A Political and Social History of Modern Europe Part 36

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 leadership 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 leadership 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 kingship 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]

Bavaria lay on the upper Danube to the west of Austria and in the extreme southeastern corner of what is now the German Empire. For centuries it was ruled by the Wittelsbach family, whose remarkable prince, Maximilian I (1597-1651), had headed the Catholic League and loyally supported the Habsburgs in the Thirty Years' War, and by the peace of Westphalia had gained a part of the Palatinate [Footnote: The other part of the Palatinate, under another branch of the Wittelsbachs, was reunited with Bavaria in 1779.] together with the t.i.tle of "elector." His successor had labored with much credit in the second half of the seventeenth century to repair the wounds caused by the war, encouraging agriculture and industries, building or restoring numerous churches and monasteries. But the Bavarian electors in the first half of the eighteenth century sacrificed a sound, vigorous policy of internal reform to a far-reaching ambition in international politics.

Despite the bond of a common religion which united them to Austria, they felt that their proximity to their powerful neighbor made the Habsburgs their natural enemies. In the War of the Spanish Succession, therefore, Bavaria took the side of France against Austria, and when Maria Theresa ascended the throne in 1740, the elector of Bavaria, who had married a Habsburg princess disbarred by the Pragmatic Sanction of Charles VI, immediately allied himself with Frederick of Prussia and with France in order to dismember the Austrian dominions.

[Sidenote: Saxony]

The Saxony of the eighteenth century was but a very small fraction of the vast Saxon duchy which once comprised all northwestern Germany and whose people in early times had emigrated to England or had been subjugated by Charlemagne. Saxony had been restricted since the thirteenth century to a district on the upper Elbe, wedged in between Habsburg Bohemia and Hohenzollern Brandenburg. Here, however, several elements combined to give it an importance far beyond its extent or population. It was the geographical center of the Germanies. It occupied a strategic position between Prussia and Austria. Its ruling family--the Wettins--were electors of the empire. It had been, moreover, after the championship of Martin Luther by one of its most notable electors, [footnote: Frederick the Wise( 1486-1525)] a leader of the Lutheran cause, and the reformer's celebrated translation of the Bible had fixed the Saxon dialect as the literary language of Germany.

At one time it seemed as if Saxony, rather than Brandenburg-Prussia, might become the dominant state among the Germanies. But the trend of events determined otherwise. A number of amiable but weak electors in the seventeenth century repeatedly allied themselves with Austria against the Hohenzollerns and thereby practically conceded to Brandenburg the leadership of the Protestant states of northern Germany.[Footnote: Another source of weakness in Saxony was the custom in the Wettin family of dividing the inheritance among members of the family. Such was the origin of the present infinitesimal states of Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Saxe-Meiningen, and Saxe-Altenburg.]

[Sidenote: Personal Union of Saxony and Poland]

Then, too, toward the close of the century, the elector separated himself from his people by becoming a Roman Catholic, and, in order that he might establish himself as king of Poland, he burdened the state with continued Austrian alliance, with war, and with heavy taxes.

The unnatural union of Saxony and Poland was maintained throughout the greater part of the eighteenth century: it was singularly disastrous for both parties.

[Sidenote: Hanover, and its Personal Union with Great Britain]

A part of the original ancient territory of the Saxons in north western Germany was included in the eighteenth century in the state of Hanover, extending between the Elbe and the Weser and reaching from Brandenburg down to the North Sea. Hanover was recognized as an electorate during the War of the Spanish Succession, [Footnote: The emperor had given the t.i.tle of elector to Ernest Augustus in 1692; the Powers recognized George I as elector in 1708.] but its real importance rested on the fact that its first elector, through his mother's family, became in 1714 George I of Great Britain, the founder of the Hanoverian dynasty in that country. This personal union between the British kingdom and the electorate of Hanover continued for over a century, and was not without vital significance in international negotiations. Both George I and George II preferred Hanover to England as a place of residence and directed their primary efforts towards the protection of their German lands from Habsburg or Hohenzollern encroachments.

Enough has now been said to give some idea of the distracted condition of the Germanies in the eighteenth century and to explain why the Holy Roman Empire was an unimportant bond of union. Austria, traditionally the chief of the Germanies, was increasingly absorbed in her non-German possessions in Hungary, Italy, and the Netherlands. Prussia, the rising kingdom of the North, comprised a population in which Slavs const.i.tuted a large minority. Saxony was linked with Poland; Hanover, with Great Britain. Bavaria was a chronic ally of France. Add to this situation, the political domination of France or Sweden over a number of the petty states of the empire, the selfishness and jealousies of all the German rulers, the looming bitter rivalry between Prussia and Austria, and the sum-total is political chaos, bloodshed, and oppression.

THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN HOHENZOLLERNS AND HABSBURGS

[Sidenote: Frederick the Great and Maria Theresa]

In the struggle between Prussia and Austria--between Hohenzollerns and Habsburgs--centered the European diplomacy and wars of the mid- eighteenth century. On one side was the young king Frederick II (1740- 1786); on the other, the young queen Maria Theresa (1740-1780). Both had ability and sincere devotion to their respective states and peoples,--a high sense of royal responsibilities. Maria Theresa was beautiful, emotional, and proud; the Great Frederick was domineering, cynical, and always rational. The Austrian princess was a firm believer in Catholic Christianity; the Prussian king was a friend of Voltaire and a devotee of skepticism.

[Sidenote: Coalition against Maria Theresa]

Frederick inherited from his father a fairly compact monarchy and a splendidly trained and equipped army of 80,000 men. He smiled at the disorganized troops, the disordered finances, the conflicting interests in the hodge-podge of territories which his rival had inherited from her father. He also smiled at the solemn promise which Prussia had made to respect the Austrian dominions. No sooner was the Emperor Charles VI dead and Maria Theresa proclaimed at Vienna than Frederick II entered into engagements with Bavaria and France to dismember her realm. The elector of Bavaria was to be made Holy Roman Emperor as Charles VII and Prussia was to appropriate Silesia. France was suspected of designs upon the Austrian Netherlands.

[Sidenote: Frederick's Designs on Silesia]

Silesia thus became the bone of contention between Frederick II and Maria Theresa. Silesia covered the fertile valley of the upper Oder, separating the Slavic Czechs of Frederick's Bohemia on the west from the Slavic Poles on the east. Its population, which was largely German, was as numerous as that of the whole kingdom of Prussia, and if annexed to the Hohenzollern possessions would make them overwhelmingly German.

On the other hand, the loss of Silesia would give Austria less direct influence in strictly German affairs and would deprive her of a convenient point of attack against Berlin and the heart of Prussia.

[Sidenote: Outbreak of the War of the Austrian Succession, 1740]

Trumping up an ancient family claim to the duchy, Frederick immediately marched his army into Silesia and occupied Breslau, its capital. To the west, a combined Bavarian and French army prepared to invade Austria and Bohemia. Maria Theresa, pressed on all sides, fled to Hungary and begged the Magyars to help her. The effect was electrical. Hungarians, Austrians, and Bohemians rallied to the support of the Habsburg throne; recruits were drilled and hurried to the front; the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) was soon in full swing.

[Sidenote: Entrance of Great Britain and Spain]

A trade war had broken out between Great Britain and Spain in 1739, [Footnote: Commonly called the War of Jenkins's Ear. See above, p. 311]

which speedily became merged with the continental struggle. Great Britain was bent on maintaining liberal trading privileges in the Belgian Netherlands and always opposed the incorporation of those provinces into the rival and powerful monarchy of France, preferring that they should remain in the hands of some distant and less-feared, less commercial power, such as Austria. Great Britain, moreover, had fully recognized the Pragmatic Sanction and now determined that it was in accordance with her own best interests to supply Maria Theresa with money and to dispatch armies to the Continent to defend the Netherlands against France and to protect Hanover against Prussia. On the other side, the royal family of Spain sympathized with their Bourbon kinsmen in France and hoped to recover from Austria all the Italian possessions of which Spain had been deprived by the treaty of Utrecht (1713).

The main parties to the War of the Austrian Succession were, therefore, on the one hand, Prussia, France, Spain, and Bavaria, and, on the other, Austria and Great Britain. With the former at first joined the elector of Saxony, who wished to play off Prussia against Austria for the benefit of his Saxon and Polish lands, and the king of Sardinia, who was ever balancing in Italy between Habsburg and Bourbon pretensions. With Austria and Great Britain was united Holland, because of her desire to protect herself from possible French aggression.

[Sidenote: Course of the War]