Photo, Topical Press.
On a lofty, lonely crag, amidst the wilds of Swabia,[27] stands the picturesque castle of Hohenzollern, the cradle of the family from which the rulers of Prussia are descended. On this high rock the eagles formerly made their home, hence the crest of the Prussian royal family is the eagle—the boldest and fiercest of all the birds. About the middle of the twelfth century the lord of this castle, a man named Conrad, took service with the great Emperor of what was called the Holy Roman Empire—that is, with the overlord of nearly all Western Europe. Conrad served the Emperor so faithfully that as his reward he was made governor of the city of Nuremberg[28] in Bavaria. If you were to visit Nuremberg you would be charmed with the castle, now a royal palace, the ancient walls and towers, the grand old buildings, including churches which are full of priceless pictures and carvings, and the art galleries, which contain some of the best paintings of the great masters. The chief trade of Nuremberg to-day is the manufacture of toys, scientific instruments, motor cars, cycles, and beer.
About the beginning of the fifteenth century the Hohenzollern who was governor of Nuremberg was a man named Frederick. He had been very loyal to the Emperor, who rewarded him by making him ruler of the Mark of Brandenburg. The greatest day in the history of the Hohenzollerns was April 17, 1417, the day on which Frederick received from the hands of the Emperor the flag of Brandenburg, and swore to be faithful to him.
If you look at a map of Germany you will see in the middle of the North German plain the city of Berlin, the capital of the German Empire. Round about Berlin, in the valleys of the Middle Oder, and its tributary the Warthe, and in the valley of the Elbe, extends the province of Prussia, known as the Mark of Brandenburg. It was one of the first districts of Germany to be peopled by men of German race when they came advancing from the east in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but it was by no means a land flowing with milk and honey. Parts of the country were marshy or heavily wooded, and in many places the land was so thickly covered with sand that it was known as the "sandbox of the Holy Roman Empire." Thin crops of rye and oats alone could be raised on this thankless soil; nevertheless the colony prospered greatly under Frederick and his successors.
Map of Modern Germany.
The Hohenzollern prince who really founded the greatness of his house was Frederick William, who began to reign in the year 1640. He is known as the "Great Elector."[29] If I were to show you a coloured map of Germany as it was when this prince began to reign, you would say that it looked like a patchwork quilt of many colours. From the Baltic Sea to the Alps there were no fewer than three hundred states of all sorts and sizes, the smallest of them consisting only of a single town or village.
Frederick William was a very able man, and so well did he fight, and so skilfully did he plot and plan during what is known as the Thirty Years' War, that he added several of these small states to his own, and thus became master of the largest state in all Germany. Brandenburg under his rule spread out a little to the west, but a great deal to the north-east, and included a stretch of coast-line on the Baltic Sea. The present Kaiser has always revered the memory of the Great Elector. He once said: "Of all my predecessors, he is the one for whom I feel the greatest enthusiasm, and who from of old has stood before me as the example of my youth."