A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1.

by Carlton J. H. Hayes

[Sidenote: The Hohenzollern Family]

Next to the Habsburgs, the most influential German family in the eighteenth century was the Hohenzollern. As far back as the tenth century, a line of counts was ruling over a castle on the hill of Zollern just north of what is now Switzerland. These counts slowly extended their lands and their power through the fortunes of feudal warfare and by means of a kindly interest on the part of the Holy Roman Emperors, until at length, in the twelfth century, a representative of the Hohenzollerns became by marriage burgrave of the important city of Nuremberg.

[Sidenote: Brandenburg]

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 vassal 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 competitor 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 constitutional 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 constituted a united monarchy.