Bearing in mind the scattered character of the Brandenburg possessions, a glance at the map is sufficient to show how geographical considerations dictated to the young elector his policy, and inspired his territorial ambitions. If only he could make good his claims on Pomerania, or at least on the eastern part of it, there would be nothing but the strip of west Prussia along the banks of the Vistula to separate his German dominions from his duchy of east Prussia. A successful war, or a lucky diplomatic stroke, might raise him at once into the position of the greatest power in the north. Side by side with the territorial dream went as was natural in a prince of the seventeenth century a dynastic ambition. Already events had made his dependence upon the Emperor almost nominal, the same success which won him west Prussia and united his dominions would also free him from his feudal vassalage to Poland. Once thoroughly independent of foreign authority he could turn his attention to his own subjects, and on the ruins of the effete and discredited diets raise, like Richelieu in France, a highly centralised military sovereignty in which the crown should be all in all. Such was the policy laid down for himself and his house by the Great Elector, and adhered to unflinchingly by his descendants ever since. Centralisation of the government, military rule, constant territorial aggrandisement have been the characteristics of the Prussian monarchy, and have ended in making out of the disjointed and turbulent dominions of Frederick William, a united and peaceful kingdom, which stretches from Russia to Belgium, and embraces in its ample folds the valleys of the Rhine, the Elbe, the Oder and the Vistula. [Sidenote: =Unavoidable hostility of Sweden and Poland.=]