The Great Elector of Prussia was an ancestor of Frederick the great, but the main events of this book focus on the Thirty Years' War, which occurred during his youth. Son of Calvinist monarchs, in a Lutheran country, governed by a Catholic minister, the young Frederick was witness to all the intrigue and excesses of the tragic war which laid waste to great swaths of Germany during his lifetime. Show All     Download:     PDF       EPUB

THE GREAT ELECTOR IN HIS TENTH YEAR.

Translator's Preface

The story of Frederick William, The Great Elector," as he is known in history, begins with his birth and closes with his accession to power upon the death of his father. It is the story of his youth only, but in the youth we find all the attributes which made him so great as an Elector and as a man. Its scenes are laid in the period of the terrible and devastating Thirty Years' War, which had not yet come to a close when Frederick William became Elector of Brandenburg. Its characters, Ferdinand the Second, Frederick the Fifth, Christian of Denmark, Gustavus Adolphus, Wallenstein, Tilly, Maximilian of Bavaria, the Swedish Chancellor Oxenstjerna, Count von Mansfeld, the Empress Elizabeth, the Elector of Brandenburg, his high-minded wife, and his great son, are world-famous.

Its progress throws a strong light upon that memorable war of faiths, which lasted more than a generation, and which was characterized by bitter enmity and cruel atrocities on both sides, as has usually been the case in every religious struggle. It is a terrible picture of those days when Catholics and Protestants were struggling for the supremacy, but its dark and repellent details are rendered more endurable by the knowledge in this twentieth century that such wars and such cruelties in the name of religion are not likely to occur again. The world has advanced; freedom of thought and of conscience is everywhere recognized and conceded. Sects may still disagree in doctrine, but the old deadly hatreds are extinguished. The central figure in this stirring drama is Frederick William, who, as the curtain falls, enters upon his career as the Great Elector.

G. P. U.

CHICAGO, July 1, 1909.

Appendix

The following is a chronological statement of the principal events in Germany and elsewhere during the youth of the Great Elector:

1619	George William becomes Elector of Brandenburg.
1619	Frederick the Fifth elected Emperor of Bohemia. bia;
1620	Birth of Frederick William, the Great Elector.
1620	Frederick the Fifth defeated at White Mountain and deposed. .
1622	Tilly victorious at Wimpfen.
1623	Maximilian of Bavaria made Elector.
1625	Christian the Fourth of Denmark becomes Protestant leader.
1626	Tilly defeats Christian the Fourth at Lutter.
1626	Wallenstein defeats Count von Mansfeld.
1628	Siege of Stralsund.
1629	Frederick issues Restitutions Edict.
1630	Wallenstein dismissed.
1630	Gustavus Adolphus becomes Protestant leader. bia;
1631	Tilly storms Magdeburg.
1631	Victory of Gustavus Adolphus at Breitenfeld. .
1632	Death of Gustavus Adolphus at Lutzen.
1634	Murder of Wallenstein.
1635	Treaty between Saxony and Frederick.
1637	Death of Ferdinand the Second.
1640	Death of George William and accession of the Great Elector.