John Knight wrote:
> "Bob" <bobx23456 at hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:3D7180FF.5020602 at hotmail.com...>>>>>John Knight wrote:
>>>>>>>"Bob" <bobx23456 at hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>>news:3D6FD54B.8070107 at hotmail.com...>>>>John Knight wrote:
>>>>>>>>>Most of the White Races of the world are descendants of the Israelites,
>>>>>>>>>Nonsense.
>>>>>>The reason the White Race in the US is referred to as "Caucasians" is
>>>because they were the Israelites who were dispersed to the Caucasus
>>>Mountains, who went from there throughout Europe.
>>>You didn't know that?
>>>John Knight
>>>>>>>LOL More nonsense!
>>>> Here, read up on the history of the Israelites, Bob.
>> John Knight
As you point out there are many peoples who made up the peoples of
ancient Europe. Calling them all "Israelites" is utter nonsense.
Bob
>>>http://www.kcnet.com/~denis/related/genealog/euro-her.htm>>>> OUR EUROPEAN HERITAGE
>>> Our family trace their roots back to the European continent. It wasn't until
> 1967, when Denis Graham, the author of this work, married Chie Abe, that the
> ancient Japanese heritage was first introduced into the family.
>> Until 10,000 B.C. Europe was dominated by the last ice age. As the great ice
> fields receded, civilizations began to form, as we understand them. Modern
> man came to Europe perhaps as long ago as 100,000 B.C. These Paleolithic
> (Old Stone Age) people were hunters and gathers, and lived in caves and
> other natural shelters. The Neolithic era (New Stone Age) began at the end
> of the last ice age, and the climate approached that of the present. The
> Neolithic people were able to begin agricultural economies to supplement and
> eventually replace hunting. Between 6,000 and 4,000 B.C. man discovered
> copper, gold, tin, and other metals. Tools could be made which were stronger
> and made tasks easier. Towns and cities grew out of villages as life became
> less of a struggle.
>> During the 3rd millennium B.C. Indo-Euopeans, from north of the Black Sea,
> spread into south-eastern Europe, introducing horses and their language to
> the region. In this area was born the Minoan and Greek cultures. With the
> coming of the Iron Age came the Celts, Slavs and Germanic peoples of central
> Europe.
>> The ancestors of our clan are predominantly of Celtic and Germanic origin.
>> THE CELTS
> The Celts, or Kelts, were really a variety of people, most of which had the
> common heritage of ancient Israel. During the Iron Age, Israelite seafarers
> traveled through the Mediterranean and settled in France, Spain, Ireland and
> even into the Scandinavian countries. Spain became known as Iberia, which is
> derived from the name Hebrew, which, itself, comes from Eber, an early
> patriarch of the Hebrew people. Gaul, which is what early France was known
> by, comes from Galatia, an early colony of Israel where their language
> became known as Gaelic, and, in fact, the Celtic language as a whole was
> known as Gaelic. Gaelic is still spoken in parts of today's Ireland and
> Scotland.
>> Denmark, the land of Dan, also comes from the ancient Israelite seafarers.
> Dan was one of the tribes of Israel. And, the northern portion of Denmark,
> still known today as Jutland, actually means "land of the Jews."
>> A later influx of Celts came into Europe from the east. These, too, were
> from the house of Israel. Decades after they were taken into captivity into
> Assyria and still long before the birth of Christ, these people began to
> migrate into southern Russia and Turkey and later entered Europe along the
> Danube river valley, occupying central Europe.
>> During the millennium before the birth of Christ, these Celts came to be the
> predominate peoples of central and western Europe. They established trade
> routes with the Etruscans, Greeks and Italians, which brought them into
> contact with the Romans, who called their lands Celtica.
>> The Celts lived in fortified villages, with a tribal organization that
> became increasingly hierarchical as wealth was acquired. Priests, nobles,
> craftsmen, and peasants were clearly distinguished, and the powers of the
> chief became king-like. The Celts believed in a demonic universe and relied
> on the ministry of the Druids.
>> Because of over population, the Celts began pushing south and east. As they
> roamed they struck terror into Europe; their very appearance generated
> fearsome legend:
> On their heads they wore helmets which posed large projecting figures
> lending the appearance of enormous stature to the wearer. Their trumpets
> were of a peculiar barbaric kind; they blew into them and produced a harsh
> sound which suited the tumult of war. Some wore iron breastplates of chain
> mail while others fought naked.
>> The Celts were highly mobile and fast. They respected nothing in their path.
> In 390 B.C. Celtic tribes sacked Rome, entered the Senate and pulled the
> Senator's beards.
>> The Celtic language was called Gaelic, from which Gaul (France) and Galacia
> (Turkey) derived their names.
>> The whole race was madly fond of war, high spirited and quick to battle, but
> otherwise straight-forward and not of evil character. They were fond of gold
> and often wove strands into their clothing.
>> The Celts, never organized into a nation, were always a series of tribes
> scattered throughout Celtica. They tried to unite when Julius Caesar invaded
> Gaul, but it was to late. They were defeated by Caesar in campaigns between
> 60 and 56 B.C.
>> After their defeat the Celtic tribes were on the decline, even though other
> Celts persisted, in mainland pockets, on the isles to the west of Europe,
> and in Scandinavia, the Roman conquest of Gaul heralded the beginning of the
> end of major Celtic European distinction. They would, however, exist and
> flourish under other names.
>> The religion of the Celts was Druidism. The druids constituted a priestly
> upper class in command of a highly ritualistic religion, which apparently
> centered on the worship of a pantheon of nature deities. Druids were also
> responsible for the education of the young and generally the intellectual
> life of the community. The druids believed in immortality of the soul and,
> apparently, its departure at death into another, not earthly, body. Their
> religious ceremonies were conducted primarily in tree groves (the oak and
> the mistletoe that grows on oaks were held sacred) and at river sources and
> beside lakes. The druids performed animal, and sometimes human, sacrifices
> and practiced divination and other forms of magic.
>> THE BRITISH ISLES
> Of our known Celtic European ancestors, most came from the British Isles of
> England, Scotland and Ireland. It is this British heritage with which we are
> most clearly associated.
>>>> England
>> The English people are of mixed origin. The ancient Britons were absorbed by
> the waves of invading Celts, Romans, Jutes, Danes, Saxons, and Normans. The
> mingling of these and other groups through the many centuries gradually
> produced the English people, culture and language.
>> England's first known inhabitants were cave dwellers who hunted and fished
> and lived under Stone Age conditions until after the year 2000 B.C. They
> were a blend of various peoples who came from the continent of Europe before
> glaciers separated the British Isles from the continent.
>> Early Israelite (Celtic) tribes came to England from Europe circa 1000 B.C.
> to 800 B.C. They knew how to make bronze and iron weapons and soon became
> dominant. They came to be known as Brythons, a corruption of the Hebrew
> terms "berith," meaning covenant, and "ish," meaning man. It was these
> Brythons after whom the Romans called the area Britain.
>> Julius Caesar landed in Britain in 55 B.C. with an army and returned with a
> larger one the next year. He defeated the Celts, but soon left. Romans did
> not return for nearly a century. In 43 A.D. Roman soldiers under Emperor
> Cladius landed in Britain and began what was to be a long occupation. It
> ended in 407, when the legions were recalled to defend Rome from the
> Visigoths. Despite more than 300 years of domination, few traces of Roman
> civilization remained in Britain, except for the fine Roman roads and the
> ruins of Roman cities.
>> Even before the Romans withdrew, Angles, Saxons (sons of Issac), and
> Jutes--Germanic Celtic tribes from north Germany and Denmark--had begun
> raiding the island. There were also invasions of Britain by the Picts from
> northwest Scotland and by the Scots from Ireland and west Scotland.
>> The Britains tried to force back the new invaders. (The King Arthur legend
> probably arose from this resistance.) However the Saxons, of which the
> Angles and Jutes are a part, became dominant. The area they won was
> eventually called Anglaland, or Englaland, from which came England. It was
> from this influx of these various Saxon tribes that the modern people of
> England arose, bringing with them their language, laws, religion, and other
> ways of life.
>> For several centuries the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes often fought each other.
> They formed a number of kingdoms: the Saxons--Wessex, the Angles--East
> Anglia, Mercia, Deira, and Bernicia. Northumbria later was formed from Deira
> and Bernicia.
>> In the ninth century, Egbert, Saxon king of Wessex, was recognized as
> overlord of the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Actually, however, he was not
> sole ruler. The task of unifying England under the West Saxon monarchy did
> not begin until the reign of Alfred the Great (871-899).
>> Vikings--Danes and Norwegians--began plundering England's coast about 787.
> By 877, Danes held East Anglica, Northumbria, and much of Mercia. In 878
> Alfred the Great of Wessex, after a great victory at Edington, compelled the
> Danes to agree to stay within the Danelaw, an area in the east.
>> Alfred's West Saxon successors finally established their supremacy over the
> Danelaw by 954, when a united England under Anglo-Saxon rule came into
> being. But in 1013 King Swein I of Denmark won control of most of England.
> His son Knut (Canute) in 1016 became the first of three Danish kings of
> England. The Danish rule ended in 1042 when Edward the Confessor, a Saxon,
> became king.
>> A struggle between the crown and the nobles developed and reached an
> important climax during the reign of King John. Enraged by John's despotic
> policies, nobles and churchmen revolted in 1215 and forced the king to issue
> the Magna Charta, or Great Charta. One of the great documents of human
> liberty, the Magna Charta set limits on the king's power in many fields, and
> established the principle that the king was subject to the law.
>> During the reign of the Plantagenet rulers, from 1154 to 1485 England
> changed a great deal. The Magna Charta was signed, Wales was won, so was
> Scotland, only to be lost again, the Hundred Year's War was fought in
> France. The Black Death, which struck England in 1348 and killed perhaps
> half the population, helped bring important social changes. The rise of
> towns and commerce brought money into free circulation, breaking down the
> manorial and feudal systems.
>> In 1447 there began a 38-year struggle for the throne between two royal
> families, the houses of Lancaster and York. This struggle, called the War of
> the Roses, took its name from the family symbols--red for Lancaster, white
> for York. It ended in 1485 when Henry Tudor of the Lancastrian party was
> crowned Henry VII. His marriage to Elizabeth of York united the rivals.
>> Henry VII regained some lost powers for the crown. Henry VIII separated
> England from the Roman Catholic church. Mary I restored Catholicism until
> her successor, Elizabeth I, again abolished the religion. During her reign
> of 45 years--the Elizabethan Era--commerce flourished. The Golden Age of
> English literature, which included Shakespeare and other great writers,
> began. The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 established England as a sea
> power.
>> Elizabeth's death in 1603 brought James VI of Scotland to the English throne
> as James I, but Scotland and England remained separate countries. James was
> the first of the Stuart line of kings. During his reign the King James
> version of the Bible was prepared, the first permanent English colony was
> established at Jamestown, Virginia, and the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth
> Rock. James I and his son, Charles I, were at odds with Parliament, which
> grew until its culmination exploded in the Great Rebellion of 1642. This led
> to the rise of the commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell and the beheading of
> Charles I.
>> The monarchy was restored in 1660 under Charles II. The union with Scotland
> came about in 1707 under Queen Anne, the last of the Stuarts. Scotland and
> England was from then known as Great Britain.
>>>> Scotland
>> The region known as Scotland was named Caledonia by the Romans in the first
> century A.D., when legions led by Gnaeus Julius Agricola pushed from what is
> now England until they reached the Firth of Forth. The Romans called all the
> people they found in the area Caledonians, though there were at least twenty
> separate tribes.
>> Eight hundred to a thousand years before the birth of Christ, Celtic tribes
> arrived in Scotland, absorbed the local population, and brought Scotland out
> of the Stone Age. The Gaelic language they brought with them is still widely
> spoken in Scotland today.
>> The Romans never conquered Scotland and withdrew their legions in 407.
> Tribes of Celtic Britons then banded together and formed the Kingdom of
> Strathclyde. Eventually four kingdoms emerged: those of the Britons, Scots,
> Picts, and Angles. The Scots were the last of these on the scene, arriving
> from Ireland as invaders early in the sixth century.
>> With them the Scots brought Christianity to the area. Soon the new religion
> spread throughout the land. The Christian religion helped to draw the four
> kingdoms closer together.
>> Beginning in the 700's, Norsemen began raiding and invading Scotland. Partly
> for this reason, Kenneth MacAlpin, king of the Scots, was made king of the
> Picts as well in 844. Malcolm II, king of the united Picts and Scots,
> defeated the Angles in 1018 and became ruler over most of Scotland.
>> Until her unification with England, Scotland and England were for the most
> part enemies. England continually pushed for its domination over Scotland.
> Eventually English began replacing Gaelic, Scottish commerce became more
> dependent on trade with England, and at the time of the unification the
> Stuarts of England were also monarchs of Scotland.
>> Under the Stuart, Queen Anne, Scotland and England united as Great Britain
> in 1707. In 1715 and again in 1745 the Scottish Jacobites tried by violence
> to bring the Stuarts back to the throne of Scotland, but failed each time.
> The last attempt, made by the followers of Bonnie Prince Charlie (Charles
> Edward Stewart) met with disaster at Culloden Moor.
>>>> Ireland
>> Ancient Israelite seafarers settled Ireland some 4,000 years ago. Later, a
> people of uncertain origin known as Picts came into northern Ireland and
> Scotland. About 700 B.C. Celts moved into Ireland, calling themselves Gaels,
> and their country Erin. The Romans called them Scots and their land Scotia
> or Hibernia (another corruption of Hebrew).
>> Ireland was divided into five tribal areas, each ruled by a king. About 200
> A.D. the king of Connacht and Meath established himself as a high king, or
> leader of the Irish kings. The sacred Hill of Tara became the capital of the
> high kingship.
>> The religion of the Gaels was Drudism. Conversion of Erie to Christianity
> began in the fifth century under Saint Patrick. Isolated from Rome, the
> Celtic church developed its own character and customs, with emphasis on
> establishment of monasteries, where Latin culture was preserved and
> encouraged.
>> By 800 the Gaels were supreme in Ireland. Shortly after 800 Norsemen began
> settling in the British Isles. Soon they established cities along the Irish
> coast--Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, and Limerick--and gained control
> over much of the country. At the battle of Clontarf in 1014 the king of
> Munster, Brian Boru, led the Irish to a decisive victory over the Norsemen.
> The Norse cities became Christianized and their people gradually assumed
> Irish speech and customs.
>> In 1170, Henry II of England, began taking over Ireland. He established many
> English nobles in Irish earldoms. He made his son, John, lord of Ireland,
> and when John succeeded to the throne in 1199 Ireland became a domain of the
> English crown.
>> It took the English 400 years to completely subdue the Irish and in 1541
> Henry VIII took the title of king of Ireland. In 1641 the Irish rebelled
> because of England's persecution of the Catholic church. The rebellion was
> finally crushed by Oliver Cromwell in 1649.
>> In 1801 Ireland was brought into the United Kingdom as equals. The potato
> famine of the 1840's reduced the Irish population from 8,000,000 to
> 6,500,000 in only seven years.
>> GERMANY
> Our Germanic ancestors came primarily from Germany, as opposed to Austria,
> Switzerland, Poland, Czecholovakia, or other areas which also have large
> Germanic stocks.
>> German legend claimed that the oldest city in Europe was Trier, founded more
> than twenty centuries before Christ by Trebeta, a son of the famous Assyrian
> King Ninus. Ninus stood for Nimrod, the founder of Nineveh, capital of
> ancient Assyria. In fact, one reads...in Trier the inscription reading,
> "Trier existed for thirteen hundred years before Rome was built."
>> Central Europe was invaded very early by peoples coming from Asia and
> Russia. There were two distinct groups, the Celts and the Teutons. The
> Celts, descendants of the "Lost Tribes of Israel," went on to conqueor and
> settle Western Europe. The Teutons, descendants of the Assyrians, conqueored
> north central Europe, today's Germany.
>> Teuton means "spear-men." The Romans, whose unaccustomed ears tried to
> translate into their own tongue the names of these fierce "Germanic"
> peoples, rendered the "Deutschen" as "Teutons, the "t" in their language
> being pronounced very similarly to the "d" in English.
>> The Romans, for all their efforts to conquer Germany between 12 BC and AD
> 16, met with only limited success. The Germans held their ground
> tenaciously, and Roman leadership varied in quality. In AD 9, German forces
> under Arminius annihilated three Roman legions in the Battle of Teutoburg
> Forest. The Romans were abe to avenge that defeat but not to consolidate
> their rule in most of Germany nor to establish the Elbe as their outermost
> European frontier. Instead, they fell back to a 300 mile fortified border,
> called the limes, which extended from the Rhine to the Danube.
>> As the German tribes overran the Roman Empire in the 5th century, one tribe,
> the Franks, expanded its base in northwest Germany until it controlled
> territories from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to Bavaria and Thuringia in
> the east. The first great leader of the Franks, Clovis (ruled 481-511),
> established the Merovingian dynasty, which lasted until 751. It was this
> Frankish kingdom which began the merger of Roman, German, and Christian
> elements that was the foundation of medieval German culture.
>> The decline of the Merovingian dynasty in the 8th century placed power in
> the hands of royal officials, one of whom, Charles Martel (ruled 714-741),
> established a new Frakish dynasty. This Carolingian dynasty was named after
> its greatest figure, Charles I (ruled 768-814), better known as Charlemagne.
> Charlemagne conquored still more lands in Germany, including Bavaria in the
> east and Saxony in the north. To the Saxons, particularly warlike and
> unruly, he gave a choice of death or conversion to Christianity.
>> Charlemagne made additional conquests in Italy and Spain. When the pope
> crowned him emperor or Christmas day of the year 800, Charlemagne was
> recognized as master of a revived Roman Empire in the West. But this
> restoration was more nominal than real because the economic disintegration
> that had undermined the original Roman Empire made it difficult to create a
> centralized state in so vast a realm.
>> Charlemagne, himself, stipulated that his lands should be divided among his
> heirs after his death, according to the long-standing German tradition. The
> result, therefore, following his death, was almost a century of civil war
> among the heirs and the eventual emergence (870) of two Frankish kingdoms,
> that of the West Franks (France) and that of the East Franks (Germany). The
> general political chaos of these decades was complicated by invasions of
> barbarian Vikings and Magyars. Cental government became all but impossible,
> and the great landed nobles of the realm asserted their local powers. Feudal
> ism took hold in most of Germany as a means of preserving a modicum of law
> and order.
>> The last Carolingian king of the East Franks was Louis the Child (ruled
> 899-911). On his death, Lotharingia (Lorraine) was the only East Frankish
> duchy to transfer its allegiance to the Carolingian king of the West Franks.
> The dukes of Bavaria, Franconia, Saxony, and Swabia--the other so-called
> stem duchies--initially elected the duke of Franconia king of Germany as
> Conrad I. In 919, however, they turned to the house of Saxony as their best
> defense against the Magyars (today's Hungarians).
>> The first two Saxon kings, Henry I and his son, Otto I, were able to
> reassert the strength of a centralized monarchy. They stopped the Magyar
> onslaught and expanded German holdings into Eastern Europe. Working closely
> with the church, they also established effective administrative machinery
> that succeeded in keeping the ambitious rival German dukes in line. When
> Otto I founded the Holy Roman Empire in 962, he gained both a powerful ally
> in the papacy and new resources of taxes in northern Italy. To maintain
> these advantages, however, his successors were frequently obliged to
> preoccupy themselves with Italian affairs instead of attending to matters at
> home.
>> Early in the 11th century, the Saxon line of monarchs died out, and the
> German princes began to elect a series of Salian (Franconian) kings. Of
> these, Henry III (r. 1039-1056) brought imperial control over the church to
> its pinnicle, deposing three rival popes in 1046 and nominating four popes
> in succession. His successor, Henry IV, however faced a resurgent papacy,
> which not only resisted lay control of the church but also did so in
> alliance with the German princes, who sought to win back the powers taken
> from them by the kings. This struggle, usually called the Investiture
> Controversy, lasted until 1122 and ended essentially in victory for the
> papacy and the German nobility. The German king's powers over the church and
> the great German princes were gravely weakened, and the process of
> feudalization in Germany was accelerated.
>> The Hohenstaufen dynasty increased the power of the monarchy briefly. First
> elected to the throne in 1138, the Hohenstaufens held it, despite vigorous
> challenge from the rival Welf family, until 1254. The dynasty's greatest
> figure, Frederick I (r. 1152-1190), known as Barbarossa, chose to work
> within the feudal structure as a partner of the great princes. Although he
> acquired the valuable province of Burgundy by marriage and subdued most of
> Italy by force, his successors were overwhelmed by a resurgent
> papal-aristocratic alliance and by French and English intervention. Only the
> brilliant Frederick II (r. 1212-1250) was able to restore a measure of
> order, but he was so absorbed in Italian affairs that he neglected Germany.
> Hence, at a time when England and France were being welded into modern
> nation-states, Germany fell once more into the hands of regional princes.
>> There were sufficient intervals in this turbulent age to permit some
> economic progress and cultural achievement. Cities and commerce made a solid
> comeback, and by the end of the period there were no fewer than 1,600 cities
> and towns of varying size in Germany, many of them crowned by impressive
> Romanesque cathedrals.
>> None of Frederick II's successors was able to regain the imperial powers
> that had been usurped by the German princes. The period immediately
> following Frederick's death was one of particular chaos. During this period
> the Hohenstaufen were finally extinguished, and foreign princes contested
> for the imperial title. In 1273, Rudolf I of the house of Habsburg was
> elected king. The German princes were suspicious of Habsburg territorial
> ambitions, however, and elected a series of kings from other dynasties in
> succession to Rudolf. One of these kings, Louis IV (r. 1314-1346) of the
> Bavarian house of Wittelsbach, had to fight off a challenge from a Habsburg
> antiking, Frederick the Fair. Consistently opposed by the papacy, Louis
> rallied the support of the German princes for his 1338 declaration asserting
> the authority of these princes to elect the emperor without confirmation by
> the pope.
>> Charles IV (r. 1347-1378) of the house of Luxemburg, formally acknowledged
> the principle of elective monarchy with the Golden Bull, of 1356, which
> regularized elections by naming seven electors: the archbishops of Mainz,
> Trier, and Cologne, the duke of Saxony, the margrave of Brandenburg, the
> count palatine of the Rhine, and the king of Bohemia. Far from endorsing or
> deliberately encouraging disorder, the Golden Bull accepted the political
> realities of an age in which unified monarchy had become impossible in
> Germany. Real power rested with the princely and ecclesiastical states, the
> imperial free cities, and the imperial knights.
>> From 1438, members of the ruling dynasty of Austria were elected Holy Roman
> emperors, with only one short break (1740-1745), until the empire's
> dissolution in 1806. Acquiring Burgunday, the Low Countries, Spain, and much
> of Italy by marriage, they came closest to restoring full dignity to the
> imperial crown. The ablest of the early Habsburgs, Maximilian I (r.
> 1493-1519), decreed "Eternal Peace" in 1495 in order to control the unrully
> imperial knights and restore order in his divided realm. He also created an
> imperial court of justice to help enforce his decrees.
>> The German princes, jealous of their powers and still fearful of Hapsburg
> ambitions, responded by demanding an imperial governing council to control
> imperial policies. As constituted in 1500, it included several of the great
> princes and representative of the imperial free cities. It did not, however,
> evolve into an effective organ of representative government. The princes
> were more interested in hamstringing the emperors than they were in assuming
> the burden of statesmanship, and the additional divisions generated by the
> Reformation overwhelmed the council and left Germany as fragmented as ever.
>> On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed to a church door in Wittenberg his
> 95 theses condemning the sale of indulgences by the Roman Catholic church.
> This event is usuall taken to mark the beginning of the Protestant
> Reformation.
>> Luther's revolt against what he regarded as abuses by the Roman Catholic
> church swiftly became entangled in larger political and social issues. The
> peasants of much of Germany, chafing under the oppressive rule of
> aristocratic landowners, drew some unwarranted political conclusions from
> Luther's religious independence and rose in the revolt known as the Peasants
> War in 1524. The revolt was suppressed, with Luther's help, but religious
> and social radicalism lived on in the Anabaptist sects. After the Peace of
> Augsburg (1555), Lutheranism was recognized as the religion of most of
> northern and central Germany.
>> Calvinism, a rival Protestant sect, began making progress in Germany. This,
> along with the desire of Catholic princes and church leaders to stamp out
> the new religions, led to the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). This was a
> series of four related wars, in which the Protestant states barely held
> their own, although they were aided by the Swedes and French. When
> hostilities were ended by the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), a devasted
> Germany was still torn hopelessly in a collection of more than 300 virtually
> sovereign states without any effective central government.
>> Prussia and Unification
>> Prussian greatness began at Brandenburg, a small military frontier state
> created on lands conquered brom the Saavs in the 13th century. It began to
> expand under the Hohenzollern rulers of the 17th century. Prussia was
> acquired by Brandenburg in 1618 bu inheritance.
>> The earliest of the prominent Hohenzollern rulers were Frederick William,
> elector of Brandenburg (r. 1640-1688), and his grandson Frederick William I
> (r. 1713-1740), king of Prussia. The title of king had been assumed by
> Prussian rulers in 1701.
>> Prussia built an army that was far larger than those of other states of
> comparable population. Their purpose was defensive because Prussia had
> suffered hideously during the Thirty Years' War. However, Frederick II (r.
> 1740-1786), later called the Great, used the army to expand Prussia's
> borders. As a result of the war of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) and
> the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), Frederick won the valuable province of
> Silesia from Austria. He also participated in the first of three partitions
> of Poland with Russia and Austria. When Frederick II died, Prussia was the
> largest and most significant northern state in divided Germany.
>> During the wars of the French Revolution and the era of Napoleon, Germany
> was conquered by the French. The chief impact of the conquest was to instill
> a sence of unity and nationalism in the German people. Prussia, although
> defeated by Napoleon I, carried out drastic military and social reforms and
> ultimately led the other German states in the victorious War of Liberation
> against the French in 1813.
>> The Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) restored most of the major princes while
> retaining Napoleons simplified structure of only about three dozen, instead
> of three hundred German states. These states were bound loosely together in
> the German Confederation.
>> Beginning in 1862, Prussia's minister-president, Otto von Bismark,
> eliminated Danish, Austrian and French influence from Germany. In 1867,
> Bismark unified northern Germany. Three years later, during the
> Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), the southern German states agreed to join
> the federation, and on January 18, 1871, the Prussian king William I was
> crowned emperor of a new German Reich at Versailles.
>>>>