the suddenness with which the affairs of a nation may go to ruin in
slack and unskilful hands, and, secondly, the immense results that can
be achieved in a few years by a small band of able men who throw their
whole heart into the work of national regeneration.

The previous ruler, Frederick William IV., was a gifted and learned man,
but he lacked soundness of judgment and strength of will--qualities
which are of more worth in governing than graces of the intellect. At
the time of the revolutionary outbreaks of 1848 he capitulated to the
Berlin mob and declared for a constitutional régime in which Prussia
should merge herself in Germany; but when the excesses of the democrats
had weakened their authority, he put them down by military force,
refused the German Crown offered him by the popularly elected German
Parliament assembled at Frankfurt-on-Main (April 1849); and thereupon
attempted to form a smaller union of States, namely, Prussia, Saxony,
and Hanover. This Three Kings' League, as it was called, soon came to
an end; for it did not satisfy the nationalists who wished to see
Germany united, the constitutionalists who aimed at the supremacy of
Parliament, or the friends of the old order of things. The vacillations
of Frederick William and the unpractical theorisings of the German
Parliament at Frankfurt having aroused general disgust, Austria found
little difficulty in restoring the power of the old Germanic
Confederation in September, 1850. Strong in her alliance with Russia,
she next compelled Frederick William to sign the Convention of Olmütz
(Nov. 1850). By this humiliating compact he agreed to forbear helping
the German nationalists in Schleswig-Holstein to shake off the
oppressive rule of the Danes; to withdraw Prussian troops from
Hesse-Cassel and Baden, where strifes had broken out; and to acknowledge
the supremacy of the old Federal Diet under the headship of Austria.
Thus, it seemed that the Prussian monarchy was a source of weakness and