Prussia

a kingdom of northern Germany. It is the principal state of the German Empire. The king of Prussia is the constitutional head of the empire. Prussia extends from the Baltic to the Rhine, a distance of 700 miles. The greatest breadth from north to south is 470 miles. The kingdom is divided into fourteen provinces. It has a total area of 134,622 square miles, and its population in 1900 was 34,472,509, an average of 256.1 per square mile. The drainage is entirely into the Baltic and the North Sea. The eastern provinces occupy a low, sandy plain less than seven hundred feet above sea level. The southwestern or plateau provinces are more or less hilly and broken. The rougher sections are occupied by the Harz Mountains, the Thuringian Forest, and the mountains that border on the Rhine. Prussia is rich in coal, iron, lead, and copper. There are also supplies of cobalt and nickel, rock salt, petroleum, and peat. Agriculture and manufacturing are the principal industries.

The history of Prussia is bound up with the Hohenzollerns, an adventurous family from the Danube. In 1417 a Hohenzollern was made elector of Brandenburg. A century later the Teutonic knights made Albrecht, another Hohenzollern, grand master of Prussia, then a little province on the eastern Baltic. By marriage, the electors of Brandenburg inherited Prussia. They adopted Protestantism at an early date and acquired importance as leaders of the new faith in northern Germany.

Under the lead of able princes the history of Prussia has been one of constant encroachment on its neighbors. Territory was acquired from time to time at the expense of Pomerania, Silesia, Poland, Ansbach, Baireuth, Saxony, Rhineland, Schleswig-Holstein, and the Free Cities. Prussia declared itself a kingdom in 1701. In 1850 a constitutional form of government was adopted. Frederick Wilhelm, the great elector, created the first standing army in central Europe. Frederick William I, the second king of Prussia, amassed an immense treasure. This was utilized by Frederick the Great in wars of aggrandizement at the expense of Maria Theresa and other neighbors. At the close of the Napoleonic wars, the "Black Prussians," good fighters, were rewarded for their part by liberal slices of territory.

Prussia has taken a leading part in the support of German Protestantism, the creation of a standing army, in the development of a peasant system of compulsory education, and in the upbuilding of universities. Forestry, scientific agriculture, mining, and the application of machinery to manufacturing have received attention. While naturally the object of envy on the part of smaller states, it may be seen readily that Prussia has followed the only practical way of making Germany a great power instead of a mere geographical aggregation of petty states.

See Germany; German Empire; Ho-HENZOLLERNS; BERLIN; POTSDAM; DANZIG; HANOVER; FRANKFORT; RHINE; COLOGNE; FREDERICK THE GREAT; BISMARCK; MOLTKE; POLAND; SAXONY, etc.