Excerpt from Men Who Have Made the New German Empire, Vol. 1 of 2: A Series of Brief Biographic Sketches History tells us of some kings of men, leaders of nations, and founders of empires, who themselves in great part achieved their own greatness. Such were, for instance, Cyrus of Persia, Philip and Alexander of Macedon, Caesar, Charlemagne, our own Alfred, Henry I. Of Germany, the founder of cities; Gustavus Adolphus, the saviour of the Pro testant faith; Oliver Cromwell, the true founder of England's power and glory; Czar Peter, the wonder ful Colossus, who with his giant stride spanned the wide chasm between barbarism and civilization, knead ing and moulding hordes of wretched serfs into mate rial fit to form a future nation the great Branden burg Elector and the unique king, who between them laid the foundation of the new German empire of our own days and George Washington. 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.