. Europe and other continents . Prussia, the largest,contains more than one-half of the entire empire, and has apopulation of about 32,000,000. They are all united under acentral authority, more closely and less independently thanour states. In place of a President they have an Emperor(the King of Prussia being by law Emperor of Germany), andtheir form of government is a constitutional monarchy (). However, the power of the Emperor is much greater thanthat of the British king, though less absolute than that of theRussian Czar. Defence. — In the war of 1870, the Germans not onlydefeated
. Europe and other continents . Prussia, the largest,contains more than one-half of the entire empire, and has apopulation of about 32,000,000. They are all united under acentral authority, more closely and less independently thanour states. In place of a President they have an Emperor(the King of Prussia being by law Emperor of Germany), andtheir form of government is a constitutional monarchy (). However, the power of the Emperor is much greater thanthat of the British king, though less absolute than that of theRussian Czar. Defence. — In the war of 1870, the Germans not onlydefeated the French but compelled them to pay a largesum of money. At the same time they seized the French 280 EUROPE territory west of the Rhine, called Alsace-Lorraine, inwhich Metz and Strassburg are situated. This is a sug-gestion of the way in which much of Germanys irregularfrontier line has been determined. To a great extentmountains form the southern boundary, and water thenorthern ; but the eastern and western limits, largely. Fig. 188. The German Reichstag, corresponding to our House of Representatives, meetsin this building, in Berlin. The other legislative branch, called the Bun-desrath, is composed of members appointed by the various German states. decided by war, do not follow any natural barrier. Drawan outline map of Germany. In order to preserve her present boundaries, Germanymust be prepared to defend them at any time. This needcalls many citizens to an occupation which we have notthus far considered, namely, that of preparing for ivar. It is a fact that each of the great European nations is jeal-ously watching the others; and as no one of them knows howsoon a dispute may arise with its neighbor, each maintains alarge and thoroughly equipped army. The object of each is to GERMAN EMPIRE 281 be so dangerous that others may fear to offend or attack it;and if once involved in war, to come off victorious. For such reasons all able-bodied young men in Germany arerequired t
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