Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/599

 1922 REVIEWS OF BOOKS 591 characters and careers of the principal ministers of the Crown are described quite apart from the measures which they promoted or opposed. Even in the history of external relations a needless complication is introduced by giving isolated chapters to the acquisition and recognition of the royal title, although it is admitted that this is the main pivot on which the foreign policy of Frederick I turned. The inevitable result of this treat- ment is constant and rather irritating repetition, which might easily have been avoided by a more dexterous arrangement of the subject-matter. Although M. Waddington has depended mainly upon the archives of Berlin, he shows a clear grasp of the chief currents of European history during the period. But he is hardly as familiar with England as he is with the countries of the Continent, and this is a defect at a time when Prussian policy was so vitally influenced by its relations both with England and with Hanover. It is hardly correct to state (p. 178) that on the death of William III ' the bellicose Whigs remained all-powerful ' ; nor can Marlborough be called at that date the leader of the whig party. There are constant references to the quarrels with Hanover about Mecklen- burg and East Friesland, but no adequate account is given of the origin of these quarrels. In the chapters on the northern war, which is such an important episode of the reign of Frederick William I, a reference is given to Mr. J. F. Chance's articles on the subject in this Review, but no notice is taken of the substantial volume on Georye I and ike Northern War (London, 1909), in which Mr. Chance has put together the valuable results of his researches. And no mention whatever is made of Professor Michael's Englische Geschichte im 18ten Jahrhundert, which contains the best and most recent account of the northern struggle from 1714 to 1721. Possibly the second volume of this work came out too late for M. Wad- dington to make use of it, but this cannot be said of the first volume, of which the first edition appeared in 1896. M. Waddington throws some light upon the curious proposals for the partition of Poland which at one time attracted the covetous attention of Frederick I. There can be no doubt that Augustus the Strong (Augus- tus I in Poland and II in Saxony) was willing to accept a curtailment of Poland provided he could have made its crown hereditary. Nothing came of the negotiations, but they serve to illustrate the contention that the association of the royal title with Prussia inevitably forced the Hohenzollerns to aim at wresting West Prussia from Poland. The aims of Frederick the Great in the first partition of Poland were no new thing in the history of his house ; and the late Lord Salisbury had some grounds for defending the transaction of 1772. The subsequent obliteration of the kingdom is indefensible, but the Poland of the eighteenth century, like the new Poland of the present day, possessed provinces to which it could plead no valid title. It is not a little curious that a French historian should become so ab- sorbed in his subject as to acquire an instinctive sympathy with Prussian schemes of territorial aggrandizement. M. Waddington seems to regret the failure of these schemes as acutely as any native writer could do. He repeatedly adopts the view that Frederick I was ungratefully treated by his fellow members of the Grand Alliance, and that he was ill rewarded