Author: S. C. Hammer

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-06

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 9781330834961

Excerpt from William the Second, as Seen in Contemporary, Documents and Judged on Evidence of His Own Speeches During the last days of 1858 great political unrest, associated in a singular manner with simple-hearted loyalty, was prevalent in Berlin and throughout Prussia. The rule of the childless Frederick William IV had presented for many years an almost unique picture of incapacity and wilfulness; during 1857 he had been obliged, on account of failing mental powers, to relinquish all State business, and was at the moment living in Italy, a chronic invalid. His brother, Prince William, who acted as Regent, was still a political novice, in spite of his sixty odd years, and it was Bismarck who was destined to place him amongst the historic figures of the age. For the time being, however, he was preeminently the Prince of the petite bourgeoisie, the unpretentious ideal of the ordinary public who frequented tea-gardens and beerhouses; while those in leading positions were obliged to recognize that he had neither much political capacity nor even a strong personality. With the dawn of the New Year fresh troubles arose. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.