishopric of Salzburg.♦ The other chief state within the Bavarian circle was the great ecclesiastical principality of the archbishops of Salzburg in the extreme south-east.

The old Lotharingian divisions, as we see them in the time of the great duchies, utterly died out. ♦Lower Lotharingia.♦ The states which arose in the Lower Lotharingia are among those which silently fell off from the German Kingdom to take a special position under the name of the Netherlands. ♦Duchy of Lothringen or Lorraine.♦ The special duchy of Lothringen or Lorraine was held to belong to the circle of Upper Rhine. ♦Elsass.♦ Elsass also formed part of the same circle, the circle which was specially cut short by the encroachments of France. ♦Circle of Swabia.♦ The Swabian circle answered more nearly than most of the new divisions to the old Swabian duchy, as that duchy stood without counting the marchland of Elsass. No part of Germany was more cut up into small states than the old land of the Hohenstaufen. A crowd of principalities, secular and ecclesiastical, among them the lesser principalities of the Hohenzollern House, of free cities, and of outlying possessions of the houses of Austria made up the main part of the circle. ♦Ecclesiastical towns of Swabia.♦ Strassburg, Augsburg, Constanz, St. Gallen, Chur, Zürich, are among the great bishoprics and other ecclesiastical foundations of the old Swabia. ♦Part of Swabia becomes Switzerland.♦ But, as I shall show more fully in another section, large districts in the south-east, those which formed the Old League of High Germany, had practically fallen away from the kingdom before the new division was made, and were therefore never reckoned in any circle. ♦Baden.
Württemberg.♦ Two Swabian principalities, the mark of Baden, and Württemberg, first county and then duchy, came gradually to the first place in this region. As such they still remain, preserving in some sort a divided representation of the old Swabia.

Two important parts of the old kingdom, two circles of the division of Maximilian, still remain. These are the lands which form the circles of Burgundy and Austria. These are lands which have, in earlier or later times, wholly fallen off from the German Kingdom. ♦Circle of Austria.♦ The Austrian circle was formed of the lands in southern Germany which gradually gathered in the hands of the second Austrian dynasty, the House of Habsburg. ♦Growth of the House of Austria.♦ Starting from the original mark on the Hungarian frontier, those lands grew, first into a great German, and then into a great European, power, and the latest changes have made even their German lands politically non-German. The growth of the Austrian House will therefore be properly dealt with in a separate section. ♦Extent of its German lands.♦ It is enough to say here that the Austrian dominion in Germany gradually took in, besides the original duchy, the south-eastern duchies of Steiermark or Styria, Kärnthen or Carinthia, and Krain or Carniola, with the Italian borderlands of Görz, Aquileia, and part of Istria. ♦Tyrol.♦ Joined to these by a kind of geographical isthmus, like that which joins Silesia and Brandenburg, lay the western possessions of the house, the Bavarian county of Tyrol and various outlying strips and points of lands in Swabia and Elsass. ♦Loss of Swabian lands.♦ The growth of the Confederates cut short the Swabian possessions of Austria, as the later cession to France cut short its Alsatian possessions. Still a Swabian remnant remained down to the dissolution of the Kingdom. ♦Bohemia and its dependencies.♦ The kingdom of Bohemia, with the dependent lands of Moravia and Silesia, though held by the Archdukes of Austria and giving them electoral rank, was not included in any German circle. ♦Trent and Brixen.♦ The Austrian circle moreover was not wholly made up of the dominions of the Austrian house; besides some smaller territories it also took in the bishoprics of Trent and Brixen on the debateable frontier of Italy and old Bavaria.

The Burgundian circle was the last and the strangest use of the Burgundian name. ♦Dominion of the Valois Dukes within the Empire.♦ It consisted of those parts of the dominions of the Dukes of Burgundy of the House of Valois which remained to their descendants of the House of Austria at the time of the division into circles. These did not all lie strictly within the boundaries of the German kingdom. ♦The Imperial Netherlands.♦ Within that kingdom indeed lay the Northern Netherlands, the Frisian lands of Holland, Zealand, and West-Friesland, as also Brabant and other Lotharingian lands. ♦County of Burgundy.♦ But the circle also took in the County of Burgundy or Franche Comté, part of the old kingdom of Burgundy, and lastly Flanders and Artois, lands beyond the bounds of the Empire. ♦Flanders and Artois released from homage to France, 1526.♦ These were fiefs of France which were released from their homage to that crown by the treaty between Charles the Fifth and Francis the First of France. The Burgundian circle thus took in all the Imperial fiefs of the Valois dukes, together with a small part of their French fiefs. As all, or nearly all, of these lands altogether fell away from the German kingdom, and as those parts of them which now form the two kingdoms of the Low Countries have a certain historical being of their own, it will be well to keep their more detailed mention also for a special section.

§ 2. The Confederation and Empire of Germany.

Our survey in the last section has carried us down to the beginning of the changes which led to the break-up of the old German Kingdom. Germany is the only land in history which has changed from a kingdom to a confederation. ♦Sketch of the process, 1806-1815.♦ The tie which bound the vassal princes to the king became so lax that it was at last thrown off altogether. In this process foreign invasion largely helped. Between the two processes of foreign war and domestic disintegration, a chaotic time followed, in which boundaries were ever shifting and new states were ever rising and falling. ♦The German Bund, 1815.♦ In the end, nearly all the lands which had formed the old kingdom came together again, with new names and boundaries, as members of a lax Confederation. ♦The new Confederation and Empire, 1866-1871.♦ The latest events of all have driven the former chief of the Confederation beyond its boundaries; they have joined its other members together by a much closer tie; they have raised the second member of the former Confederation to the post of perpetual chief of the new Confederation, and they have further clothed him with the Imperial title. ♦The new Empire still federal.♦ But it must be remembered that the modern Empire of Germany is still a Federal state. Its chief bears the title of Emperor; still the relation is federal and not feudal. The lesser members of the Empire are not vassals of the Emperor, as they were in the days of the old kingdom. They are states bound to him and to one another by a tie which is purely federal. That the state whose prince holds Imperial rank far surpasses any of its other members in extent and power is an important political fact; but it does not touch the federal position of all the states of the Empire, great and small. Reuss-Schleiz is not a vassal of Prussia; it is a member of a league in which the voice of Prussia naturally goes for more than the voice of Reuss-Schleiz. ♦Wars of the French Revolution, 1793-1814.♦ The dissolution of the German kingdom, and with it the wiping out of the last tradition of the Roman Empire, cannot be separated from the history of wars of the French Revolution which went before it, and which indeed led to it. For our purely geographical purpose, we must distinguish the changes which directly affected the German kingdom from those which affected the Austrian states, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, lands which have now a separate historic being from Germany. ♦War between France and the Empire, 1793-1801.♦ The last war which the Empire as such waged with France was the eight years’ war which was ended by the Peace of Luneville. ♦The left bank of the Rhine ceded by the Peace of Luneville, 1801.♦ By that peace, all Germany on the left bank on the Rhine was ceded to France. What a sacrifice this was we at once see, when we bear in mind that it took in the three metropolitan cities of Köln, Mainz, and Trier, the royal city of Aachen, and the famous bishoprics of Worms and Speyer. ♦The Reichs­deputations­haupt­schluss, 1803.♦ A number of princes thus lost all or part of their dominions, and it was presently agreed that they should compensate themselves within the lands which remained to the kingdom at the expense of the free cities and the ecclesiastical princes. ♦End of the Ecclesiastical principalities.♦ The great German hierarchy of princely bishops and abbots now came to an end, with a solitary exception. ♦The Prince-Primate of Regensburg.♦ As the ancient metropolis of Mainz had passed to France, the see of its archbishop was removed to Regensburg, where, under the title of Prince-Primate, he remained an Elector and Arch-Chancellor of the Empire. ♦Salzburg a secular electorate.♦ Salzburg became a secular electorate. ♦The Free Cities.♦ The other ecclesiastical states were annexed by the neighbouring princes, and of the free cities six only were left. These were the Hanseatic towns of Lübeck, Bremen, and Hamburg, and the inland towns of Frankfurt, Nürnberg, and Augsburg. ♦New Electorates.♦ Besides Salzburg, three new Electorates arose, Württemberg, Baden, and Hessen-Cassel. None of these new Electors ever chose any King or Emperor. ♦Peace of Pressburg, 1805.
Kingdom of Württemberg and Bavaria.♦ The next war led to the Peace of Pressburg, in which the Electors of Bavaria, Württemberg, and Baden appear as allies of France, and by which those of Bavaria and Württemberg are acknowledged as Kings. ♦They divide the western lands of Austria.♦ Austria was now wholly cut off from south-western Germany. Württemberg and Baden divided her Swabian possessions, while Tyrol, Trent, Brixen, together with the free city of Augsburg, fell to the lot of Bavaria. ♦Grand Duchy of Würzburg.♦ Austria received Salzburg; its prince removed himself and his electorate to Würzburg, and a Grand Duchy of Würzburg was formed to compensate its Elector.

These were the last changes which took place while any shadow of the old Kingdom and Empire lasted. ♦Title of ‘Emperor of Austria.’♦ The reigning King of Germany and Emperor-elect, Francis King of Hungary and Bohemia and Archduke of Austria, had already begun to call himself ‘Hereditary Emperor of Austria.’ In the treaty of Pressburg he is described by the strange title, unheard of before or after, of ‘Emperor of Germany and Austria,’ and the Empire itself is spoken of as a ‘Germanic Confederation.’ These formulæ were prophetic. ♦The Confederation of the Rhine, July 12, 1806.♦ The next year a crowd of princes renounced their allegiance, and formed themselves into the Confederation of the Rhine under the protectorate of France. ♦Dissolution of the Empire, August 6, 1806.♦ The formal dissolution of the Empire followed at once. The succession which had gone on from Augustus ended; the work of Charles the Great was undone. Instead of the Frank ruling over Gaul, the Frenchman ruled over Germany. ♦Repeated changes, 1806-1811.♦ A time of confusion followed, in which boundaries were constantly shifting, states were constantly rising and falling, and new portions of German ground were being constantly added to France. ♦Germany in 1811-1813.♦ At the time of the greatest extent of French dominion, the political state of Germany was on this wise. ♦Territories of Denmark and Sweden.♦ The dissolution of the Empire had released all its members from their allegiance, and the German possessions of the Kings of Denmark and Sweden had been incorporated with their several kingdoms. ♦Losses of Prussia and Austria.♦ Hannover was wholly lost to its island sovereign; seized and lost again more than once by Prussia and by France, it passed at last wholly into the hands of the foreign power. Prussia had lost, not only its momentary possession of Hannover, but also everything west of the Elbe. Austria had yielded Salzburg to Bavaria, and part of her own south-western territory in Krain and Kärnthen had passed to France under the name of the Illyrian Provinces. ♦Annexations to France.♦ France too, beside all the lands west of the Rhine, had incorporated East Friesland, Oldenburg, part of Hannover, and the three Hanseatic cities. ♦Confederation of the Rhine.♦ The remaining states of Germany formed the Confederation of the Rhine. The chief among these were the four Kingdoms of Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony, and Westfalia. ♦Kingdoms of Saxony and Westfalia.♦ Saxony had become a kingdom under its own Elector presently after the dissolution of the Empire: the new-made kingdom of Westfalia had a French king in Jerome Buonaparte. ♦Grand Duchy of Frankfurt.♦ Besides Mecklenburg, Baden—now a Grand Duchy—Berg, Nassau, Hessen, and other smaller states, there were now among its members the Grand Duchy of Würzburg, and also a Grand Duchy of Frankfurt, the possession of the Prince Primate, once of Mainz, afterwards of Regensburg. ♦Germany wiped out.♦ We may say with truth that during this time Germany had ceased to exist; its very name had vanished from the map of Europe.

Prussia was a power so thoroughly German that the fate even of its non-German possessions cannot well be separated from German geography. ♦The Kingdom of Prussia cut short, 1807.♦ The same blow which cut short the old electorate of Brandenburg no less cut short the kingdom of Prussia in its Polish acquisitions. ♦Commonwealth of Danzig.♦ West-Prussia only was left, and even here Danzig was cut off to form a separate republic. ♦Duchy of Warsaw, 1806-1814.♦ The other Polish territories of Prussia formed the Duchy of Warsaw, which was held by the new King of Saxony. ♦Position of Silesia.♦ Silesia thus fell back again on its half-isolated position, all the more so as it lay between the German and the Polish possessions of the Saxon king. The territory left to Prussia was now wholly continuous, without any outlying possessions; but the length of its frontier and the strange irregularity of its shape on the map were now more striking than ever.

The liberation of Germany and the fall of Buonaparte brought with it a complete reconstruction of the German territory. ♦The German Confederation, 1815.♦ Germany again arose, no longer as an Empire or Kingdom, but as a lax Confederation. Austria, the duchy whose princes had been so often chosen Emperors, became its presiding state. The boundaries of the new Confederation differed but slightly from those of the old Kingdom; but the internal divisions had greatly changed. ♦Princes holding lands both within the Confederation and out of it.♦ Once more a number of princes held lands both in Germany and out of it. The so-called ‘Emperor’ of Austria, the Kings of Prussia, Denmark, and the Netherlands, became members of the Confederation for those parts of their dominions which had formerly been states of the Empire. In the like sort, the King of Great Britain and Ireland, having recovered his continental dominions, entered the Confederation by the title of King of Hannover. ♦Kingdom of Hannover, 1815-1866.♦ This new kingdom was made up of the former electorate with some additions, including East-Friesland. ♦Increase of the Prussian territory.
Dismemberment of Saxony.♦ In other parts the Prussian territories were largely increased. Magdeburg and Halberstadt were recovered. Swedish Pomerania was added to the rest of the ancient duchy; and, more important than this, a large part of the kingdom of Saxony, including the greater part of Lausitz and the formerly outlying-land of Cottbus, was incorporated with Prussia. This change, which made the Saxon kingdom far smaller than the old electorate, altogether put an end to the peninsular position of Silesia, even as regarded the strictly German possessions of Prussia. ♦Posen.♦ The kingdom was at the same time rendered more compact by the recovery of part of its Polish possessions under the name of the Grand Duchy of Posen. In western Germany again Prussia now made great acquisitions. ♦Rhenish and Westfalian territory.♦ Its old outlying Rhenish and Westfalian possessions grew into a large and tolerably compact territory, though lying isolated from the great body of the monarchy. The greater part of the territory west of the Rhine which had been ceded to France now became Prussian, including the cities of Köln, no longer a metropolitan see, Trier, Münster, and Paderborn. The main part of the Prussian possessions thus consisted of two detached masses, of very unequal size, but which seemed to crave for a closer geographical union. ♦Neufchâtel.♦ The Principality of Neufchâtel, which made the Prussian king a member of the Swiss Confederation, will be mentioned elsewhere.

Of the other powers which entered the Confederation for the German parts of their dominions, but which also had territories beyond the Confederation, Austria recovered Salzburg, Tyrol, Trent, and Brixen, together with the south-eastern lands which had passed to France. Thus the territory of the Confederation, like that of the old Kingdom, again reached to the Hadriatic. ♦Possession of Denmark.
Holstein and Lauenburg.♦ Denmark entered the Confederation for Holstein, and for a new possession, that of Lauenburg, the duchy which in a manner represented ancient Saxony. ♦Luxemburg.♦ The King of the Netherlands entered the Confederation for the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, part of which however was cut off to be added to the Rhenish possessions of Prussia. ♦Sweden gives up Pomerania.♦ Sweden, by the cession of its last remnant of Pomerania, ceased altogether to be a German power.

There were thus five powers whose dominions lay partly within the Confederation, partly out of it. ♦Prussia the greatest German Power.♦ In the case of one of these, that of Prussia, the division of German and non-German territory was purely formal. Prussia was practically a purely German power, and the greatest of purely German powers. ♦Austria.♦ Her rival Austria stood higher in formal rank in the Confederation, and ruled over a much greater continuous territory; but here the distinction between German and non-German lands was really practical, as later events have shown. ♦Comparison of the position of Austria and Prussia.♦ It has been found possible to shut out Austria from Germany. To shut out Prussia would have been to abolish Germany altogether. ♦Hannover.♦ Hannover, though under a common sovereign with Great Britain, was so completely cut off from Great Britain, and had so little influence on British politics, that it was practically as much a purely German state before its separation from Great Britain as it was afterwards. ♦Holstein and Luxemburg.♦ In the cases of Denmark and the Netherlands, princes the greater part of whose territories lay out of Germany held adjoining territories in Germany. Here then were materials for political questions and difficulties; and in the case of Denmark, these questions and difficulties became of the highest importance.

Among those members of the Confederation, whose territory lay wholly within Germany, the Kingdom of Bavaria stood first. Its newly acquired lands to the south were given back to Austria; but it made large acquisitions to the north-east. Modern Bavaria consists of a large mass of territory, Bavarian, Swabian, and Frankish, counting within its boundaries the famous cities of Augsburg and Nürnberg and the great bishoprics of Bamberg and Würzburg. ♦Her Rhenish territory.♦ Besides this, Bavaria recovered a considerable part of the ancient Palatinate west of the Rhine, which adds Speyer to the list of Bavarian cities. ♦Württemberg.
Saxony.♦ The other states which bore the kingly title, Württemberg and the remnant of Saxony, were of much smaller extent. Saxony however kept a position in many ways out of all proportion to the narrowed extent of its geographical limits. Württemberg, increased by various additions from the Swabian lands of Austria and from other smaller principalities, had, though the smallest of kingdoms, won for itself a much higher position than had been held by its former Counts and Dukes. ♦Baden.♦ Along with them might be ranked the Grand Duchy of Baden, with its strange irregular frontier, taking in Heidelberg and Constanz. ♦Hessen.♦ Among a crowd of smaller states stand out the two Hessian principalities, the Grand Duchy of Hessen-Darmstadt, and Hessen-Cassel, whose prince still kept the title of Elector, and the Grand Duchy of Nassau. ♦Oldenburg.♦ The Grand Duchy of Oldenburg nearly divided the Kingdom of Hannover into two parts. ♦Anhalt.♦ The principalities of Anhalt stretched into the Prussian territory between Halberstadt and the newly-won Saxon lands. ♦Brunswick.♦ The Duchy of Brunswick helped to divide the two great masses of Prussian territory. ♦Mecklenburg.♦ In the north Mecklenburg remained, as before, unequally divided between the Grand Dukes of Schwerin and Strelitz. Germany was thus thoroughly mapped out afresh. Some of the old names had vanished; some had got new meanings. The greater states, with the exception of Saxony, became greater. A crowd of insignificant principalities passed away. Another crowd of them remained, especially the smaller Saxon duchies in the land which had once been Thuringian. But, if we look to two of the most characteristic features of the old Empire, we shall find that one has passed away for ever, while the other was sadly weakened. ♦No ecclesiastical principality.♦ No ecclesiastical principality revived in the new state of things. ♦Lüttich added to Belgium.♦ The territory of one of the old bishoprics, that of Lüttich, formerly absorbed by France, now passed wholly away from Germany, and became part of the new kingdom of Belgium. ♦The four Free Cities.♦ Of the free cities four did revive, but four only. The three Hanse Towns, no longer included in French departments, and Frankfurt, no longer a Grand Duchy, entered the Confederation as independent commonwealths. ♦Revival of German national life.♦ Germany, for a while utterly crushed, had come to life again; she had again reached a certain measure of national unity, which could hardly fail to become closer.[14]

The Confederation thus formed lasted, with hardly any change that concerns geography, till the war of 1866. ♦Division of Luxemburg, 1831.♦ The Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, which had, by the arrangements of 1815, been held by the King of the Netherlands as a member of the German Confederation, was, on the separation of Belgium and the Netherlands, cut into two parts. Part was added to Belgium; another part, though quite detached from the kingdom of the Netherlands, was held by its king as a member of the Confederation. In 1839 he also entered it for the Duchy of Limburg. ♦War in Sleswick and Holstein, 1848-1851.♦ The internal movements which began in 1848, and the war in Sleswick and Holstein which began in the same time, led to no lasting geographical changes. In 1849 the Swabian principalities of Hohenzollern were joined to the Prussian crown. ♦Cession of the Duchies to Austria and Prussia, 1864.♦ The last Danish war ended by the cession of Sleswick and Holstein, together with Lauenburg, to Prussia and Austria jointly, an arrangement in its own nature provisional. Austria ceded her right in Lauenburg to Prussia in the next year, and in the next year again came the Seven Weeks’ War, and the great geographical changes which followed it. ♦Abolition of the Confederation.
Exclusion of Austria.
North-German Confederation.
Cession of Sleswick and Holstein to Prussia, 1866.♦ The German Confederation was abolished; Austria was shut out from all share in German affairs, and she ceded her joint right in Sleswick and Holstein to Prussia. ♦Prussian annexations.♦ The Northern states of Germany became a distinct Confederation under the presidency of Prussia, whose immediate dominion was increased by the annexation of the kingdom of Hannover, the duchy of Nassau, the electorate of Hessen, and the city of Frankfurt. The States south of the Main, Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, and the southern part of Hessen-Darmstadt, remained for a while outside of the new League. ♦All the Prussian lands admitted to the Confederation.♦ The non-German dominions of Prussia, Prussia strictly so called with the Polish duchy of Posen and the newly acquired land of Sleswick, were now incorporated with the Confederation; on the other hand, all that Austria had held within the Confederation was now shut out of it. ♦Settlement of Luxemburg, 1867.♦ Luxemburg also was not included in the new League, and, after some disputes, it was in the next year recognized as a neutral territory under its own duke the King of the Netherlands. ♦Liechtenstein.♦ The little principality of Liechtenstein was perhaps forgotten altogether; but, as not being included in the Confederation, nor yet incorporated with anything else, it must be looked on as becoming an absolutely independent state. ♦Great geographical changes, 1866.♦ Thus the geographical frontiers of Germany underwent, at a single blow, changes as great as they had undergone in the wars of the French Revolution. The geography of the presiding power of the new League was no less changed.

That extraordinary extent of frontier which had hitherto been characteristic of Prussia was not wholly taken away by the new annexations, but it was greatly lessened. The kingdom, as a kingdom, is made far more compact, and the two great detached masses in which it formerly lay are now joined together. Moreover, the geographical character of Prussia becomes of much less political importance, now that her frontier marches to so great an extent on the smaller members of the League of which she is herself President. ♦War with France, 1870-1871.
The German Empire.
Incorporation of the Southern states.♦ Next came the war with France, the first effect of which was the incorporation of the southern states of Germany with the new League, which presently took the name of an Empire, with the Prussian King as hereditary Emperor. ♦Recovery of Elsass-Lothringen, 1871.♦ Then by the peace with France, nearly the whole of Elsass and part of Lotharingia, including the cities of Strassburg and Metz, were restored to Germany. They have, under the name of Elsass-Lothringen, become an Imperial territory, forming part of the Empire and owning the sovereignty of the Emperor, but not becoming part of the kingdom of Prussia or of any other German state. ♦The Imperial title.♦ The assumption of the Imperial title could hardly be avoided in a confederation whose constitution was monarchic, and which numbered kings among its members. No title but Emperor could have been found to express the relation between the presiding chief and the lesser sovereigns.