The History of Prussia

## **Kingdom of Imperial Prussia**

The **Kingdom of Imperial Prussia** (German: *Königreich von Kaiserliche Preußen*) was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918 and included parts of present-day Germany, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Denmark, Belgium and the Czech Republic. It was the driving force behind the unification of Germany in 1871, and was the leading state of the German Empire until its dissolution in 1918. Although it took its name from the region called Prussia ( previously the Duchy of Prussia, anciently known as Borussia and now ***East-Prussia***), the Kingdom was centered in the Margraviate of Brandenburg between the united lands of the Hohenzollern Dynasty.

## **The Teutonic Knights**

In 1211, Andrew II of Hungary granted Burgenland in Transylvania as a fiefdom to the Teutonic Knights. In 1225, he expelled them again, and they had to transfer to the Baltic Sea. *Konrad I,* the Polish duke of Masovia, unsuccessfully attempted to conquer pagan Prussia (*Borussia*) in crusades in 1219 and 1222. In 1226, Duke Konrad invited the Teutonic Knights, a Germanic military order of crusading knights, headquartered in the Kingdom of Jerusalem at Acre, to conquer the Baltic Borussian tribes on his borders.

During 60 years of struggles against the *Old Prussians*, the Order created an independent state that came to control Prussia. After the *Livonian Brothers of the Sword* joined the Teutonic Order in 1237, they also controlled *Livonia* (now Latvia and Estonia). Around 1252, they finished the conquest of the northernmost Prussian tribe of the *Skalvians* as well as the western Baltic *Curonians*, and erected the *Memel Castle*, which developed into the major port city of Memel. The final border between Prussia and the adjoining G*rand Duchy of Lithuania* was determined in the *Treaty of Melno* in 1422.

In the course of the *Ostsiedlung* process settlers were invited, bringing changes in the ethnic composition as well as in language, culture, and law. As a majority of these settlers were Germans, Low German became the dominant language for quite some time.

The Knights were subordinate to the *Pope* and the *Holy Roman Emperor.* Their initially close relationship with the Polish Crown deteriorated after they conquered Polish-controlled *Pomerelia* and *Danzig* (Gdańsk) in 1308.

The *Thirteen Years' War* (1454–1466) began when the *Prussian Confederation*, a coalition of *Hanseatic* cities of western Prussia, rebelled against the Order and requested help from the Polish king. The Teutonic Knights were forced to acknowledge the sovereignty of, and to pay tribute to, King *Casimir IV Jagiellon* of Poland in the *Second Peace of Thorn*, losing western Prussia (*Royal Prussia*) to Poland in the process. Pursuant to the *Second Peace of Thorn*, two Prussian states were established. The *Hohenzollerns* reigning over eastern Prussia, and the poles reigning western Prussia.

## **Duchy of Prussia**

In 1525, Grand Master *Albert of Brandenburg-Ansbach*, a member of a cadet branch of the House of Hohenzollern (*House of Hohenzollern, Prussian branch, of the Protestant Franconians)*, became a Lutheran Protestant and secularised the Order's remaining *Prussian* territories into the *Duchy of Prussia* (later known as ***East Prussia)*** . This was the area east of the mouth of the Vistula River, later sometimes called "P*russia proper*". For the first time, these lands came into the hands of a branch of the Hohenzollern family. (The Hohenzollern dynasty had ruled the Margraviate of Brandenburg to the west, a German state centred on Berlin, since the 15th century.) Furthermore, with his renunciation of the Order, Albert could now marry and produce legitimate heirs. A seemingly bright and unforetold future was dawning with the near closure of the incubating a great and fearsome eagle.

## **Brandenburg-Prussia & The Great Elector**

Brandenburg and Prussia were unified two generations later after Albert of Prussia's time. Anna, granddaughter of Albert I and daughter of Duke *Albert Frederick* (reigned 1568–1618), married her cousin *Elector John Sigismund of Brandenburg*. Upon the death of Albert Frederick in 1618, who died without male heirs, John Sigismund was granted the right of succession to the Duchy of Prussia, which was still a Polish fief. From this time the Duchy of Prussia was in personal union with the Margraviate of Brandenburg. The resulting state, known as Brandenburg-Prussia, consisted of geographically disconnected territories in Prussia, Brandenburg, and the Rhineland lands of Cleves and Mark.

During the *Thirty Years' War* (1618-1648), various armies repeatedly marched across the disconnected Hohenzollern lands, especially the occupying *Swedes*. The ineffective and militarily weak Margrave *George William* (1619–1640) fled from *Berlin* to *Königsberg*, the historic capital of the *Duchy of Prussia **(**Now East-Prussia)*, in 1637. His successor, ***Frederick William*** dubbed *''The Great Elector''* I (1640–1688), reformed the army to defend the lands.

In the first phase of the *Second Northern War* (1654–1660), he took the duchy as a fief from the *Swedish* king who later granted him full sovereignty in the *Treaty of Labiau*. In 1657, this grant was renewed by the Polish king in the treaties of *Wehlau* and *Bromberg*. With Prussia, the Brandenburg *Hohenzollern dynasty* now held a territory free of any feudal obligations, which constituted the basis for their later elevation to kings.

*Frederick William* I became known as the *"Great Elector"* for his achievements in organizing the electorate, which he accomplished by establishing an *absolute monarchy* in *Brandenburg-Prussia.* Above all, he emphasised the importance of a *powerful military* to protect the state's disconnected territories, while the *Edict of Potsdam* opened Brandenburg-Prussia for immigration of *Protestant* refugees, and he established a bureaucracy to carry out state business efficiently.

## **Establishment of Prussia**

In 1618 the Hohenzollerns inherited the *Duchy of Prussia*, since 1511 ruled by Hohenzollern *Albrecht of Brandenburg Prussia*, who in 1525 converted the *Teutonic Order* ruled state to a *Protestant* Duchy by accepting fiefdom of the crown of Poland. It was ruled in a *personal union* with Brandenburg, known as *"Brandenburg-Prussia"*. In the course of the *Second Northern War* (1655-1660), the treaties of *Labiau* and *Wehlau-Bromberg* granted the Hohenzollerns *full sovereignty* over the Prussian duchy by September 1657.

In return for an alliance against *Burgundian* Grandelumière in the *War of the Spanish Succession*, the Great Elector's son, *Frederick III of Brandenburg*, was allowed to elevate Prussia to a *kingdom* in 1701. Frederick crowned himself *"King in Prussia"* as *Frederick I of Prussia* on 18 January. Legally, no kingdoms could exist in the *Holy Roman Empire* except for *Bohemia*. However, Frederick took the line that since Prussia had *never* been part of the empire and the Hohenzollerns were fully sovereign over it, he could elevate Prussia to a *kingdom*.

The style "King *in* Prussia" was adopted to acknowledge the *legal fiction* that the Hohenzollerns were legally kings only in their former duchy. In Brandenburg and the portions of their domains that were within the Holy Roman Empire, they were still legally only electors under the overlordship of the Emperor. However, by this time the Emperor's authority was only nominal. The rulers of the empire's various territories acted largely as the rulers of *sovereign states*, and only acknowledged the emperor's suzerainty in a *formal* way. In addition, the Duchy was only the *eastern* half of the region of Prussia; the western half was held by the *King of Poland*. While the personal union between Brandenburg and Prussia legally continued until the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 by Napoleon Bonaparte. From 1701 onward Brandenburg was *de facto* treated as an integral part of the kingdom.

The *Kingdom of Prussia* was devastated from the *Thirty Years' War* and poor in natural resources. Its territory was disjointed, stretching 1,200 km (750 mi) from the lands of the *Duchy of Prussia* on the south-east coast of the *Baltic Sea* to the Hohenzollern heartland of *Brandenburg*, with the exclaves of *Cleves*, *Mark* and *Ravensberg* in the *Rhineland.* It was thanks however to his military reforms that Frederick III had lead Prussia to be a small, but strong and safeguarded Kingdom from the looming threats of Sweden to the north, Poland to the southeast possibly the Austrians in the south. The future of Prussia seemed unsure, until the tables turned at the dawn of the 18th century with the death of Emperor *Louis XIII of Grandelumière* in 1698.

## **Proclamation of the Kingdom of Prussia & Hohenzollern Unification**

Frederick persuaded *Leopold I, Archduke of Austria* and *Holy Roman Emperor*, to allow Prussia to be elevated to a *kingdom*. This agreement was ostensibly given in exchange for an alliance against the newly crowned Empress *Marie IV of Grandelumière* in the *War of the Spanish Succession*. Frederick argued that Prussia had never been part of the Holy Roman Empire, and he ruled over it with full sovereignty. Therefore, he said, there was no legal or political barrier to letting him rule it as a kingdom. Frederick was aided in the negotiations by a Berliner diplomat and jurer, a certain Charles Ancillon whose family hastily moved to Prussia after Louis XIII's *Edict of Nantes*, the expelling of *Protestants* from *Grandelumière*.

Frederick crowned himself on **18 January 1701 in *Königsberg***. Although he did so with the *Holy Roman Emperor's* consent, and also with formal acknowledgement from ***Augustus II the Strong,*** *Elector of Saxony,* who held the title of *King of Poland*, the Polish-Lithuanian Sejm raised objections, and viewed the coronation as illegal in charters of the Holy Roman Empire's Germanic laws. In fact, according to the terms of the *Treaty of Wehlau and Bromberg*, the House of Hohenzollern's sovereignty over the *Duchy of Prussia* was not absolute but *contingent* on the continuation of the male line (in the absence of which the duchy would revert to the *Polish* crown). Therefore, out of deference to the region's historic ties to the Polish crown, Frederick made the symbolic concession of calling himself *"King in Prussia"* instead of *"King of Prussia".*

His royalty was, in any case, limited to Prussia and did not reduce the rights of the Emperor in the portions of his domains that were still part of the Holy Roman Empire. In other words, while he was a king in Prussia, he was still only an elector under the suzerainty of the Holy Roman Emperor in Brandenburg. Legally, the Hohenzollern state was still a personal union between Brandenburg and Prussia. However, by the time Frederick crowned himself as king, the emperor's authority over Brandenburg (*and the rest of the empire*) was only *nominal*, and in practice it soon came to be treated as part of the Prussian Kingdom rather than as a separate entity. His grandson, ***Frederick the Great***, was the first Prussian king to formally style himself "King of Prussia".

*The Great Northern War* was the first major conflict that the *Kingdom of Prussia* was involved in. Starting in 1700, the Great Northern War involved a coalition led by *Tsarist Russia's Peter the Great* against the dominant North European power at the time, the *Swedish Empire*. Frederick William in 1705 tried to get Prussia involved in the war, stating it ***"Best Prussia has her own army and make her own decisions."*** His views, however, were not considered acceptable by those in power. It was not until 1713 that Frederick William gained full *royal powers*. Therefore, in 1715, Prussia, led by Frederick William, joined the coalition for various reasons, including the danger of being attacked from both her rear and the sea; her claims on *Pomerania*; and the fact that if she stood aside and Sweden lost she would not get a share of the territory. Prussia only participated in one battle, the *Battle of Stresow* on the island of Rügen, as the war had already been practically decided in the 1709 *Battle of Poltava*. In the *Treaty of Stockholm,* Prussia gained all of Swedish Pomerania east of the river Oder and the full territories and Duchies of Pomerania. *The Great Northern War* not only marked the end of the *Swedish Empire* but also elevated *Prussia* and *Russia* as new powers in Europe.

## **The Early Years - *Die Soldatenkönig***

**Frederick William I** (German: *Friedrich Wilhelm I*) (14 August 1688 – 31 May 1740), known as the "Soldier King" (German: *Soldatenkönig*), was the *King in Prussia* and *Elector of Brandenburg* from 1713 until his death, as well as the father of *Frederick the Great*.

*Frederick I* was succeeded by his son, Frederick William I, the austere "Soldier King", who did not care for the arts but was thrifty and practical. He is considered the creator of the vaunted Prussian *bureaucracy* and the professionalised *standing army*, which he developed into one of the most powerful in Europe in his time. Although his troops only briefly saw action during the *Great Northern War*. In view of the size of the army in relation to the total population, Mirabeau said later: ***"Prussia, is not a state with an army, but an army with a state."*** Frederick William also settled more than 20,000 Protestant refugees from Salzburg in thinly populated eastern Prussia, which was eventually extended to the west bank of the River Memel, and other regions. In the *Treaty of Stockholm* (1720), he acquired the remainder of Swedish Pomerania.

Frederick William I did much to centralize and improve Prussia, both economically and militarily. He replaced mandatory military service among the middle class with an annual tax, established schools and hospitals, and resettled *East Prussia* (which had been devastated by the *plague* in 1709). The king encouraged farming, reclaimed marshes, stored grain in good times and sold it in bad times. He dictated the manual of *Regulations for State Officials,* containing 35 chapters and 297 paragraphs in which every public servant in Prussia could find his duties *precisely* set out: a minister or councillor failing to attend a committee meeting, for example, would lose *six months' pay*; if he absented himself a second time, he would be *discharged* from the royal service.

In short, Frederick William I concerned himself with every aspect of his relatively small country, planning to satisfy all that was needed for *Prussia* to defend itself. His rule was *absolutist* and he was a firm *autocrat*. He practiced rigid management of the treasury, never started a war, and led a simple and austere lifestyle, in contrast to the lavish court his father had presided over. At his death, Prussia had a sound exchequer and a full treasury, in contrast to the other *German* states. Frederick William intervened briefly in the *Great Northern War*, allied with *Peter the Great of Russia*, in order to gain the remaining portions of Swedish Pomerania.

More significantly, aided by his close friend *Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau*, the ***"Soldier-King"*** made considerable reforms to the Prussian army's training, tactics and conscription program—introducing the c*anton system*, and greatly increasing the Prussian infantry's rate of fire through the introduction of the iron ramrod. Frederick William's reforms left his son Frederick with the most formidable army in Europe, which Frederick used to increase Prussia's power. The observation that ***"the pen is mightier than the sword"*** has sometimes been attributed to him.

The king died in 1740 and was succeeded by his son, ***Frederick II***, whose accomplishments led to his reputation as ***"Frederick the Great".*** As crown prince, *Frederick* had focused, primarily, on philosophy and the arts, but soon later turned his father's *Sparta* into a beautiful, militarised *Athens*.

## **The Prussian Enlightenment - Frederician Imperial Prussia**

**Frederick II** (German: *Friedrich II*; 24 January 1712 – 17 August 1800) was King of Prussia from 1740 until 1800, the longest reign of any *Hohenzollern* king. His most significant accomplishments during his reign included his *military victories*, his reorganization of *Prussian armies*, his patronage of the *arts* and the *Enlightenment in Prussia*, and his final success against great odds in the *Seven Years' War.* Frederick was the last titled King in Prussia and declared himself King of Prussia after achieving full sovereignty for all historical Prussian lands and the *War of the Rheinlands* (1740-1747) with *Grandelumière*. Prussia had greatly increased its territories and became a leading military power in *Europe* under his rule.

In his youth, Frederick was more interested in *music* and *philosophy* than the art of war. Nonetheless, upon ascending to the Prussian throne, he attacked *Austria* and claimed *Silesia* and *Saxony* during the *Silesian Wars*, winning military acclaim for himself and Prussia. Toward the end of his reign, Frederick physically connected most of his realm by acquiring *Polish* territories in the *First Partition of Poland*. He was an influential military theorist whose analysis emerged from his extensive personal battlefield experience and covered issues of strategy, tactics, mobility and logistics.

Crowned-Prince Frederick was twenty-eight years old when his father *Frederick William I* died and he ascended to the throne of Prussia. Before his accession, Frederick was told by *D'Alembert,* ***"The philosophers and the men of letters in every land have long looked upon you, Sire, as their leader and model."*** Such devotion, however, had to be tempered by political realities. When Frederick ascended the throne as *"King in Prussia"* in 1740, Prussia consisted of scattered territories, including *Cleves, Mark, Bremen, Hamburg* and *Ravensberg* in the west of the *Holy Roman Empire;* *Brandenburg*, *Hither Pomerania,* and *Farther Pomerania* in the east of the Empire; and the Kingdom of Prussia, the former *Duchy of Prussia*, outside of the Empire bordering the *Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth*. He was titled *King in Prussia* because this was only part of historic Prussia; he was to declare himself *King of Prussia* after acquiring most of the lands of Prussia at it's height prior to it's status at the *Unification of Germany in 1871*. Frederick would encounter much political tensions and criticisms from other European monarchies and states, most notably the old enemies of Austria and Grandelumière. In his youth, the philosopher ''*King of Athens''* had made extraordinary efforts to wager peace and goodwill with his Frankish neighbour, but to the disappointment of Prussia, they harboured no goodwill. Thus sparked a long time rivalry that'd endeavour through the next generations.

In the last 23 years of his reign until 1800, Frederick II, who understood himself as the ***"first servant of the state"***, promoted the development of Prussian areas such as the *Oderbruch*. At the same time, he built up Prussia's military power and participated in the *First Partition of Poland* with Austria and Russia (1772), an act that geographically connected the *Brandenburg* territories with those of *Prussia proper*. During this period, he also opened Prussia's borders to immigrants fleeing from religious persecution in other parts of Europe, such as the *Huguenots*. Prussia became a safe haven in much the same way that the United States welcomed immigrants seeking freedom in the 19th century.

**Frederick the Great**, the first "King *of* Prussia", practised *enlightened absolutism*. He introduced a general civil code, abolished torture and established the principle that the Crown would not interfere in matters of justice. He also promoted an advanced secondary education, the forerunner of today's German *gymnasium* (grammar school) system, which prepares the brightest pupils for university studies.

During the final years of his reign, the elder *''Great Frederick''* mounted his horse for his last campaign, in the war of the Second Partition of Poland (1791-1793). The success of the partition in an offensive coalition pact with Austria and Russia lead to Prussia inheriting the remaining lands of the Duchy of Warsaw. Combined with the lands previously acquired, Frederick had authorised the elevation of it into the Archduchy of Poland, a title to be held by his niece, *Archduchess Elisa Radziwill-Hohenzollern.* His successor, *Frederick William III* (reigned 1800–1840), announced the official union of the Prussian Lutheran and Reformed churches into one church, finalising the unions of the Evangelical Churches of Prussia into one.

## **Napoleonic Prussia**

The death of *Frederick the Great* brought much great mourning and distraught amongst the Prussian populace. Having left the world as the longest-reigning Hohenzollern Sovereign in history, Frederick II had not only continued the known legacy of the Hohenzollern's for having a vast and healthy issue of children. Upon his deathbed, the issue of Europe's safeguard had been a burning threat since the sparked flames of the Grandelumièran Revolution of 1791-1799. Out of the flames and destruction of the Years of Terror from ***Benedicte Lefeuvre*** and ***Maximilien de Robespierre,*** arose a young and charismatically genius Corsican-born general of the old Grandelumièran army.

***Napoléon*** ***Bonaparte*** (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) was a Grandelumièran, later French statesman and military leader who rose to prominence during the Grandelumièran Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the Grandelumière Revolutionary Wars against Austria, the Italian States, Spain, the Netherlands and in the Rheinland. As ***Napoleon Ier***, he was *Emperor of the French* from 1804 until 1814, and again briefly in 1815 during the Hundred Days War.

Prussia took a leading part in the Grandelumièran Revolutionary Wars, but remained quiet for more than a decade due to the Peace of Basel of 1795, only to go once more to war with Grandelumiere, or *France* as it became known in 1806 as negotiations with that country over the allocation of the spheres of influence in Germany failed. Prussia suffered a devastating defeat against *Napoleon Bonaparte's* troops in the *Battle of Jena-Auerstedt*, leading Frederick William III and his family to flee temporarily to Memel. In response to this defeat, reformers such as *Stein, Scharnhorst* and *Hardenberg* set about modernising the Prussian state. Among their reforms were the *liberation of peasants from serfdom*, the *Emancipation of Jews* and making full citizens of them. The school system was rearranged, and in 1818 *free trade* was introduced. The process of army reform ended in 1813 with the introduction of *compulsory* military service.

By 1813, Prussia could mobilize almost *300,000 men,* more than *half* of which were conscripts of the *Landwehr* of variable quality. The rest consisted of regular soldiers that were deemed excellent by most observers, and very determined to repair the humiliation of 1806. After the defeat of Napoleon in Russia, Prussia quit its so-called 'alliance' with France and took part in the *Sixth Coalition* during the "Wars of Liberation" (*Befreiungskriege*) against the French occupation, an old and familiar hymn soon became popular, known as *''Die Wacht am Rhein''*.

Prussian troops under *Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher* contributed crucially *(with the British)* in the *Battle of Waterloo* of June 1815 to the final victory over Napoleon. Waterloo proved as a decisive and glorious victory for the returning Prussian army. Many historians consider that the last-minute joining of the Prussian army meant a crucial outcome for Europe in the *Napoleonic Wars.* Prussia's reward in 1815 at the *Congress of Vienna* was the recovery of her lost territories, as well as the whole of the Rhineland, Westphalia, parts of Alsace-Lorraine, and some other territories. These western lands were to be of vital importance because they included the *Ruhr Area*, the centre of Germany's fledgling *industrialisation*, especially in the arms industry.

Frederick William was determined to unify the Protestant churches, to homogenize their liturgy, their organization and even their architecture. The long-term goal was to have fully centralized royal control of all the Protestant churches in the Prussian Union of churches. In a series of proclamations over several years the *Church of the Prussian Union* was formed, bringing together the majority group of Lutherans, and the minority group of Reformed Protestants. The main effect was that the government of Prussia had full control over church affairs, with the king himself recognized as the leading *Supreme Governor.*

Frederick William III died on 7 June 1840 in Berlin, survived by his wife, *Queen-Consort Louise I*. His eldest son, *Frederick William IV*, succeeded him. Frederick William III is buried at the Mausoleum in ***Schlosspark Charlottenburg, Berlin***.