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THE PEUS3IAN ANNEXATIONS.
The Annexation Bill introduced into the
Prussian Chamber of Deputies on tUo 17th
August last, and pasted almost unanimously,
will have the effect of adding to Prussia
nearly tweuty-one thousand Bquare miles
of territory and more than three millions
of population. Aud it was only a
first instalment of Count Bismark's in
tended annexations. By-and-by these will
include Schleswig-Holstein, HeBse-Hombnrg,
Upper Franconia, and perhaps in some
modified form the Kingdom of Saxony. Then
Prussia's allies as well as Prussia's enemies
will bare- also to pay the penalty of Prus
sian aggrandizement. The States which
roted for Count Bismark at the Diet,
aad afterwards took the field with him, will
only have saved their lives at ft» sacrifice of
their independence. Though permitted to re
tain en internal autonomy as members of the
North German Confederation, they will he
merely a prmieged class of Prussian provinces.
The principal members of this class areiMecklen
burg, Oldenburg, Anhalr, Saxe Weimar, Saxe
Coburg, and Meiningen. A rough estimate of
the ultimate effect of these annexations on
Prussia may he obtained from the subjoined
etatistic8.
Prussia began the war with 70,000 square miles
of territory, aud about 19i millions of a popu
lation.' Hanover contains 15,000 square miles
and nearly two millions of people; Heese-Cassel
3,740 equare miles and 845,000 inhabitants;
Nassau, 1,800 square miles and about a half
million of people ; Frankfort, over 90,000 inha
bitants. This group, which u disposed of by
the Annexation Bill above alluded to, repre
sents nearly 21,000 square miles and 3.
millions -of population. The next group of
States whose annexation, though deferred, is
equally certain, comprises Hohtein, with half
a million of population; Sohleswig, with
about 400,000, but it is rumoured that the
northern part of the Duchy will be returned to
Denmark, causing a deduction of perhaps
100,000; Hesse-Homburg, with 30,000;
Upper Franconio, with 40,000 at least; and
divers other small nibbles not positively
ecided on; — in all, nearly an additional
million of subjects, or, including Saxony, more
than three million?, lhe third, or feu
datory group, would he Mecklenburg, with
say 700,000 of a population; Brunswick,
300,000; Luxembourg, 450,000; the minor
Suxon States, 600,000 ; the Anhalts, 200,000 ;
Oldenburg, 300,000; the Reuss-Greiz and
other microscopic Principalities, say 200,000—
in all two and three-quarter millions. The
gross population of the proposed North
German Empire will thus be, at the lowest
estimate, 28£ millions— in round numbers
30 millions, or three-fourths of the whole
German people. Assuming, as wo hare done
above, that Saxony must sooner or later be
annexed, there wili be a positive gain of six and
a quarter millions of population, raising Prussia
proper to 26 millions, with nearly three
millions more of moat submissive feudatories.
Whilo thus observing the material results of
Bismark's succes?, we must do credit to his
unexpected moderation. He has in the truest
sense restricted himself to the left bank of tbe
Maine, which every impartial observer assigned
to Prussia as its natural frontier. More than
that, ho has tolerated a break in the frontier
liue out of respect to family ties, in which
England as well as Prussia has an interest. An
English Princess is married to the heirap
parent of Hedge-Darmstadt, who is conse
quently a brother-in-law of the Crown Prince
of Prussia. Yet the Court of Htese-Darmstadt
had courage enough to sacrifice its family
interests to what it considered the good
of Germany. It sided with Austria, and,
like so many of its misguided brethren,
was driven from its capital. Few ex
pected ever to sco it reinstated, and the
most sanguine were prepared for considerable
cur.ailincnts and humiliations. But Hesse
Darmstadt is to receive back every foot of its
territory except the small Duchy of Homburg,
which it inherited only a year ago, and will
be quite as well off without. Even the Upper
Province, which extends in a narrow awkward
line about fifty miles north of the Maine, is to
be relumed as carefully as if Bismark bad been
an equal believer in Divine right with his royal
master.
Baden is another southern State which ex
posed itself to severe retribution at the hands of
Prussia, but which has received instead a half
contemptuous pardon. The Grand Duke
of Baden is King William's son-in-law, but his
Gross Deuisch proclivities also overruled family
connections, aud ho was among the first to
join Austria. lie made a Hibernian kind of
apology for himself by being among the first
to secedo and cry peccavi aa soon as he dis
covered Austria's weakness His territory is,
fortunately for biusolf, all on the right side of
the new frontier, and he i3 to be let off on pay
ment of an indemnity in cash — a fine, in
fact, for having been what may be called poli
tically drunk and disorderly. The evangelical
Wurtembergers, next-door neighbours of Baden
wero among the most violent of the anti
Prucsian party — perhaps because they thought
themselves Bafe from attack. They not only
sent their contingent to tho Federal army, but
the remainder of their troops they employed
in gratuitously insulting King William by
seizing the small province of Hohenzollern,
tho cradle of his ancestors. Wurtemberg had
every reason to anticipate harsh terms ; but it,
too, has escaped with a whole skin, and no
internal irjury savo to the State Treasury,
which required cupping at any rate.
Buvario, though really not the worst offender
in the south, has been treated as the worst be
cause it was the biggest, and took tho dangerous
pre-eminence of a leader. It. had also refused
the most tempting inducements to join Prussia,
BistEark'a programme having been from the
first to drive Austria out of the Confederation
then to divide it in two, a Northern and a
Southern Confederation, with Prussia at tbe
head of the one and Bavaria at the head oi the
other. Since the war closed Bismark has de
clared, and with evident reason, that had
Bavaria cordially acceded to these terms the
war might have been spared, as Austria would
have withdrawn peacefully when she found such
heavy odds against her. It seems not un
natural, therefore, that towards Bavaria
the Prussians should have shown more of
a retaliative spirit than towards any
other opposing State except Frankfort, tho
harsh treatment of which was unaccountable,
unless on the ground of some personal spite.
Yet this retaliation has been kept within very
reasonable bounds. It took the shape of
summary punisnment rotner man mat oi per
manent iejury, The Prussian King could,
had he chosen, have reduced Bavaria to an
insignificant principality, or even blotted it out
from the map entirely. But he has only taken
from it what was necessary to complete his
new frontier. Tko districts of Franconia
which project on the north side of the Maine
have been sliced off for the sako of uniformity.
It is said that there will be added to these tho
historical province of Beyerutb, which, as we
learn from Carlyle's 'Frederick tho Great,'
devolved «n a younger branch of the Hohen
zollern family; but tho Napoleonic wars
and the diplomatists of 1815 intervened,
and it was handed over to Bavaria. King
William would be the last man to neglect
a chance of clearing up little accounts of
this kind. Having done what seemed neces
sary and expedient, he waived all other claims
on Bavaria. Even the province across the
Rhine, which being quite unconnected with tbe
trunk State, might reasonably have been re
tained either for incorporation with the empire
or for a gift to one's poor relations in Darm
stadt, was magnanimously given up. Bavaria
emerges from the conflict so slightly weakened
that ihe is still the first of the Southern St&tei.
It would almost eeem as if Biemark, overlook
ing pastoffence?, continued to cherish hw original
design of placing hci at the head of a South
German Confederation. She possesses just that
happy medium of power which would make
her respectable and at the feamo time sufficiently
dependent. Such a Confederation, comprising
only five or six States and hardly ten millions
of people, would be a very suitable appendage
to the North German Empire.
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