Part 36 (1/2)
So far the Hohenzollerns had been fortunate, but as yet they were no more conspicuous than hundreds of petty potentates throughout the empire. It was not until they were invested by the Habsburg emperor with the electorate of Brandenburg in 1415 that they became prominent.
Brandenburg was a district of northern Germany, centering in the town of Berlin and lying along the Oder River. As a mark, or frontier province, it was the northern and eastern outpost of the German language and German culture, and the exigencies of almost perpetual warfare with the neighboring Slavic peoples had given Brandenburg a good deal of military experience and prestige. As an electorate, moreover, it possessed considerable influence in the internal affairs of the Holy Roman Empire.
In the sixteenth century, the acceptance of Lutheranism by the Hohenzollern electors of Brandenburg enabled them, like many other princes of northern Germany, to seize valuable properties of the Catholic Church and to rid themselves of a foreign power which had curtailed their political and social sway. Brandenburg subsequently became the chief Protestant state of Germany, just as to Austria was conceded the leaders.h.i.+p of the Catholic states.
[Sidenote: The Hohenzollerns and the Thirty Years' War]
The period of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) was as auspicious to the Hohenzollerns as it was unlucky for the Habsburgs. On the eve of the contest, propitious marriage alliances bestowed two important legacies upon the family--the duchy of Cleves [Footnote: Though the alliance between Brandenburg and Cleves dated from 1614, the Hohenzollerns did not reign over Cleves until 1666. With Cleves went its dependencies of Mark and Ravensberg.] on the lower Rhine, and the duchy of East Prussia, [Footnote: Prussia was then an almost purely Slavic state. It had been formed and governed from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century by the Teutonic Knights, a military, crusading order of German Catholics, who aided in converting the Slavs to Christianity. In the sixteenth century the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights professed the Lutheran faith and transformed Prussia into an hereditary duchy in his own family. In a series of wars West Prussia was incorporated into Poland, while East Prussia became a fief of that kingdom. It was to East Prussia only that the Hohenzollern elector of Brandenburg succeeded in 1618.] on the Baltic north of Poland.
Henceforth the head of the Hohenzollern family could sign himself margrave and elector of Brandenburg, duke of Cleves, and duke of Prussia. In the last-named role, he was a va.s.sal of the king of Poland; in the others, of the Holy Roman Emperor. In the course of the Thirty Years' War, the Hohenzollerns helped materially to lessen imperial control, and at the close of the struggle secured the wealthy bishoprics of Halberstadt, Minden, and Magdeburg, [Footnote: The right of accession to Magdeburg was accorded the Hohenzollerns in 1648; they did not formally possess it until 1680.] and the eastern half of the duchy of Pomerania.
[Sidenote: The Great Elector]
The international reputation of the Hohenzollerns was established by Frederick William, commonly styled the Great Elector (1640-1688). When he ascended the throne, the Thirty Years' War had reduced his scattered dominions to utmost misery: he was resolved to restore prosperity, to unify his various possessions, and to make his realm a factor in general European politics. By diplomacy more than by military prowess, he obtained the new territories by the peace of Westphalia. Then, taking advantage of a war between Sweden and Poland, he made himself so invaluable to both sides, now helping one, now deserting to the other, that by cunning and sometimes by unscrupulous intrigue, he induced the king of Poland to renounce suzerainty over East Prussia and to give him that duchy in full sovereignty. In the Dutch War of Louis XIV (1672- 1678) he completely defeated the Swedes, who were in alliance with France, and, although he was not allowed by the provisions of the peace to keep what he had conquered, nevertheless the fame of his army was established and Brandenburg-Prussia took rank as the chief compet.i.tor of Sweden's hegemony in the Baltic.
In matters of government, the Great Elector was, like his contemporary Louis XIV, a firm believer in absolutism. At the commencement of his reign, each one of the three parts of his lands--Brandenburg, Cleves, and East Prussia--was organized as a separate, petty state, with its own Diet or form of representative government, its own army, and its own independent administration. After a hard const.i.tutional struggle, Frederick William deprived the several Diets of their significant functions, centered financial control in his own person, declared the local armies national, and merged the three separate administrations into one, strictly subservient to his royal council at Berlin. Thus, the three states were amalgamated into one; and, to all intents and purposes, they const.i.tuted a united monarchy.
The Great Elector was a tireless worker. He encouraged industry and agriculture, drained marshes, and built the Frederick William Ca.n.a.l, joining the Oder with the Elbe. When the revocation of the Edict of Nantes caused so many Huguenots to leave France, the Great Elector's warm invitation attracted to Brandenburg some 20,000, who were settled around Berlin and who gave French genius as well as French names to their adopted country. The capital city, which at the Great Elector's accession numbered barely 8000, counted at his death a population of over 20,000.
[Sidenote: Brandenburg-Prussia a ”Kingdom,” 1701]
Brandenburg-Prussia was already an important monarchy, but its ruler was not recognized as ”king” until 1701, when the Emperor Leopold conferred upon him that t.i.tle in order to enlist his support in the War of the Spanish Succession. In 1713, by the treaty of Utrecht, the other European powers acknowledged the t.i.tle. It was Prussia, rather than Brandenburg, which gave its name to the new kingdom, because the former was an entirely independent state, while the latter was a member of the Holy Roman Empire. Thereafter the ”kingdom of Prussia” [Footnote: At first the Hohenzollern monarch a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of king _in_ Prussia, because West Prussia was still a province of the kingdom of Poland. Gradually, however, under Frederick William I (1713-1740), the popular appellation of ”king of Prussia” prevailed over the formal ”king in Prussia.” West Prussia was definitely acquired in 1772 (see below, p. 387).] designated the combined territories of the Hohenzollern family.
Prussia rose rapidly in the eighteenth century. She shared with Austria the leaders.h.i.+p of the Germanies and secured a position in Europe as a first-rate power. This rise was the result largely of the efforts of Frederick William I (1713-1740).
[Sidenote: King Frederick William I, 1713-1740]
King Frederick William was a curious reversion to the type of his grandfather: he was the Great Elector over again with all his practical good sense if without his taste for diplomacy. His own ideal of kings.h.i.+p was a paternal despotism, and his ambition, to use most advantageously the limited resources of his country in order to render Prussia feared and respected abroad. He felt that absolutism was the only kind of government consonant with the character of his varied and scattered dominions, and he understood in a canny way the need of an effective army and of the closest economy which would permit a relatively small kingdom to support a relatively large army. Under Frederick William I, money, military might, and divine-right monarchy became the indispensable props of the Hohenzollern rule in Prussia.
By a close thrift that often bordered on miserliness King Frederick William I managed to increase his standing army from 38,000 to 80,000 men, bringing it up in numbers so as to rank with the regular armies of such first-rate states as France or Austria. In efficiency, it probably surpa.s.sed the others. An iron discipline molded the Prussian troops into the most precise military engine then to be found in Europe, and a staff of officers, who were not allowed to buy their commissions, as in many European states, but who were appointed on a merit basis, commanded the army with truly professional skill and devoted loyalty.
In civil administration, the king persevered in the work of centralizing the various departments. A ”general directory” was intrusted with the businesslike conduct of the finances and gradually evolved an elaborate civil service--the famous Prussian bureaucracy, which, in spite of inevitable ”red tape,” is notable to this day for its efficiency and devotion to duty. The king endeavored to encourage industry and trade by enforcing up-to-date mercantilist regulations, and, although he repeatedly expressed contempt for current culture because of what he thought were its weakening tendencies, he nevertheless prescribed compulsory elementary education for his people.
King Frederick William, who did so much for Prussia, had many personal eccentricities that highly amused Europe. Imbued with patriarchal instincts, he had his eye on everybody and everything. He treated his kingdom as a schoolroom, and, like a zealous schoolmaster, flogged his naughty subjects unmercifully. If he suspected a man of possessing adequate means, he might command him to erect a fine residence so as to improve the appearance of the capital. If he met an idler in the streets, he would belabor him with his cane and probably put him in the army. And a funny craze for tall soldiers led to the creation of the famous Potsdam Guard of Giants, a special company whose members must measure at least six feet in height, and for whose service he attracted many foreigners by liberal financial offers: it was the only luxury which the parsimonious king allowed himself.
[Sidenote: Accession of Frederick the Great, 1740]
During a portion of his reign the crabbed old king feared that all his labors and savings would go for naught, for he was supremely disappointed in his son, the crown-prince Frederick. The stern father had no sympathy for the literary, musical, artistic tastes of his son, whom he thought effeminate, and whom he abused roundly with a quick and violent temper. When Prince Frederick tried to run away, the king arrested him and for punishment put him through such an arduous, slave- like training in the civil and military administration, from the lowest grades upward, as perhaps no other royal personage ever received. It was this despised and misunderstood prince who as Frederick II succeeded his father on the throne of Prussia in 1740 and is known in history as Frederick the Great.
The year 1740 marked the accession of Frederick the Great in the Hohenzollern possessions and of Maria Theresa in the Habsburg territories. [Footnote: Below are discussed the foreign achievements (pp. 354 ff.) of these two rival sovereigns, and in Chapter XIV (pp.
440 ff.) their internal policies.] It also marked the outbreak of a protracted struggle within the Holy Roman Empire between the two foremost German states--Austria and Prussia.
THE MINOR GERMAN STATES
[Sidenote: German States Other than Austria and Prussia]
Of the three hundred other states which composed the empire, few were sufficiently large or important to exert any considerable influence on the issue of the contest. A few, however, which took sides, deserve mention not only because in the eighteenth century they preserved a kind of balance of power between the rivals but also because they have been more or less conspicuous factors in the progress of recent times.
Such are Bavaria, Saxony, and Hanover.
[Sidenote: Bavaria]