File:Modern history; Europe (1904) (14762636251).jpg

Identifier: modernhistoryeur00west (find matches)
Title: Modern history; Europe
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: West, Willis Mason, 1857- (from old catalog)
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Publisher: Boston, Allyn and Bacon
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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on the east, as France did on the west. Plainly thetrue policy of the Germans, early and late, would have been the honestone of supporting the buffer states — Poland and Charles the BoldsBurgundy — against the greed of Russia and France. Failure to do sohas left Germany exposed to immediate attack by powerful enemies andhas compelled her to build up artificial frontiers of fortresses and bayonets. 279. The True Greatness of Frederick.—Frederick II hadshown himself unscrupulous in diplomacy and a genius in war;but there was another side to his life, which, more properlythan either war or diplomacy, earns him his title of theGreat. Most of his forty-six years reign was passed in peace,and he proved a father to his people. All the beneficent workof the G-reat Elector (§ 273) was taken up and carried forwardvigorously. Prussia was transformed. Wealth and comfortincreased by great leaps. The condition of the peasantry wasimproved, and the administration in all its branches was made
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298 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. (§280 economical and efficient. Frederick was also an author anda patron of literature; and he is a type of the crowned phi-losophers, or beneficent despots/ who sat upon the thronesof Europe in the latter half of the eighteenth century, justbefore the French Kevolution. Under the influence of a newenlightened sentiment, created by a remarkable school ofFrench writers (§ 302), government underwent a marvelouschange. It was just as aristocratic as before, — no more bythe people than before, — but despots did try to govern for thepeople, not for themselves. Sovereigns began to speak ofthemselves, not as privileged proprietors, but, in Fredericksphrase, as the first servants of their states.1 280. The Benevolent Despots. — Frederick of Prussia, Cath-erine of Eussia, Charles III of Spain, Leopold of Tuscany,Ferdinand of Naples, Joseph II of Austria, all belonged to theclass of philosophic, liberal-minded, benevolent despots ofthis age. In Sweden and Por

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