Produced by Al Haines A SHORT HISTORY OF GERMANY BY MARY PLATT PARMELE NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1898 COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY MARY PLATT PARMELE COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ A SHORT HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND A SHORT HISTORY OF FRANCE A SHORT HISTORY OF GERMANY A SHORT HISTORY OF SPAIN PREFACE. It is more important to comprehend the forces which have created a great nation, and the progressive steps by which it has unfolded, than to know the multitudinous events and incidents which have attended such unfolding. In order to forestall criticism for the absence of some events in this History of Germany the author desires to say, that there has been an effort to keep strictly to the main line of development and to resist the temptation of introducing details which do not bear directly upon such line. The bypaths of history are fascinating, but they are of secondary importance, and may better be explored after the main road has been traveled and is thoroughly known. Such is the ideal which has been very imperfectly followed in this book. M. P. P. NEW YORK, _June_ 21, 1897. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Indo-European Migrations--Divisions of the Aryan Family into European Races--The Teutonic Race CHAPTER II. Hermann--Defeat of Varus--Characteristics of the Ancient Germans CHAPTER III. Social Conditions--Form of Government--The Goth in Rome--A Gothic Kingdom in Spain--The Teuton Race Covering the European Surface--The Angles and Saxons in Britain CHAPTER IV. Ulfilas--The Hunnish Invasion--The Roman Empire Perishing--Its Conversion--An Eastern Empire--Increasing Power of the Church--Charlemagne--France and Germany Separated--Feudal System CHAPTER V. Early Conditions--Hungarian Invasions--Creation of Burgs--Knighthood--Pope and Emperor Become Rivals--Henry IV.--Canossa--First Hohenstaufen--Welf and Waiblingen--The Crusaders--Conrad--Frederick Barbarossa CHAPTER VI. Source of Weakness in the Empire--The Great Interregnum--The Nibelungen Lied--The Hanseatic League--The Guilds--Meistersingers CHAPTER VII. Conditions--First Hapsburg and First Hohenzollern--Swiss Freedom--Intellectual Awakening--The Golden Bull--Hussite War--A Hohenzollern Receives a Mortgage on the Territory of Brandenburg--Discovery of Gunpowder--Conditions Existing under Frederick III.--Invention of Printing--The Passing of the Old and Coming of the New CHAPTER VIII. General European Conditions--Centralizing Tendencies at Work--Maximilian I.--A New World--The Rise of Spain--Isabella--Charles IV. CHAPTER IX.