Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 07.djvu/445

PRUSSIA 369 PRUTH pointed by the king and holding office at his pleasure. Prussia was proclaimed a republic on Nov. 13, 1918. A new con- stitution was adopted in April, 1920. Under it every citizen over 20 years of age became a voter, the term of parlia- ment was set at 4 years, and the powers of the former king were transferred to the ministry. In 1919 the revenue and expenditures were each estimated at 6,- 546,699,278 marks. The public debt on April 1, 1919, was 14,724,436,874 marks. Histwy. — The rise of the Prussian power has been rapid and extraordinary. The kings of Prussia trace their origin to Count Thassilo of Zollern, one of the generals of Charlemagne. His suc- cessor, Count Friederich I,, built the family castle of Hohenzollern, near the Danube, in the year 980. A subsequent Zollern, or Hohenzollern, Friederich III., was elevated to the rank of a prince of the Holy Roman empire, in 1273, and received the burgraviate of Nuremberg in fief; and his great-grandson, Fried- erich VI. was invested by the Emperor Sigismund, in 1411, with the province of Brandenburg, and obtained the rank of Elector in 1417. In 1608-1619 the duchy of Prussia was united, to the electorate of Brandenburg, the terri- tories of which had been greatly ex- tended by the valor and wisdom of Fried- erich Wilhelm, "the Great Elector," under whose fostering care arose the first standing army in central Europe. Dy- ing in 1688, he left the province to his son, Frederick I., who assumed the crown at Konigsberg, Jan, 18, 1701. Pome- rania was soon after added to Prussia. When Frederick the Great (q. v.) as- cended the throne in 1740, his disjointed dominions did not contain 2,500,000 in- habitants, and these had made but little progfress in the arts, or in the accumula- tion of wealth. But before his death, in 1786, Prussia had been increased in size nearly half; while the population had in- creased to about 6,000,000. Prussia ac- quired, by the subsequent partition of Poland in 1792, and its final dismember- ment in 1795, a great extension of terri- tory, and upward of 2,000,000 inhabi- tants. Her disastrous contest with France in 1806 lowered Prussia for a while; but after Napoleon's Russian campaign, the people rose en masse, and drove the French out of Germany. At the general peace of 1815, Prussia re- covered all her former possessions^ (ex- cept a portion of her Polish dominions), and gained valuable acquisitions. After the accession, in 1862, of King William I., the executive government presided over by Count von Bismarck (g. v.), made laws, and even decreed budget es- timates, without the concurrence of the chambers. In 1864, Prussia, conjointly with Austria, sent an army to occupy the duchy of Schleswig-Holstein. A war with Denmark followed, which resulted in the annexation of that duchy to Prus- sia. In 1866, Hanover and Saxony were occupied by the Prussian troops, and a war followed with those kingdoms and with Austria, in which, after a brilliant campaign of two weeks, the latter power was obliged to sue for peace, and relin- quish her claims as a German power. In addition, Saxony was left a mere nominal sovereignty under the control of Prussia, while Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, and the former free city of Frankfort-on-the-Main became absorbed in the Prussian monarchy. In August, 1870, Napoleon III. declared war against Prussia, and the French armies marched toward the Rhine. An alliance having been entered into between Prussia and the southern German powers of Bavaria, Wiirttemberg, and Baden, their combined forces crossed the Rhine into France. The part of Prussia in the Franco-Prussian war is inextricably in- volved with that of the whole German nation. The conflict seemed to precipi- tate the solution of the question which had always been the aim of the king and Bismarck, German unity under Prussian leadership. On Jan. 18, 1871, King Wil- liam was crowned at Versailles as Em- peror of Germany, and on March 21, the first German Reichstag assembled at Berlin. The history of Prussia since is that of Germany (g. v.). Kings of Prussia. (House of Hohenzollern.) Frederick I. Date of accession 1701 Frederick William I. " " 1713 Frederick II. ("The Great") " " 1740 Frederick William II. " " 1786 Frederick WilHam III. " " 1797 Frederick William IV. " " 1840 WiUiam I., 1861; Frederick III., 1888; William II. 1888. PRUSSIAN BLUE, a cyanide of iron (FcrCyis) possessed of a deep-blue color, and much used as a pigment. It is also used in medicine. PRUSSIAN BROWN, a color obtained by adding a solution of the yellow prus- siate of polish to a solution of sulphate of copper, which throws down a precipi- tate of deep brown. This, when washed and dried, is equal to madder, and pos- sesses greater permanency. PRUSSIC ACID, a name given to hy- drocyanic acid because it was first ob- tained from Prussian blue. PRUTH, a left-hand affluent of the Danube, rising in the S. E. of Austrian Galicia, on the N. E. side of the Car- pathian Mountains, and flowing E. past