to control the Russian foreign policy. Nesselrode for
forty years was the Foreign Minister of the Tsar, although he only
spoke German and did not know a word of Russian. Nicholas I. and
Alexander II., with unswerving loyalty, supported the interests of
their Prussian brother-in-law and nephew.

On two occasions the Russian Tsars actually saved the Hohenzollern
from complete destruction. In 1761, when Russian armies occupied
Berlin, an apologetic Tsar begged to be forgiven for daring to
vanquish his illustrious cousin. In 1807, at Tilsit, Prussia was only
saved from dismemberment through the quixotic intervention of Tsar
Alexander I. And the Russian Tsar proved so powerless against
Prussian intrigues that, although Alexander I. had concluded a close
alliance with Napoleon, the German-Russian Court at St. Petersburg
boycotted Napoleon's Ambassador, Savary, and eventually succeeded in
breaking the Franco-Russian coalition.

But the Hohenzollerns did not only wage a predatory war for conquest
and spoliation. Their methods have been as predatory as their aims.
War to them was not merely a policy. It was a business, and often a
lucrative business. In the Middle Ages war had been largely a trade. A
huge commerce in prisoners was transacted, and an enterprising Italian
Condottiere would often recoup himself through the ransom of one
single rich prisoner. The Prussians have continued those medieval
methods until this day. _Treitschke lays it down in his "Politik" that
war must be made to pay, and need not exhaust a Prussian Treasury._

The poor Belgians to-day are learning to their cost the full meaning
of those Prussian predatory methods. The Prussian invaders are
extorting millions of money, as well as enormous food-supplies, from a
starving people. They are dislocating whatever remains of the internal
trade. They are breaking up thousands of miles of Belgian railways,
and they are sending them to the Polish theatre of war. But, brutally
as the poor Belgians have been treated, one shudders to think of the
cruelty and the greed of the Prussian in the new conquered Russian
territories, and of the pitiful plight of the Poles and the
Lithuanians.

IX.--PRUSSIA AS A FEUDAL STATE.

Prussia in her fiscal and commercial policy may be called a typical
modern State. The Hohenzollerns have been compelled to utilize all the
resources of commerce and industry, not because they are liberal or
progressive, but merely in order to incr