em, grew in importance and
influence until the offices tended to become hereditary. Gradually the
country was divided into principalities, each of which maintained a
force of arms. This limited form of military rule maintained for several
centuries of troublesome times, or until about 1412, when Emperor
Sigismund appointed Burgrave Frederick, of Nuremberg, "Stratt-halter,"
or vice-regent.

BIRTH OF THE MILITARY SPIRIT.

This appointment marked the establishment of the Hohenzollerns in
Brandenburg, and, in fine, fixes the birth of the military spirit in
Germany.

Other princes of the German Reich maintained armies, but the
Hohenzollerns were destined to imprint upon the nation the military
ideal. In the beginning history says that Burgrave Frederick tried all
the arts of peace, but it was only with the army of Franks and some
artillery that he was able to batter down the castles of the robber
lords and bring order into Brandenburg.

Thomas Carlyle gives a list of twelve electors who strove in turn to
consolidate the power of Prussia, so that when Frederick the Great
became King of Prussia he found much of the work done. Among the rulers
of these strenuous days to whom the Kaiser Wilhelm may point as having
handed down to him the warlike spirit are Kurfuerst Joachim I, of
Brandenburg (1529), who introduced Roman law and established a supreme
court for all the provinces at Berlin; Kurfuerst Joachim II, of
Brandenburg (1542), whom history describes as an unscrupulous despot,
fond of luxury and display, and who changed his religion because it was
an advantage politically for him to do so; Margrave Georg Frederick von
Ansbach (1564), who caused the eyes of sixty peasants to be bored out
upon winning the Peasants' war, and Kurfuerst Frederick William der
Grosse, of Brandenburg (1652), known as the "Great Elector," a fighter,
who had two clearly defined aims: to build up agriculture and maintain a
big army.

For years the Hohenzollerns and their aides were fighting unfriendly
neighbors and quarrelsome princes, and when after the lapse of time the
Thirty Years' War finally turned Germany into a field of blood, the
Great Elector emerged from the strife with the support of about 25,000
well drilled soldiers, and freed his country from foreign foes.

HELD EUROPE AT HIS MERCY.

The establishment of the power of the Junkers--the autocrats of
Prussianism--is credited to Frederick the Great, who was the great
drillmaster