Just at the time when George William had gone to Prussia to obtain his investiture from Poland as duke of Prussia, his wife Charlotte of the Palatinate, the sister of the Winter King, gave birth to her first son Frederick William. The first Christina name was given in honor of the Winter King, the second in honor of the child’s father. The Electress’s mother in turn was a daughter of William of Orange.
When Frederick William succeeded to the throne he was only 20 years old, with hardly any experience in government and administration. Indeed his father had deliberately held him back from any participation in the affairs of state. Quite apart from that, his political interests had been inspired by a deep admiration for Gustavus Adolphus, whose body he accompanied as a 13-year-old when it was transferred to the boat that was to take the dead king to Sweden. His political interests were both more acute and less cautious than those of his father. Because of the Thirty Years War he was sent from Berlin to Kustrin to receive his education there, and then in 1634 he traveled to the Netherlands where at Leyden he studied mathematics, Latin, history and war studies. Besides German he spoke French, Dutch and Polish.
The Dutch influence upon him was deep and lasting; it made him sympathize deeply with the struggle of the House of Orange against the Catholic, Spanish and Hapsburg Empire. Consequently, when in 1637 his father decided that Brandenburg should join the struggle against the Swedes, he found himself not only in opposition to him, but was compelled to leave the Netherlands for Berlin where the tensions between father and son continued for some time, the embers of suspicion being kept alive by Schwartzenberg, the man also responsible for Brandenburg changing sides in favor of the Hapsburgs. Naturally Schwartzenberg ostensibly favored a reconciliation between father and son, though Frederick William’s mistrust of Schwartzenberg was so strong that he did not put it beyond the minister to poison him. When Frederick William did fall ill it seemed to confirm his suspicions, but in the end it turned out to be only measles.
The remaining time until his father’s death Frederick William spent in Konigsberg, depressed because of his enforced inactivity. By the time of his accession Brandenburg’s fortunes were at a low ebb. The soldiers which Brandenburg had raised to aid the Empire were the plague of the land; they could hardly have been worse than the Swedes. In fact when in 1639, the Swedes occupied Landsberg, Driesen and Frankfurt, the population there considered them less of a burden than their own Soldateska. At the time of George Williams’s death those parts of Pomerania owned by Prussia were in the hands of his opponents, as was Julich in the west; East Prussia was too threatened. One would hardly have thought that in terms of territorial expansion the Hohenzollerns were second only to the House of Hapsburg in Germany. Yet territory itself was not enough. What the Hohenzollern’s lacked was the effective strength to maintain it – which really meant that their territorial possessions existed at the mercy of their neighbors. This in turn had allowed the estates to assert their own power and pursue their own special interests without considering the Hohenzollern possessions as a whole.
The Thirty Years War had ravaged, and was still ravaging, these territories badly. Brandenburg alone had lost over 50 percent of its population, and its strategically most important areas were in the hands of the enemy. In Prussia the estates had exploited their position to the full, or played off the Hohenzollerns against the Poles. Yet from an economic point of view Prussia was more important to the Hohenzollerns than was Brandenburg. The Duke of Prussia possessed immense domains with considerable economic resources and a great number of subjects. This was a direct consequence of the settlement policy of the Teutonic Order which had concentrated in its hands the largest part of the territory, a large percentage of the population of which had, in the course of the preceding century and a half, been reduced to the state of serfdom. The economic importance of Prussia’s population was that it could be taxed directly by the Hohenzollerns without first having to ask the estates. This made Prussia the Hohenzollern’s most important single source of revenue, even more so because it ha not suffered so much from the events of the war as had Brandenburg and their other territories.
Equally important from the point of view of revenue was the commercial significance of Konigsberg. It exported the produce not only of Prussia but of Lithuania as well, major exports being wheat, wood, hemp and furs. The Teutonic Order had already attempted to acquire a share of the resulting revenue by introducing an export toll. As a consequence of the war the Swedes occupied Pillau at the exit of the Frisches Haff until 1635. After that date the toll revenues reverted to Prussia, but since the Duke of Prussia was still the vassal of the King of Poland at the time, the latter demanded his share as well. This the Duke had to concede, and Frederick William was compelled to accept the situation upon his accession.
The part of Julich-Cleves held by the Hohenzollerns had been exposed to serious risk by George William’s support of the Hapsburgs, which in economic terms meant that revenue obtained along the Rhine, from the forests and from other sources was taken by the Netherlands.
The political position of the Hohenzollerns in Brandenburg was, relatively speaking, still stable. After all they represented the resident ruling house. But economically their position was weak. Brandenburg relied on extensive sheep farming and wool production which had seriously declined because of the war. Another major source of revenue was the river toll exacted on the Elbe and the Oder. As, however, the mouths of both these rivers were in the possessions of other states, control of the trade lay outside the power of the Hohenzollerns. Stettin, for example, always managed to maintain its supremacy over Frankfut-an-der-Oder. When Brandenburg itself became a battleground, trade came almost to a stand-still.
Thus the legacy left to Frederick William was not a very enviable one. In contrast to his father who had relied on Schwartzenberg, Frederick William preferred to rely on his mother. Upon her initiative several memoranda were drawn up to analyze Brandenburg’s problems, but they failed to supply practical solutions. They emphasized the impossibility of conducting and continuing the war against the Swedes, but at the same time stressed the need for loyalty towards the Hapsburgs and the Empire. How the two policies were to be reconciled with one another remained an unanswered problem. But one point was made to which, in the final analysis, Frederick William paid great attention: the need for an effective army; for without an efficient army the House of Hohenzollern would not be in a position to pursue active politics at all but would simply remain the political objective of others. A policy of general appeasement towards the estates was recommended.
Instead of dismissing Schwartzenberg, Frederick William step by step, curtailed his powers to the point of insignificance, either assuming them himself or handing them over to Sigismund von Gotzen whom he appointed chancellor on the advice of his mother. At first Frederick William tried to follow the advice about establishing cordial relations with the estates. It was his express wish to involve them in discussion and ask their advice about the relationship of Brandenburg with the Emperor, the problem of Pomerania and the question of disarmament. From his experience in the Netherlands, his observations of the politics of the Estates General, he expected constructive assistance. But his expectations were not fulfilled. The estates showed little interest in questions of grand politics; all that mattered to them was the preservation and extension of their own material privileges. This was a lesson Frederick William remembered when formulating his future policy. In the process of joint consultation all that was agreed upon in the end was to investigate the complaints against the troops of Brandenburg and to reduce the army.
This seems in direct contradiction to the advice given to Frederick William about the need to build up a strong army. But it was a contradiction on the surface only. The combat value of the existing army was highly doubtful. Most of the officers and men represented the dregs of society, the scum swept to the surface by the Thirty Years War. The precondition of a new army was the dissolution of the old one. On the other hand it was imperative to come to an arrangement with the Swedes as soon as possible, and negotiations without the backing of an army would be futile. When Schwartzenberg died unexpectedly in March 1641, Frederick William was relieved of one of his burdens, but the dilemma arising out of the joining necessitates of negotiating with the Swedes and dissolving the army was not resolved.
The Reichstag in Regensburg looked at Frederick William’s attempts to obtain an armistice with the Swedes with skepticism, if not with hostility. He therefore instructed his delegates not to raise this topic at the Reichstag level any more, and then proceeded to negotiate with the Swedes on his own. Negotiations continued for several months, first indirectly then directly. Finally on 24 July 1641 a two-year armistice between Brandenburg and Sweden was concluded. While it relieved Brandenburg form the effort of making war, the armistice left the Swedes in those positions they held in Brandenburg. In other wars the armistice highlighted the political and military impotence of Brandenburg. Sweden had sacrificed nothing at all, which may have been the reason why Frederick William never exchanged the document of ratification, managing time and again to raise another point in need of further clarification until the general settlement of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.
As was the case for his father, Frederick William’s relationship with Poland was of primary importance, since as a Polish duke he was also the vassal of the King of Poland. The armistice of Stuhmdorf with the Swedes had given the Poles cause for alarm, for they feared that they would now be exposed to military pressure from the Swedes. Frederick William assured the Poles that he would not put Prussia’s harbors at the disposal of the Swedes. But, in general, he tried to keep King Vladislav IV of Poland in the dark about his arrangements with the Swedes, so as to use them as a lever with which to obtain a formal investiture or the de facto assumption of power in Prussia through his deputy. The latter was achieved, but Vladislav, contrary to Frederick William’s plan, insisted that he appear personally for the investiture which finally took place on 7 October 1641. Little less than a month later, on 1 November 1641, Frederick William entered Konigsberg and attended the Prussian diet. The diet granted him, among other things the introduction of the excise tax which was to become one of the most important forms of taxation throughout Brandenburg-Prussia. It represented a from of indirect taxation, by taxing consumption. But as the administration of taxation in Prussia lay in the hands of the nobility, this made sure that the nobility did not suffer too much.
The nobility consisted of those who have generally become known as the ‘Junkers’. Yet it is a misleading term because its present-day connotation does not go back further than the revolution of 1848, when among liberals it became a term of abuse directed against the Prussian nobility. In fact a Junker was originally the son of a noble house, in the Middle Ages often doing his military apprenticeship as the squire to a knight, in more modern armies also being a ‘Fahrenjunker’, or ensign, the rank held prior to a full commission.
Moreover, the term as generally used tends to obscure the fact that in Prussia as elsewhere the nobility itself consisted of what, for the sake of convenience, one might describe as a higher and lower nobility. In East Prussia there were the Grafenfamilien, the families of the counts or earls represented by famous names such as the Dohnas and the Dohnhoffs; below them were the knights bound to them by feudal obligations, and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that class from which the higher nobility drew administrators such as the Landrate. But the greater number of lower nobility during the same period ensured that they ultimately dominated the provincial diet and to all intents and purposes entered into a lasting alliance with the higher nobility. With the development and extension of demesne farming and the decline of the manorial system came also a substantial increase in the economic power of the Prussian nobility east of the river Elbe in general.
It acquired and usurped privileges which were finally confirmed by the Great Elector in 1653 and remained fundamentally unchanged until the Prussian Reform Movement of the early nineteenth century. The population of the countryside east of the Elbe was made up of people falling into essentially four categories. Firstly there were the peasants, possessing between 30 and 60 hectares of land and whose service obligation to the local lord consisted in supplying between two and four horses and one or two agricultural laborers. Secondly there were the cottagers, most of whom held no more than 30 hectares of land and who were compelled to render manual service. Thirdly there were the small cottagers, who had little more than a small garden and supplied casual labor as well as full-time labor during harvest time. Fourthly there were the servants and peasants who served the lord directly and lived on or close by his premises. Apart form those services mentioned, the peasants also had to pay dues in cash or agricultural produce to the lord of the demesne. This peasant population was subject to the lord or the administrator of the electoral, and later royal, domain. They were not allowed to leave the estate without permission of the lord and could marry only with his consent. Nor could they learn a particular trade without his agreement. They were all subject to patrimonial justice, all police and judiciary power over them being concentrated in the lord’s hands. Actual serfdom existed in Pomerania and the Uckermark. The lord could with his serfs as wished, buying and selling them like livestock, and they had no right of appeal to any court. Towns and cities which had lost their independence to the lord of the denesne were in a similar position, the burghers subject to feudal obligation. However, the situation that applied to the lands east of the Elbe, those territories traditionally associated with the ‘Junkers’, did not apply to the territories west of the Elbe – or if it did was in a much milder form. Clearly the early social and economic development of Prussia was strongly influenced by the customs prevailing among its nearest neighbors, Russia and Poland. And indeed in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries East Prussia in particular resembled Polish conditions very closely. In the words of Otto Hintze ‘it turned into a veritable nobles’ republic – until the Great Elector put an end to this misrule.
As far as religion was concerned Frederick William was a Calvinist, receiving his final imprint as such during his stay in the Netherlands. But the majority of his subjects were orthodox Lutherans. Publicly, Frederick William supported the cause of religious toleration, which of course did not prevent him from selecting his closest circle from men of his own religious persuasion. The Lutheran clergy in Prussia feared the spreading of Calvinist doctrine, and consequently opposed militantly any sign of it from the very beginning. This threat convinced Frederick William all the more that for the sake of stability he had to pursue a policy of religious toleration and to open offices and honors to all members of the Christian religions.
His view of the function of the judiciary is best illustrated by a painting which he had put in the Berlin Chamber Court. It depicted how the Persian King Camyses had skinned a judge found guilty of an unjust judgment.
The build-up of the army dates form the spring of 1644, after Frederick William had achieved of internal as well as external consolidation. The first recruitments represent the beginning of the army of Brandenburg-Prussia. The strength of the army varied according to need and circumstance, and only after 1660 was it possible to transform it into a regular standing army. Nevertheless, Frederick William and his councilors were clear in their minds about the need for a small efficient army in Brandenburg to supply the necessary muscle behind the territory’s political demands. Chancellor Gotzen raised only two objections: the money an army would cost, and the suspicious it would arouse among the Swedes.
But against those objections stood the considerations in favor of an army and, more importantly, a memorandum submitted in 1644 by Curt Bertram von Phul, a member of the Brandenburg nobility who had served in the Swedish army. Phul argued in favor of an army because its existence would increase the diplomatic prestige of Brandenburg-Prussia, and he also made the important point that a disciplined standing army would be of considerable economic benefit, as it had proved to be in the Dutch Netherlands and in Sweden. Though basically sound, the expectations inherent in these ideas were not realized until the eighteenth century.
One major problem remained, however, namely how to pay the army and where to take the funds from to hire the soldiers in the first place. The main contribution came from the Duchy of Prussia, though the payments were highly secretive because of the Swedes and the estates were circumvented. Councilors, and individual members of the diet, as well as representatives of town and countryside were approached individually and persuaded to give their support. But there was still a substantial gap between Prussia’s contribution and the amount needed. Loans were raised in cities, but we still do not know all the sources from which the army was financed in the early years.
Major difficulties were encountered in Cleves where the states were rather vehement in their opposition to the army recruitment and the consequential levying of contributions. The need for an army, its purpose and function in the general context of the policy of Brandenburg-Prussia were explained to them. It was of no avail. They were willing to grant supplies only if Frederick William would pull out of Cleves the troops he had recruited. Although Frederick William was willing to concede the point and transfer the troops to the country of Mark, he could only do so once the respective garrisons there had been evacuated by the imperial troops. Therefore because of the unreasonableness of the estates of Cleves, Frederick William had little choice other than to raise taxation without consent. This was possible in the countryside but met with strong opposition in the cities, where because of their refusal to co-operate no administration existed to assess and collect the taxes. Frederick William also encountered the opposition of Austria and the Dutch who opposed this kind of taxation on grounds of political principle. For the time being Frederick William and the estates could reach no common ground; both got themselves involved in an extensive pamphleteering war about the rights and wrongs of taxation without consultation-arguments which, across the North Sea, John Pym and John Hampden, among others, had put forward in defense of the same principle a short time before.
Meanwhile Sweden was turning its attention away from Germany towards Denmark. Rumors circulated of a marriage project between Frederick William and Queen Christina. The Swedes had once actively promoted this project but it seemed that neither Christina nor Frederick William showed any enthusiasm for the scheme. Brandenburg, hoping of course for due compensation, tried to mediate between Denmark and Sweden, but the attempt was ignored. However, the military needs of the Swedes compelled them to give up their occupation of the fortresses of Frankfurt-on-der Oder and of Krossen, which they could have defended only with great difficulty against any attacks by imperial troops. Apart form that, Brandenburg-Prussia was still, at least formally, the ally of the Hapsburgs. After lengthy and protracted negotiations in which by force of necessity the representatives of Brandenburg-Prussia were not always the most honest of men, a treaty was agreed upon and the fortresses evacuated by the Swedes in July 1644. The first members of the new army of Brandenburg-Prussia entered virtually upon the heels of the Swedes.
The Swedes also seemed ready to discuss the question of Pomerania, but because of its connections with the Empire, Brandenburg-Prussia could not over-indulge in negotiations with the Swedes. But the impotence of the state when faced by a major power was demonstrated during the course of the same year, when in order to support the Danes imperial troops traversed Brandenburg-Prussia with impunity, leaving Frederick William in a position to do very little about it.
It was impotence which caused Frederick William to look for support from any major power ready to give it. In 1643 when the first rumors spread about an impending major peace settlement, he had been quick to establish connections with France, since the Swedes could no longer be relied upon for support over the long term. On the other hand, the aim of France throughout the seventeenth century had been to weaken the House of Hapsburg in Spain and in the Hapsburg crownlands in Austria and Hungary, in order to prevent the reemergence of the kind of power bloc which Charles V had once created. Richelieu and Mazarin (and later Louis XIV) with unswerving purposefulness had built up in France to the status of Europe’s leading great power. However, in the process they underestimated seriously the political, social and economic strength of sea-powers such as Great Britain and the Netherlands while overestimating that of Sweden, which after the Thirty Years War was showing signs of the erosion of its strength and resources.
The hardening of respective positions became clear very quickly at Munster and Osnabruck, where the delegates of the various powers assembled to discuss a possible peace treaty to end the Thirty Years War. The Brandenburg delegation took its seats in both places in the spring of 1646. By August of that year the Swedes made it plain that they insisted upon Pomerania. Brandenburg refused arguing that Pomerania was to speak, its own front garden, a territory essential for maintaining the connection between Brandenburg and Prussia and that its loss would ruin the Elector. The Netherlands, in spite of their fundamental opposition to the Sweden demands, held back their arguments for the time being, while the Poles complicated the position even more by demanding parts of Pomerania for themselves. Since Pomerania was only one item of a long list of Swedish demands, her ally France felt rather alienated and, envisaging a Franco-Swedish conflict, enquired whether Frederick William would support France. France’s objective was to achieve a general peace which would prevent Vienna from aiding its Spanish relations. The danger was that Sweden could perhaps, by way of a separate peace with Austria achieve all of its aims, and as far as Brandenburg was concerned such a separate peace was likely to be concluded at her expense.
Vienna, interested in the speedy conclusion of peace with Sweden, now submitted its own proposals. These would have granted the Swedes the majority of their demands in northern Germany, the whole of Pomerania, and cities of Wismar, Bremen and Verden. All that Brandenburg was to receive was Halberstadt and financial compensation. Brandenburg replied with equally strong counter-demands which almost produced a total confrontation with Sweden and Austria on one side and Brandenburg on the other. The French intervened in this situation, with a compromise solution according to which Pomerania was to be divided. The eastern part of Pomerania, Vorpommern, the mouth of the Oder, including the city of Sttetin, was to go to Sweden; western Pomerania, Hinterpommern to Brandenburg.
Lacking the support of powers which would have been prepared to continue the war to see Brandenburg-Prussia’s demands fulfilled, Frederick William was compelled to agree. His ambition to create a state modeled commercially on that of the Netherlands had been frustrated. He had been cut off from the Baltic at its most important point. However, benefit of considerable magnitude was achieved by the mere fact that Brandenburg-Prussia was now no longer involved in the war which had reduced the population of many of its towns by half, some even by two-thirds and more. One-third of all the farms had been devastated, the destruction by its very nature affecting the peasant more than the noblemen.
The Peace of Westphalia signified the end of the ascendancy of the House of Hapsburg on the one hand, and the rise of France on the other. Spanish power along the Rhine was the point of collapsing, though it was to take another 11 years before this finally occurred.
Brandenburg-Prussia, still relatively insignificant and considered not particularly trustworthy because of the vacillating role it had played during the Thirty Years War, was in danger of becoming a pawn in the diplomatic game of the Great Powers. That it survived the way it did was mainly due to Austria’s exhaustion and the diversionary influence exercised by the Turks who unexpectedly favored the rise of Brandenburg-Prussia. But because it did not represent a single compact territorial unit and instead was spread east to west across northern Germany, it was highly vulnerable, a vulnerability duly exploited by its neighbors. The Swedes, for instance, did not feel themselves bound by the provisions of the Treaty of Westphalia and kept the whole of Pomerania under occupation. Brandenburg-Prussia’s possessions in western Germany, such as Cleves and Berg, were also insecure, though mainly because of differences over the religious settlement there. Frederick William tried to settle the question by military intervention but succeeded only in ranging Vienna against himself. However Emperor ```Ferdinand III, wishing to secure the voice of the Elector in favor of the royal title for his son, was prepared to assist him in another more vital matter, that of compelling the Swedes to evacuate Hinterpommern as agreed. This was finally achieved by the Spring of 1653. On the whole the relationship between Brandenburg-Prussia and the Empire was one of tension rather than co-operation.
In July 1655 war broke out between Sweden and Poland, which posed a serious problem for Frederick William for he was the vassal of King John Casimir of Poland and as such obliged to rally to his support. By that time however, Poland was already showing serious internal weaknesses of the kind that little more than a century later were to lead to its destruction. Confronted by the choice of supporting Poland or eventually being destroyed himself, he abandoned his liege lord. The victorious Swedes chased John Casimir out of his country, from where he sought refuge in Upper Silesia, and Frederick William now was forced to accept Swedish overlordship. On 17 January 1656 he concluded the Treaty of Konigsberg in which he accepted Prussia from the hands of Charles Gustavus (Charles X). He also opened his Prussian harbors of Memel and Pillau to the Swedes and divided with them the revenue from the harbor dues. Apart from that he had to promise to support the Swedes with 1,500 of his own men.
Hardly had the treaty been concluded when the fortunes of war turned decisively against the Swedes. With the support of a great popular movement and the church John Casimir returned to Poland, attacked the Swedes and expelled Charles Gustavus. This of course further increased the value of Brandenburg-Prussia as Sweden’s ally and on 25 June 1656, by the Treaty of Marienburg, the former was promised part of the Polish spoils should Poland be defeated.
The alliance culminated in the three-day battle of Warsaw in which the army of Brandenburg-Prussia received its baptism of fire. It proved also highly superior to its opponents. To be sure it was hardly in Frederick William’s interest to ensure complete Swedish victory, and thus perpetuate Swedish dominance. Moreover Vienna and the new power of the East, Russia, under Czar Alexei, began to rally to the support of Poland, putting the Swedes once more on the defensive. The moment seemed opportune for Frederick William: he was now in a strong enough position to demand that Charles Gustavus agree to the revocation of the bonds of vassalage and recognize Frederick William as Duke and sovereign of Prussia in its own right. And precisely this was agreed upon at the Treaty of Labiau on 20 November 1656. Negotiation in all directions, Frederick William would have been quite prepared to change sides to support John Casmir, only the King of Poland overestimated the strength of his position and rejected demands identical to those accepted by Charles Gustavus. However, the court of Vienna indicated to Frederick William that he would receive its fullest support if he refrained from supporting the Swedes. The Swedes, now being attacked also by the Danes, were in a dangerous position and demanded that Frederick William take on the Poles by himself while they turned against the Danes.
Again the election proved decisive. Emperor Frederick III had died on 2 April 1657, and it was therefore important to win over the Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia to the Hapsburg side. The Elector’s main condition was the recognition by Poland of the sovereignty of Prussia, a condition to which the King of Poland only agreed under the severest of pressure from the court of Vienna. By the Treaty of Wehlau of 19 September 1657, Prussia once again became sovereign. The territory which had been that of the Teutonic Order once again became a German state.
Renewed Swedish hostility caused him to conclude a defensive alliance with Austria which also included Poland and without further ado he gave his full support to the election of Leopold as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, who on 18 July 1658 at the age of 18 was duly elected.
A month later Charles Gustavus renews the war, but instead of turning against Prussia as expected he sailed with his fleet first against Copenhagen, where the Danish King Frederick III put up such a spirited defense that Charles Gustavus was in dire straits. At the head of a 30,000 strong army composed of Brandenburg, imperial and Polish contingents, he expelled the Swedes from Schleswig and Holstein while the Dutch appeared with a fleet breaking the Swedish blockade of Copenhagen.
France now entered as mediator, but only the death of Charles Gustavus helped a peace settlement to be arrived at. At the Peace of Oliva near Danzig on 3 May 1660, Frederick William was in an isolated position and had once again to cede Vorpommern to the Swedes. The only major concession he obtained was the confirmation of Prussian sovereignty. He was a disappointed man whose ambition seemed to have come to naught.
For almost 20 years now he had governed by listening to his closest advisers. Oliva represents a watershed in his style of government, because from then on he accepted no counsel other than his own and became one of the main representatives of princely absolutism in Europe. His position was emphasized by a sense of mission to establish Brandenburg-Prussia as a major power within the Holy Roman Empire, a sense of mission strengthened by his stern Calvinism. As the Elector, elected by divinity, he took it upon himself to turn his state into a formidable power, come what may, if necessary against the will of the representative organs such as the estates. Already in 1653 the Brandenburg Landtag had met for the last time.
Open conflict between the Elector and estates of Prussia broke out in the first Prussian Landtag or diet, to be held after the conclusion of the Peace of Oliva. This was held in Konigsberg in 1661. By means of a constitutional document, Frederick William informed the assembled estates that he now possessed the jus supremi et absoluti domini. While the privileges of the Landtag were to remain the same, it should be convened only with his permission. The estates refused to accept this change and therefore refused to pay homage to the Elector. Attempts to persuade the members of the estates to change their minds failed. There seemed nothing that could be done about the situation, until in 1662 the Elector decided to come to Prussia himself and enforce his demands. In October of that year, coming from Danzig he landed with 2,000 men and entered Konigsberg. While the city council and the population in general maintained passive resistance, they nevertheless avoided open hostility. The guilds, facing the choice of war against a superior military force or acquiescence, chose the latter. The Elector in turn confirmed the privilege of the estates within the confines of his own absolutist claims and the estates duly paid homage. One of the modifications introduced was that the rule by which only orthodox Lutherans could serve in public offices was abolished. Frederick William’s Calvinist confidants could now be employed.
Frederick William created the regiments and appointed its colonels, though throughout his reign the general practice continued that the regimental officers were still appointed by their colonels and not by the Elector. He recognized that there was need for reform and recognized equally that an officer corps of some homogeneity could not be created overnight but would be the product of decades of growth. As a result he was quick to see the advantage in an innovation of Louis XIV, who had created his own cadet corps for the training of officers. Such officers were thus essentially products of a common mould shaped by the French absolutist monarchy. The Elector adapted this idea and founded a cadet institution for the training of officers for the next generation. The officers of Brandenburg-Prussia were no longer to be soldiers of fortune that came went as they pleased, but a group of military leaders whose fate was closely associated with the country which they served.
This over the long term, made the army an ideal instrument for integrating the nobility into the Hohenzollern state, but in the short term it was precisely the nobility who provided some of the main opposition to the standing army. Reasonably enough the Elector did not trust his officers from the nobility to the same extent as did his successors. His most redoubtable general, Field Marshall von Derfflinger was an Austrian, the son of peasants according to one source, of a tailor according to another. He had made his fortune as a condottiero in the Thirty Years War before he joined service of Brandenburg-Prussia. The Great Elector made a point of keeping counsel with his senior officers. These meetings were the origins of the Prussian general staff.
Frederick William’s policy was influenced by the Silesian question, or rather by the Emperor’s attitude toward it. In 1675 the last of the Silesian Piasts, Duke George William of Liegnitz, died. By a treaty dating back to 1537 parts of Silesia were in that case to become Hohenzollern possessions But Vienna would not hear of it and simply annexed it as part of the crown lands of Bohemia. Even the demand for compensation in lieu of Silesia was rejected. As a result of the Emperor’s treatment of him Frederick William once again turned toward France. Having been deprived of Pomerania by the power of France he now accepted the inevitability of its rise and, by joining it, hoped to regain what he lost.
Complex secret negotiations ensued. At the same Louis XIV was engaged in a policy of annexation towards German territory which he chose to call ‘reunions’. A alliance between France and Brandenburg-Prussia was concluded, but without Denmark, and ultimately benefited France but not Brandenburg-Prussia. Louis XIV’s ‘Rape of Strasbourg’ in 1681 tarred Frederick William with the same brush, probably even worse, for his support of France was taken as a betrayal of the Reich. Only in 1683, when Sweden instead of renewing its treaties with France accepted subsidies from the Emperor and the Netherlands, was France interested in keeping Sweden in check with the aid of Brandenburg and Denmark. Sweden was to be expelled completely from Germany. In point of fact the agreements were not fully-fledged alliances at all but preliminary provisional agreements. The treaties were never ratified. Louis’ alliance with Brandenburg-Prussia had served its purpose: a French one, but not a Brandenburg, let alone German one.
Frederick William, known since Fehrbellin as the Great Elector, had succeeded in transforming his state into a formidable power, but not as he hoped into a major one. Hence it is not because of his vision that he is an impressive monarch of the Baroque to be remembered, but because he laid foundations upon which later, able successors could build and transform at least part of his ambitions into concrete reality. What he left behind were beginnings of the Prussian state, its army, its bureaucracy and perhaps among its subjects a nascent awareness of Prussian statehood.