My first thought to-day goes back in solemn gratitude to my father of everlasting memory, Emperor Frederick III. It is to his creative will and to his activity that Saalburg owes its restoration.
Just as in the far east of the monarchy at his bidding the powerful stronghold, which once had implanted German culture into the east, rearose and is now nearing completion, so, too, here in the beautiful Taunus Mountains the old Roman citadel has arisen again like a phoenix from its ashes. It is a testimony to the Roman power, a link in the great chain which the legions of Rome built about the powerful empire which, at the bidding of the Roman Emperor Cæsar Augustus alone, forced its way upon the world and opened the whole world to that Roman culture which fell so fruitfully upon Germany especially.
With the first blow of my hammer I therefore dedicate this stone to the memory of Emperor Frederick III; with the second I dedicate it to German youth, to the generations now growing up who may learn here in this restored museum what a world-empire means; with the third I dedicate it to our German Fatherland, to which I hope it will be granted, through the harmonious co-operation of princes and peoples, of its armies and its citizens, to become in the future as closely united, as powerful, and as authoritative as once the Roman world-empire was, and that, just as in old times they said, "_Civis romanus sum_," hereafter, at some time in the future, they will say: "I am a German citizen."
The relationship of the army to the Prussian Kings here referred to is treated in chapter I.
To-day, at the celebration which commemorates the two-hundredth anniversary of our taking over of the royal power of Prussia, my thoughts are directed first of all to my army. In Prussia the King and the army belong indissolubly together. This close personal relationship between me and every single one of my officers and soldiers rests upon a tradition that dates back 200 years. The spirit which from the time of Frederick the Great has been fostered in the army by all the Kings, the spirit of honor, of fidelity to duty, of obedience, of courage, of chivalry has made the army what it is and what it ought to be, the sharp, reliable weapon in the hand of her Kings for the protection and the blessing of the Fatherland's greatness.