Prussia's emergence as a powerful state has been attributed to the rigorous and innovative leadership of the Hohenzollern prince Frederick William. His official title was "Elector of Brandenburg," meaning he was one of the 7 princes who elected the Holy Roman Emperor. His achievements earned him the title of "Great Elector," and he ruled from 1640 to 1688. His small state, made up of decentralized provinces, gained the respect of other European powers by virtue of its large, well-disciplined standing army. As Mirabeau, the French Revolutionary orator, later put it, Prussia was "not a state with an army, but an army with a state." And from looking at its geography - Prussia had no natural borders - one can see why an efficient and well-disciplined standing army was created.
Prussia first demonstrated this military power in a successful war in which it was allied with Sweden in the so-called First Northern War, against Poland (1655-1660). The Peace of Oliva of 1660 left Prussia with small but significant territorial gains in Poland and a strengthened position as a player to be reckoned with in European politics. In 1701, a change in title reflected Brandenburg-Prussia's elevation to a major power when the Elector of Brandenburg was granted the title "King in Prussia" (which later became King of Prussia) by the Holy Roman Emperor for sending some of his renowned troops to fight in the War of the Spanish Succession.
Although different in many ways from the French model (and in some ways more closely resembling the Russian state), the Prussian state was nevertheless absolutist in character. One of the chief reasons for this was the extended length of time the individual Hohenzollern rulers sat on the throne. In general, there was a strong correlation between length of tenure and the creation of centralized power: powerful monarchs needed time to enforce state centralization and consolidate territorial gains. For example, Ivan the Terrible ruled Muscovy for 51 years (1533-1584); Louis XIV ruled France for 72 years (1643-1715); Frederick William, as we have seen, ruled Prussia for 48 years; later, Frederick the Great of Prussia, the great grandson of the Great Elector, sat on the throne for 46 years (1740-1786).
Absolutist governments also consolidated power through the implementation of particular policies. In the case of Prussia, Frederick William strengthened his state and centralized his own power by:
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consolidating his state's fragmented territories doing away with the practice of commissioning foreign mercenaries as officers, and instead establishing a loyal "all-Prussian" officer corps drawn from the ranks of the nobility directly supporting the army with tax revenue, which the army itself collected determining how the army's revenue would be spent streamlining and extending the tax system by collecting taxes from more people in a more efficient manner curbing the independence of the estates and co-opting the landed aristocracy in the task of ruling the state (in return the retention of local economic and administrative privileges) skillfully pursuing a "balance of power" foreign policy, so that Prussia benefited from shifting alliances against still-powerful neighbors, such as Poland and Sweden |
The Prussian state was further strengthened by Frederick William's son, Frederick III (1688-1713), who ruled as Frederick I from 1701 to 1713 after he assumed the title of king, and further yet by his son, Frederick William I (1713-1740). Under their rule, all able-bodied men were required to register for military service with their local landlord, thus thrusting the burden of military recruitment from the state down, onto the local level (an efficient means of local recruitment called the "canton system"). Soldiers were trained at regular intervals and thus were extremely well prepared and organized. (Frederick William I had a strange fascination with giant soldiers, creating a regiment of soldiers all well over six feet tall, recruited from all over Europe, and known as the "Potsdam Giants." His fondness for them was such that he never risked using them in battle.)
Under the canton system, established in 1733, Prussia's army conscripted the peasant tenants of the landed gentry. These gentry, the owners of the large, grain-producing tracts of land to the east of the Elbe River, were called Junkers. The officer corps for Prussia (and later Germany) was comprised almost exclusively of Junkers. In no other country was the aristocracy so heavily represented in the army. Over time, this class (which occupied a preeminent position in the German military through World War II) developed a very stringent culture of military virtue and obedience to the state. The army (despite its defeat by Napoleon in the early-19th century) became a key pillar of the absolutist and authoritarian state until well into the 20th century.
The Junker obedience to the state had been given as part of a tacit exchange, in which the state divested the Junkers of political power, but granted them complete control and hereditary lordship over their peasants. Thus serfdom became a constituent element of Prussian life in the 17th and 18th centuries. The persistence of "feudal" forms of social organization was due in part to the fact that the Prussian aristocracy was not open to the wealthy bourgeoisie as it was, say, in France. A prosperous and numerous bourgeoisie was slow to develop in Prussia, since in an economy with a huge state sector (devoting enormous resources to its army) private enterprise never achieved the legal status or institutional sanction it had in western Europe. This situation, some historians have argued, contributed to the slow development of liberal political institutions in Germany. (What was it about Prussian historical development that would impede the emergence of liberal political institutions?)
By the end of Frederick William I's reign, Prussia was spending 70% of its budget on the military. When his son Frederick II succeeded him, he found himself in possession of the fourth largest army in Europe. He did not hesitate to use it to continue the policy of the consolidation and increase of Prussian territory established by the Great Elector. Upon assuming the throne, Frederick II (1740-1786) invaded Silesia, an area rich in natural resources bordering Prussia but controlled by Austria. The Austrians, caught completely off guard, were helpless to prevent this annexation. It was this bold strike that earned Frederick the name "the Great." This conquest not only doubled Prussia's population, but also gave her valuable industries and resources that were vital to Prussia's economic development in the mid-19th century. It was the beginning of a territorial expansion that continued until the early-19th century.