The ascendancy of France, 1598-1715

by Henry Offley Wakeman

Rivalry between Brandenburg and Sweden in the Thirty Years’ War.

When Frederick William succeeded his father in the electorate of Brandenburg in 1640 no one would have predicted that from that desolate discredited and divided state was to arise the hope of Germany. The policy of neutrality in the earlier years of the war, adopted not without a certain amount of shrewdness by George William in conjunction with his friend John George of Saxony, had broken down under the menace of the guns of Gustavus Adolphus and the invasion of Tilly. But the league between the Swedes and the elector could never be anything more than hollow, unless the former were prepared to surrender the rights of a conqueror over Pomerania. George William was the acknowledged heir of the old duke Boguslav. Pomerania, with its extensive seaboard, was just what Brandenburg wanted for her national development, and the Elector had been accustomed to look upon it as his own. The landing of Gustavus Adolphus changed the whole face of affairs in a moment. Pomerania became just as important to the Swedes as a basis of communication with Sweden and the Baltic, as it was to Brandenburg as a step in her aggrandisement. Why should the Swedes, who had saved the country from the hands of Wallenstein, surrender it tamely to George William who had not stirred one finger of his own free will on behalf of the Protestant cause? Naturally enough the Swedes stuck obstinately to their rights of conquest. Never would Oxenstjerna yield to the technical claims of Brandenburg, what Gustavus Adolphus had wrested from the enemy by force of arms. Never would Brandenburg abate her just and legal demands in the face of a selfish and brutal conqueror. So as time went on Sweden became far more the national enemy of Brandenburg than the Emperor had ever been. The unfortunate mark, lying as it did on the straight road between Bohemia and the Baltic, was harried alternately by the armies of both sides as the fortune of war ebbed and flowed. In 1635 George William accepted the treaty of Prague, but that gave no respite to his unlucky domain. In 1638, unable to find sustenance in the impoverished mark, he removed his court to Königsberg in east Prussia, where he died worn out with misery and failure in 1640, leaving his son Frederick William at the age of twenty the possessor of little land and many claims.

Brandenburg at the accession of Frederick William, 1640.

The territories owned by Frederick William on his accession were divided into three quite separate districts.[3] The old possessions of the house of Hohenzollern in north Europe consisted of the mark of Brandenburg, subdivided for administrative purposes into the old mark, the middle mark and the new mark, which they had ruled as margraves and as electors since the beginning of the fifteenth century. The mark of Brandenburg. This country, purely German, was like other German states part of the Empire, subject to the legal authority of the Emperor and had its own diet with vague powers of counsel and control over the elector in local affairs. The duchy of East Prussia. On the east of the Vistula, altogether outside of the limits of the Empire, was the duchy of east Prussia, which had become the hereditary possession of the Hohenzollerns by one of the accidents of the Reformation. The country belonged to the Order of the Teutonic Knights, and was subject to the suzerainty of Poland, but in 1525 the Knights accepted the Lutheran Reformation, dissolved the Order, and formed their territory into a duchy hereditary in the house of the grand master of the time, count Albert of Hohenzollern. At the beginning of the seventeenth century his line became merged in that of the Brandenburg branch of the family, and the elector of Brandenburg became also duke of east Prussia. Here, as in the mark, the existence of a diet in which sat both nobles and burghers formed a constitutional check on the will of the ruler, a check all the more effective because of the reluctance with which the people of east Prussia and their feudal suzerain the king of Poland had acknowledged the rights of the Brandenburg branch to the duchy. But the territorial claims of the young elector did not stop with the German mark of Brandenburg, the Polish duchy of east Prussia, and the succession to the German duchy of Pomerania. Duchy of Cleves. Within the limits of the Empire, stretching along both banks of the Rhine, in the neighbourhood of Köln, lay the duchies of Cleves, Jülich, Berg and Mark, to which the elector of Brandenburg and the count of Neuburg had put in claims as we have seen in 1609 and thereby very nearly precipitated the great war. By the treaty of Xanten, concluded in 1614 and practically renewed in 1630, the disputed territory was divided between the claimants, and the duchies of Cleves Mark and Ravensberg fell to the share of Brandenburg. During the war, however, Brandenburg was unable to make its power recognised over its new domains. The country was for some time the battle-ground of the Spaniards and the Dutch. As the tide of war rolled away from the lower Rhine it was occupied and practically administered by the Dutch, and when peace was restored Frederick William found himself obliged to assert what was to all intents and purposes a new sovereignty.

Aims of Frederick William.

Bearing in mind the scattered character of the Brandenburg possessions, a glance at the map is sufficient to show how geographical considerations dictated to the young elector his policy, and inspired his territorial ambitions. If only he could make good his claims on Pomerania, or at least on the eastern part of it, there would be nothing but the strip of west Prussia along the banks of the Vistula to separate his German dominions from his duchy of east Prussia. A successful war, or a lucky diplomatic stroke, might raise him at once into the position of the greatest power in the north. Side by side with the territorial dream went as was natural in a prince of the seventeenth century a dynastic ambition. Already events had made his dependence upon the Emperor almost nominal, the same success which won him west Prussia and united his dominions would also free him from his feudal vassalage to Poland. Once thoroughly independent of foreign authority he could turn his attention to his own subjects, and on the ruins of the effete and discredited diets raise, like Richelieu in France, a highly centralised military sovereignty in which the crown should be all in all. Such was the policy laid down for himself and his house by the Great Elector, and adhered to unflinchingly by his descendants ever since. Centralisation of the government, military rule, constant territorial aggrandisement have been the characteristics of the Prussian monarchy, and have ended in making out of the disjointed and turbulent dominions of Frederick William, a united and peaceful kingdom, which stretches from Russia to Belgium, and embraces in its ample folds the valleys of the Rhine, the Elbe, the Oder and the Vistula.

Unavoidable hostility of Sweden and Poland.

Directly in the way of the realisation of the least of these designs, as the Great Elector well knew, lay the hostile powers of Sweden and of Poland. He could not touch Pomerania without encountering the bitter jealousy of Sweden, he could not advance an inch towards the union of east Prussia and Brandenburg without first destroying the integrity of Poland. Over the prostrate bodies of these formidable neighbours lay the only road to his territorial ambition. It was a road beset with difficulties. What chance could the barren ravaged and disunited Brandenburg have in an unequal contest with Sweden, at that time admittedly the first military power in northern Europe? How could the half-starved German peasant withstand the onslaught of the brave though undisciplined masses of Polish cavalry? Frederick William knew that he must wait for a favourable opportunity, and spent the time in anxious preparation. His first care was to transfer the conduct of affairs in the mark from the hands of his father’s minister, Schwartzenburg, who was devoted to the Emperor, to his own, and to reorganise the army under himself. In this he was aided by the death of Schwartzenburg in 1641, and the subsequent revolt of his son and the discontented officers. Establishment of his personal authority in Brandenburg and East Prussia, 1641. Having thus got at his back a force upon which he could depend he openly broke with the Emperor, and with the full approbation of the diet entered into negotiations with the Swedes for a treaty of neutrality. Then turning his attention to the duchy of east Prussia, where the estates were trying to establish their superiority over him, with a diplomatic skill rarely found in a man of twenty, he succeeded in sowing dissensions between the nobles and the representatives of the towns, who took the lead in opposing his authority. By winning the former over to his side he was able to procure the recognition of his rule from John Casimir, king of Poland, in spite of the protest of the towns, and thus to enter legally upon his sovereignty. His withdrawal from the Thirty Years’ War, 1643. In 1643 the treaty with Sweden was successfully concluded, and for the rest of the war Brandenburg was practically free from the ravages of the rival armies. The breathing space thus gained was devoted by Frederick William to the reorganisation of the finances and the training of the army, and Brandenburg was in consequence enabled to assert her claims to consideration in the negotiations at Münster and Osnabrück with a force which would have appeared incredible in the days of George William. Gains of Brandenburg at the peace of Westphalia, 1648. When the peace of Westphalia was finally settled it was found that Brandenburg was given the right of annexing the secularised bishoprics of Magdeburg, Halberstadt, Minden and Camin, and the duchy of eastern Pomerania. Occupation of Eastern Pomerania, 1653. But the larger part of the lands were at the time of the conclusion of peace in the military occupation of the Swedes, and they were not at all disposed to evacuate them, until they had been paid the indemnity for their expenses which had been secured to them by the peace. Finally however, after much negotiation and many delays, the patience and skill of the Great Elector prevailed over all obstacles, and the year 1653 saw the back of the last Swedish soldier in retreat from eastern Pomerania.

Position of Brandenburg, 1653.

The year 1653 closes the first chapter of the story of the aggrandisement of Brandenburg. The territory of the elector now stretched in a compact mass across north Germany from Halberstadt to the Baltic. It comprised parts of the fertile valleys of the Elbe, the Havel and the Oder with their industrious populations, as well as the important coast line of eastern Pomerania with its numerous harbours. Detached from the central mass lay the duchy of east Prussia beyond the Vistula and the scattered districts of Cleves and Mark upon the Rhine and of Ravensberg and Minden upon the Weser. Inferior in prestige and military power to Sweden, inferior in extent to Poland, Brandenburg nevertheless emerged from the Thirty Years’ War stronger, both actually and relatively, than she was when the struggle began. There was no German power in north Germany her equal in strength, and no power in north Europe her superior in government. Since he had come to the throne Frederick William had steadily followed the policy of centralising the administration under himself and crushing the independent rights of the diets. In Brandenburg itself, where the advantages of centralisation under so able and keen-sighted a ruler were quickly seen, the opposition was never formidable, and in 1653, the very year of the annexation of eastern Pomerania, the ancient diet went quietly into perpetual sleep for want of being summoned. In east Prussia and in Cleves the work was far more difficult, and the Elector had to content himself for a time with crushing all serious opposition by the employment of Brandenburg soldiers to keep order, a proceeding which although illegal was extremely effective.