THE DANISH WAR
manently in session at Frankfort on Main. Over
this 'Diet* Austria was to provide the president.
The Diet was an impotent body: it had no executive
officers and its judgments were devoid of sanction.
The German Confederation or *Bund* consisted of
only thirty-nine states, so great had been the clear-
ance effected by Napoleon. It was made up of
six kingdoms (Austria, Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria,
Hanover, Wiirtemberg), seven grand-duchies, eleven
duchies, eleven principalities, and four free cities.
It was a futile organisation from the first, owing
partly to a constant struggle between Prussia and
Austria for ascendancy, and partly to a resolute
determination of the smaller powers not to be
coerced by either of the two.
It will have been observed that in A.D. 1815 the
term s Prussia' acquired a denotation widely different
from any it had ever had before. In fact, those
who have followed the story lighdy sketched in the
preceding pages, and illustrated by the maps inter-
spersed, cannot have failed to note with what
bewildering frequency the lands ruled by the
Hohenzollerns changed their character and their
boundaries during the four centuries 1415-1815.
A complete series of maps—not far short of a
hundred in number—showing one by one all the
additions and subtractions of territory made during
that period has much the effect of a kaleidoscope or
a set of dissolving views. In other words, it conveys
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