He was somewhat like Philip of Macedon also; for he conceived the idea of making his army according to a certain pattern, novel at that time, though considerably like the pattern that Philip had employed. The likeness was in so organizing and training the soldiers that a regiment or division could be handled like a coherent and even rigid thing, directed accurately and quickly at a pre-determined point, and made to hit an enemy at that point with a force somewhat like the blow of an enormous club. He succeeded during his reign of twenty-seven years in developing his conception into such a perfect and concrete reality, that he was able on his death in 1740 to bequeath to his son a veritable military machine--the first since the days of Rome. These two Frederick Williams were inventors in the broad sense of the word, and made inventions that have had an influence on history since they died, as great as that of almost any other contemporary inventions that can be specified. Their immediate influence was to make it possible for the son of King Frederick William, Frederick the Great, to put Prussia in the first rank among the nations, and to lay the foundations of the German Empire. It may be objected that the ultimate result was not extremely great, after all, because the German Empire fell in 1918. To this possible objection, it may be answered that, nevertheless, the doings of Prussia and the German Empire have had an enormous influence up to the present time; and that, though the empire itself has ceased, the influence of its policies and doctrines, of its military system, and, above all, of its doctrine of efficiency in government has not ceased, and shows no signs of ceasing. Besides, _history still is young_. Frederick the Great made no inventions in improving the military machine bequeathed him; but he did operate it with inventiveness, daring and success. He showed these qualities in his actual operations in the field; but he showed inventiveness in an equal degree before those operations took place, in the plans which he prepared. As a tactician, Frederick could hardly help being good, in view of the training he had received and the military atmosphere in which he had been born and bred. But no amount of training could have given Frederick the brilliant and yet correct imagination that enabled him to see entire situations clearly and accurately with his mental eye; that enabled him to form a correct picture of the mission in each case, the difficulties in the way of accomplishing it, and the facilities available for his use. And, equally, no amount of training or knowledge or experience could of themselves have given him the constructive ability necessary to build up such plans as he built up, for accomplishing the mission with the facilities available and in spite of the difficulties.