Prussia was subsequently the driving force behind establishing in 1866 theNorth German Confederation, transformed in 1871 into the unifiedGerman Empire and considered the earliestcontinual legal predecessor of today's Federal Republic ofGermany.[6] The North German Confederation was seen as more of an alliance of military strength in the aftermath of the Austro-Prussian War but many of its laws were later used in the German Empire. The German Empire successfully unified all of the German states aside from Austria and Switzerland under Prussian hegemony[6] due to the defeat ofNapoleon III in theFranco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. The war united all the German states against a common enemy, and with the victory came an overwhelming wave of nationalism which changed the opinions of some of those who had been against unification.
In 1618, the electors of Brandenburg also inherited theDuchy of Prussia, since 1511 ruled by a younger branch of the House of Hohenzollern. In 1525,Albrecht of Brandenburg, the last grand master of theTeutonic Order, secularized his territory and converted it into a duchy. It was ruled in apersonal union with Brandenburg, known as "Brandenburg-Prussia". A full union was not possible, since Brandenburg was still legally part of the Holy Roman Empire and the Duchy of Prussia was afief ofPoland. The Teutonic Order had paidhomage to Poland since 1466, and the Hohenzollerns continued to pay homage after secularizing Ducal Prussia.
In the course of theSecond Northern War, the treaties ofLabiau andWehlau-Bromberg granted the Hohenzollerns full sovereignty over the Prussian duchy by September 1657.
In return for an alliance against France in theWar of the Spanish Succession, the Great Elector's son, Frederick III, was allowed to elevate Prussia to a kingdom in theCrown Treaty of 16 November 1700. Frederick crowned himself "King in Prussia" asFrederick I on 18 January 1701. Legally, no kingdoms could exist in the Holy Roman Empire except forBohemia andItaly. However, Frederick took the line that since Prussia had never been part of the empire and the Hohenzollerns were fully sovereign over it, he could elevate Prussia to a kingdom. EmperorLeopold I, keen to secure Frederick's support in the impendingWar of the Spanish Succession, acquiesced.
The style "Kingin Prussia" was adopted to acknowledge thelegal fiction that the Hohenzollerns were legally kings only in their former duchy. In Brandenburg and the portions of their domains that were within the Empire, they were still legally only electors under the overlordship of the emperor. However, by this time the emperor's authority was only nominal. The rulers of the empire's various territories acted largely as the rulers ofsovereign states, and only acknowledged the emperor's suzerainty in a formal way. In addition, the duchy was only the eastern bulk of the region of Prussia; the westernmost fragment constituted the part ofRoyal Prussia east of Vistula, held along with the titleKing of Prussia by theKing of Poland. While the personal union between Brandenburg and Prussia legally continued until the end of the empire in 1806, from 1701 onward, Brandenburg wasde facto treated as an integral part of the kingdom. Since the Hohenzollerns were nominally still subjects of the emperor within the parts of their domains that were part of the empire, they continued to use the additional title of Elector of Brandenburg until the empire was dissolved. It was not until 1772 that the title "Kingof Prussia" was adopted, following the acquisition of Royal Prussia in theFirst Partition of Poland.
The Kingdom of Prussia was still recovering from the devastation of theThirty Years' War and poor in natural resources. Its territory was disjointed, stretching 1,200 km (750 mi) from the lands of the Duchy of Prussia on the south-east coast of theBaltic Sea to the Hohenzollern heartland ofBrandenburg, with the exclaves ofCleves,Mark andRavensberg in theRhineland. In 1708 about one third of the population ofEast Prussia died during theGreat Northern War plague outbreak.[15] Thebubonic plague reachedPrenzlau in August 1710 but receded before it could reach the capitalBerlin, which was only 80 km (50 mi) away.
TheGreat Northern War was the first major conflict in which the Kingdom of Prussia was involved. Starting in 1700, the war involved a coalition led byTsarist Russia against the dominant North European power at the time, theSwedish Empire. Crown PrinceFrederick William tried in 1705 to get Prussia involved in the war, stating "best Prussia has her own army and makes her own decisions."[16] His views, however, were not considered acceptable by his father, and was not until 1713 that Frederick William ascended to the throne.[16] Therefore, in 1715, Prussia, led by Frederick William, joined the coalition for various reasons,[16] including the danger of being attacked from both her rear and the sea; her claims onPomerania; and the fact that if she stood aside and Sweden lost, she would not get a share of the territory.[6][16] Prussia only participated in one battle, theBattle of Stresow on the island ofRügen, as the war had already been practically decided in the 1709Battle of Poltava. In theTreaty of Stockholm Prussia gained all ofSwedish Pomerania east of the RiverOder. Sweden would however keep a portion of Pomerania until 1815. The Great Northern War not only marked the end of the Swedish Empire but also elevated Prussia and Russia at the expense of the decliningPolish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as new powers in Europe.[17]
The Great Elector had incorporated theJunkers, the landed aristocracy, into the kingdom's bureaucracy and military machine, giving them a vested interest in thePrussian Army andcompulsory education.[18] King Frederick William I inaugurated the Prussian compulsory conscription system in 1717.[18]
Prussian territorial acquisitions in the 18th century
In 1740, KingFrederick II (Frederick the Great) came to the throne. Using the pretext of a 1537 treaty (vetoed by EmperorFerdinand I) by which parts ofSilesia were to pass toBrandenburg after the extinction of its rulingPiast dynasty, Frederick invaded Silesia, thereby beginning theWar of the Austrian Succession. After rapidly occupying Silesia, Frederick offered to protect QueenMaria Theresa if the province were turned over to him. The offer was rejected, but Austria faced several other opponents in a desperate struggle for survival, and Frederick was eventually able to gain formal cession with theTreaty of Berlin in 1742.
To the surprise of many,[who?] Austria managed to renew the war successfully. In 1744 Frederick invaded again to forestall reprisals and to claim, this time, theKingdom of Bohemia. He failed, butFrench pressure on Austria's allyGreat Britain led to a series of treaties and compromises, culminating in the 1748Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle that restored peace and left Prussia in possession of most of Silesia.
Humiliated by the cession of Silesia, Austria worked to secure an alliance with France and Russia (the "Diplomatic Revolution"), while Prussia drifted into Great Britain's camp forming theAnglo-Prussian Alliance. When Frederick preemptively invaded Saxony and Bohemia over the course of a few months in 1756–1757, he began aThird Silesian War and initiated theSeven Years' War.
This war was a desperate struggle for the Prussian Army, and the fact that it managed to fight much of Europe to a draw bears witness to Frederick's military skills. Facing Austria,Russia, France, and Sweden simultaneously, and with onlyHanover (and the non-continental British) as notable allies, Frederick managed to prevent a serious invasion until October 1760, when the Russian army briefly occupied Berlin andKönigsberg. The situation became progressively grimmer, however, until the death in 1762 of EmpressElizabeth of Russia (Miracle of the House of Brandenburg). The accession of the PrussophilePeter III relieved the pressure on the eastern front. Sweden also exited the war at about the same time.
Defeating the Austrian army at theBattle of Burkersdorf and relying on continuing British success against France in the war's colonial theatres, Prussia was finally able to force astatus quo ante bellum on the continent. This result confirmed Prussia's major role within the German states and established the country as a Europeangreat power. Frederick, appalled by the near-defeat of Prussia and the economic devastation of his kingdom, lived out his days as a much more peaceable ruler.
To the east and south of Prussia, thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth had gradually weakened during the 18th century. Alarmed by increasing Russian influences in Polish affairs and by a possible expansion of theRussian Empire, Frederick was instrumental in initiating the first of thePartitions of Poland between Russia, Prussia, and Austria in 1772 to maintain abalance of power.[citation needed] The Kingdom of Prussia annexed most of the Polish province ofRoyal Prussia, includingWarmia, allowing Frederick to finally adopt the title Kingof Prussia; the annexed Royal Prussian land was organised the following year into theProvince of West Prussia; most of the rest became the originally separateNetze District, which was attached to West Prussia in 1775. The boundary between West Prussia and the territory previously known as the Duchy of Prussia, now theProvince of East Prussia was also adjusted, transferringMarienwerder to West Prussia (which became its capital) and Warmia (theHeilsberg andBraunsberg [de] districts) to East Prussia. The annexed territory connected East Prussia with theProvince of Pomerania, uniting the kingdom's eastern territories.
After Frederick died in 1786, his nephewFredrick William II continued the partitions, gaining a largepart of western Poland in 1793;Thorn (Toruń) andDanzig (Gdańsk), which had remained part of Poland after the first partition, were incorporated into West Prussia, while the remainder became the province ofSouth Prussia.
In 1795, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ceased to exist and a large area (includingWarsaw) to the south and east of East Prussia became part of Prussia. Most of the new territories (and the part of South Prussia north of theVistula) were organised into the province ofNew East Prussia; South Prussia gained the area immediately south of the Vistula,Narew andBug, including Warsaw; a small area to the south of South Prussia becameNew Silesia. With the Polish-Lithuanian state gone Prussia now shared its eastern borders with the Habsburg monarchy (West Galicia) and Russia (Russian partition).
The Partitions were facilitated by the fact that they occurred just before the 19th-century rise of nationalism in Europe, and the national self-awareness was yet to be developed in most European peoples, especially among commoners. The Kingdom of Prussia was perceived in Poland more as a nationality-neutral personal holding of the rulingHouse of Hohenzollern, rather than a German nation-state, and any anxiety concerned predominantly freedom to practice religion rather than rights to maintain national identity. The onset of Germanisation in the following decades, later joined by theKulturkampf, quickly changed this benign picture and alienated Poles from the Prussian state, ultimately boosting their national self-awareness and eliciting their national resistance against Prussian rule.
Following theFrench Revolution and theExecution of Louis XVI, Prussia declared war on theFrench First Republic. When Prussian troops attempted to invade France, they were beaten back and theTreaty of Basel (1795) ended theWar of the First Coalition. In it, the First French Republic and Prussia had stipulated that the latter would ensure the Holy Roman Empire's neutrality in all the latter's territories north of the demarcation line of the RiverMain, including the British continental dominions of the Electorate of Hanover and theDuchies of Bremen-Verden. To this end, Hanover (including Bremen-Verden) also had to provide troops for the so-calleddemarcation army maintaining this state ofarmed neutrality.
In the course of theWar of the Second Coalition against France (1799–1802),Napoleon Bonaparte urged Prussia to occupy Hanover. In 1801, 24,000 Prussian soldiers invaded, surprising Hanover, which surrendered without a fight. In April 1801 the Prussian troops arrived in Bremen-Verden's capitalStade and stayed there until October that year. TheUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland first ignored Prussia's hostility, but when it joined the pro-FrenchSecond League of Armed Neutrality alongsideDenmark–Norway and Russia, Britain started to capture Prussian sea vessels. After theBattle of Copenhagen the coalition fell apart and Prussia again withdrew its troops.
At Napoleon's instigation, Prussia recaptured British Hanover and Bremen-Verden in early 1806. On 6 August that year the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved as a result of Napoleon's victories overAustria. The title ofKurfürst (Prince-elector) ofBrandenburg became meaningless, and was dropped. Nonetheless, KingFrederick William III was nowde jure as well asde facto sovereign of all of the Hohenzollern domains.[b] Before this time, the Hohenzollern sovereign had held many titles and crowns, from Supreme Governor of theProtestant Churches (summus episcopus) to King, Elector, Grand Duke, Duke for the various regions and realms under his rule. After 1806 he was simply King of Prussia andsummus episcopus.
Prussia then turned against theFirst French Empire, but was defeated in theBattle of Jena–Auerstedt (14 October 1806) and Frederick William III was then forced to temporarily flee to remoteMemel.[19] After theTreaties of Tilsit in 1807, Prussia lost about half of its territory, including the land gained from the Second and Third Partitions of Poland (which now fell to theDuchy of Warsaw) and all land west of theElbe river. France recaptured Prussian-occupied Hanover, including Bremen-Verden. The remainder of the kingdom was occupied by French troops (at Prussia's expense) and the king was obliged to make an alliance with France and join theContinental System.
Prussia's reward for its part in France's defeat came at theCongress of Vienna. It regained most of its pre-1806 territory. Notable exceptions included part of the territory annexed in the Second and Third Partitions of Poland, which becameCongress Poland under Russian rule (though it did retain Danzig, acquired in the Second Partition). It also did not regain several of its former towns in the south. However, as compensation it picked up some new territory, including 40% of theKingdom of Saxony and much ofWestphalia and the Rhineland. Prussia now stretched uninterrupted from the Niemen in the east to the Elbe in the west, and possessed a chain of disconnected territories west of the Elbe. This left Prussia as the only great power with a predominantly German-speaking population.
Frederick William III submitted Prussia to a number of administrative reforms, among others reorganising the government by way of ministries, which remained formative for the following hundred years.
As to religion, reformedCalvinist Frederick William III—asSupreme Governor of theProtestant Churches—asserted his long-cherished project (started in 1798) to unite theLutheran and theReformed Church in 1817, (seePrussian Union). The Calvinist minority, strongly supported by its co-religionist Frederick William III, and the partially reluctant Lutheran majority formed theunited ProtestantEvangelical Church in Prussia. However, ensuing quarrels causing a permanentschism among the Lutherans into united andOld Lutherans by 1830.
During the half-century that followed the Congress of Vienna, aconflict of ideals took place within the German Confederation between the formation of a single German nation and the conservation of the current collection of smaller German states and kingdoms. The main debate centered around whether Prussia or theAustrian Empire should be the leading member of any unified Germany. Those advocating for Prussian leadership contended that Austria had far too many non-German interests to work for the greater good of Germany. They argued that Prussia, as by far the most powerful state with a majority of German-speakers, was best suited to lead the new nation.
The establishment of the German Customs Union (Zollverein) in 1834, which excluded Austria, increased Prussian influence over the member states. In the wake of theRevolutions of 1848, theFrankfurt Parliament in 1849 offered KingFrederick William IV of Prussia the crown of a united Germany. Frederick William refused the offer on the grounds that revolutionary assemblies could not grant royal titles. But he also refused for two other reasons: to do so would have done little to end the internal power-struggle between Austria and Prussia, and all Prussian kings (up to and includingWilliam I) feared that the formation of aGerman Empire would mean the end of Prussia's independence within the German states.[citation needed]
In 1848, actions taken by Denmark towards the Duchies ofSchleswig andHolstein led to theFirst War of Schleswig (1848–1851) between Denmark and the German Confederation, resulting in a Danish victory.
Frederick William issuedPrussia's first constitution by his own authority in 1848, modifying it in theConstitution of 1850. These documents—moderate by the standards of the time but conservative by today's—provided for a two-chamber parliament, theLandtag. The lower house, later known as theAbgeordnetenhaus, was elected by all males over the age of 25 using thePrussian three-class franchise. Voters were divided intothree classes whose votes were weighted according to the amount of taxes paid. In one typical election, the first class (with those who paid the most in taxes) included 4% of voters and the third class (with those who paid the least) had 82%, yet each group chose the same number of electors.[20] The system all but assured dominance by the more well-to-do men of the population. The upper house, later renamed theHerrenhaus ("House of Lords"), was appointed by the king. He retained full executive authority, and ministers were responsible only to him. As a result, the grip of the landowning classes, theJunkers, remained unbroken, especially in the eastern provinces. The constitution nevertheless contained a number of liberal elements such as the introduction of jury courts and a catalog of fundamental rights that included freedom of religion, speech and the press.[21]
Frederick William suffered a stroke in 1857, and his younger brother, Prince William, becameregent. William pursued a considerably more moderate policy. Upon Frederick William IV's death in 1861 he succeeded to the Prussian throne asWilliam I. However, shortly after becoming king, he faced a dispute with his parliament over the size of the army. The parliament, dominated by the liberals, balked at William's desire to increase the number of regiments and withheld approval of the budget to pay for its cost. A deadlock ensued, and William seriously considered abdicating in favour of his son, Crown PrinceFrederick. Ultimately, he decided to appointOtto von Bismarck, at that time the Prussian ambassador to France. Bismarck took office on 23 September 1862.
Although Bismarck had a reputation as an unyielding conservative, he initially inclined to seek a compromise over the budget issue. However, William refused to consider it; he viewed defence issues as the crown's personal province. Forced into a policy of confrontation, Bismarck came up with a novel theory. Under the constitution, the king and the parliament were responsible for agreeing on the budget. Bismarck argued that since they had failed to come to an agreement, there was a "hole" in the constitution, and the government had to continue to collect taxes and disburse funds in accordance with the old budget in order to keep functioning. The government thus operated without a new budget from 1862 to 1866, allowing Bismarck to implement William's military reforms.
The liberals violently denounced Bismarck for what they saw as his disregard for the fundamental law of the kingdom. However, Bismarck's real plan was an accommodation with liberalism. Although he had opposed German unification earlier in his career, he had now come to believe it inevitable. To his mind, the conservative forces had to take the lead in the drive toward creating a unified nation in order to keep from being eclipsed. He also believed that the middle-class liberals wanted a unified Germany more than they wanted to break the grip of the traditional forces over society. He thus embarked on a drive to form a united Germany under Prussian leadership, and guided Prussia through three wars which ultimately achieved this goal.
The first of these wars was theSecond War of Schleswig (1864), which Prussia initiated and succeeded in, and in which it gained the assistance of Austria. Denmark was soundly defeated and surrendered both Schleswig and Holstein, to Prussia and Austria respectively.
The divided administration of Schleswig and Holstein then became the trigger for theAustro-Prussian War of 1866—also known as the Seven Weeks' War. Prussia, allied with theKingdom of Italy and various northern German states, declared war on the Austrian Empire. The Austrian-led coalition was crushed, and Prussia annexed four of its smaller allies—theKingdom of Hanover, theElectorate of Hesse, theDuchy of Nassau and theFree City of Frankfurt. Prussia also annexed Schleswig and Holstein, and also effectively annexedSaxe-Lauenburg by forcing it into apersonal union with Prussia (which was turned into a full union in 1876). King William initially wanted to take territory from Austria itself and annex Saxony, but Bismarck persuaded him to abandon the idea. While Bismarck wanted Austria to play no future role in German affairs, he foresaw that Austria could be a valuable future ally. With these gains in territory, the Prussian possessions in the Rhineland and Westphalia became geographically connected to the rest of the kingdom for the first time. Counting thede facto annexation of Saxe-Lauenburg, Prussia now stretched uninterrupted across the northern two-thirds of Germany. It would remain at this size until the overthrow of the monarchy in 1918.
Bismarck used this opportunity to end the budget dispute with parliament. He proposed a bill of indemnity granting him retroactive approval for governing without a legal budget. He guessed, correctly as it turned out, that this would lead to a split between his liberal adversaries. While some of them argued that there could be no compromise with the principle of constitutional government, most of the liberals decided to support the bill in hopes of winning more freedom in the future.
The German Confederation was dissolved as part of the war.[citation needed] In its place, Prussia cajoled the 21 states north of theMain into forming theNorth German Confederation in 1866. Prussia entered the Confederation as a whole (including the East Prussian cradle of its statehood, as well as its share of dismembered Poland consisting ofProvince of Posen andWest Prussia), thus becoming the dominant state in this new entity, with four-fifths of its territory and population—more than the other members of the confederation combined. Its near-total control was cemented in aconstitution written by Bismarck. Executive power was vested in apresident—a hereditary office of the rulers of Prussia. He was assisted by a chancellor responsible only to the president. There was also a bicameral parliament. The lower house, orReichstag (Diet), was elected by universal male suffrage. The upper house, orBundesrat (Federal Council) was appointed by the state governments. The Bundesrat was, in practice, the stronger chamber. Prussia had 17 of 43 votes and could easily control proceedings through alliances with the other states. For all intents and purposes, Bismarck dominated the new grouping. He served as his own foreign minister for virtually his entire tenure as prime minister of Prussia, and in that capacity was able to instruct the Prussian delegates to the Bundesrat.
The southern German states (except Austria) were forced[by whom?] to accept military alliances with Prussia, and Prussia began steps to merge them with the North German Confederation. Bismarck's plannedKleindeutschland unification of Germany had come considerably closer to realisation.
The final act came with theFranco-Prussian War (1870–1871), where Bismarck maneuvered EmperorNapoleon III ofFrance into declaring war on Prussia. Activating the German alliances put in place after the Austro-Prussian War, the German states, aside from Austria, came together and swiftly defeated France, even managing to take Napoleon III prisoner (2 September 1870). Even before then,[citation needed] Bismarck was able to complete the work of unifying Germany under Prussian leadership. The patriotic fervour aroused by the war against France overwhelmed the remaining opponents of a unifiedKleindeutschland nation, and on 18 January 1871 (the 170th anniversary of the coronation of the first Prussian king, Frederick I), theGerman Empire wasproclaimed in theHall of Mirrors atVersailles[24] outside ofParis, while the French capital was still undersiege. King William became the first emperor (Kaiser) of a unified Germany. However, the titles of German Emperor and King of Prussia were to be borne by the same man until the end of the monarchy.
Bismarck's new empire was the most powerful state on the Continent. Prussia's dominance over the new empire was almost as absolute as it was with the North German Confederation. It included two-thirds of the empire's territory and three-fifths of its population. The imperial crown was a hereditary office of the House of Hohenzollern. Prussia also had a large plurality of seats in the Bundesrat, with 17 votes out of 58 (17 out of 61 after 1911); no other state had more than six votes. As before, it could effectively control the proceedings with the support of its allies in the secondary states. As mentioned above, Bismarck served as foreign minister of Prussia for almost his entire career, and in that role instructed the Prussian deputies to the Bundesrat. TheImperial German Army was essentially an enlarged Prussian army, and the embassies of the new empire were mostly old Prussian embassies. TheConstitution of the German Empire was essentially an amended version of the constitution of the North German Confederation.
Prussia in the German Empire, 1871–1918
Administrative divisions of the German Empire on 1 January 1900
However, the seeds for future problems lay in a gross disparity between the imperial and Prussian systems. The empire granted the vote to all men over 25, although Prussia retained itsthree-class franchise, in which votes were weighted by taxes paid.[20] Since the imperial chancellor was, except for two periods (January–November 1873 and 1892–1894) also prime minister of Prussia, this meant that for most of the empire's existence, the king/emperor and prime minister/chancellor had to seek majorities from legislatures elected by two completely different franchises.
At the time of the empire's creation, both Prussia and Germany were roughly two-thirds rural. Within 20 years, the situation was reversed; the cities and towns accounted for two-thirds of the population. However, in both the kingdom and the empire, the constituencies were never redrawn to reflect the growing population and influence of the cities and towns. This meant that rural areas were grossly overrepresented from the 1890s onward.
Bismarck realized that the rest of Europe was sceptical of his powerful new Reich, and turned his attention to preserving peace with such acts as theCongress of Berlin. The new German Empire improved its already-strong relations with Britain. The ties between London and Berlin had already been sealed in 1858, when Crown Prince Frederick William of Prussia marriedVictoria, Princess Royal.
William I died in 1888, and the Crown Prince succeeded to the throne asFrederick III. The new emperor, a decided Anglophile, planned to transform Prussia and the empire into a more liberal and democratic monarchy based on the British model. However, Frederick was already ill with inoperable throat cancer, and died after only 99 days on the throne. He was succeeded by his 29-year-old son,William II. As a boy, William had rebelled against his parents' efforts to mould him as a liberal, and had become thoroughly Prussianized under Bismarck's tutelage.
The new Kaiser William rapidly soured relations with theBritish andRussian royal families (despite being closely related to them), becoming their rival and ultimately their enemy. Before and duringWorld War I (1914–1918), Prussia supplied significant numbers of soldiers and sailors in the German military, and Prussian Junkers dominated the higher ranks. In addition, portions of theEastern Front were fought on Prussian soil. Prussia – along with Germany as a whole – experienced increasing troubles with revolutionaries during the war. The Great War ended byarmistice on 11 November 1918.
Uprisings in Berlin and other centres began the civil conflict of theGerman revolution of 1918–1919 (German:Novemberrevolution). By late 1918, the Prussian House of Representatives was controlled by theSocial Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), which advocatedMarxism. William knew that he had lost his imperial crown for good, but still hoped to retain his Prussian crown; he believed that as ruler of two-thirds of Germany, he could remain a major figure in any successor regime. However, William discovered this was impossible under the imperial constitution. Although he believed he ruled the empire inpersonal union with Prussia, the imperial constitution stipulated that the imperial crown was tied to the Prussian crown. In any event, he had lost support of the military who might have fought for him. William's abdication as both king of Prussia and German emperor was announced on 9 November 1918, and he went into exile in theNetherlands the next day. With armed revolts, mass strikes, and street fighting in Berlin, the Prussian state government declared a state of siege and appealed for imperial military aid. TheGarde-Kavallerie-Schützen-Division [de], commanded byWaldemar Pabst, moved against the strikers in Berlin. By the end of the fighting on 16 March, they had killed approximately 1,200 people, many of them unarmed and uninvolved. The revolutionary period lasted from November 1918 until the establishment in August 1919 of a republic that later became known as theWeimar Republic.
The joint authority,feudal andbureaucratic, on which Prussian absolute monarchy was based, saw its interests laid in suppression of the drive for personal freedom and democratic rights. It therefore had to recourse on police methods.[25] The "police state", asOtto Hintze described it, replaced the older system with its feudalsquirearchy run in the interests of the ruling class, but which in its rudimentary form was a constitutional state.[26]
There were two constitutions during the kingdom's existence, those of 1848 and 1850. The first was granted by the reluctant Frederick William IV in response to demands that arose during the German revolutions of 1848–1849.[27] Elections were called in early 1848 for aPrussian National Assembly, with all males 25 and older able to vote. King Frederick William IV and his ministers presented a draft constitution in which the king retained many of his old rights. The Assembly responded with the "Charte Waldeck" which included an expanded list of fundamental rights, aVolkswehr ('people's guard') responsible to parliament and restrictions on feudal rights. The King declared to his ministers that "he would never accept [it] under any conditions". On 9 November he adjourned the Assembly and on 5 December 1848 unilaterally imposed theConstitution of 1848. It contained a significant number of liberal elements from the Charte Waldeck, including a parliament with two chambers, the introduction of jury courts, certain limitations on the monarch's powers and a mandate to ensurelegal certainty. It also guaranteed many fundamental rights such as freedom of speech, the press and religion.[28]
In spite of the constitution's liberal clauses, Prussia was still far from a democratic state. The king had an absolute veto over laws, which restricted the separation of powers. It was possible for the monarch to circumvent the judiciary, and the military could be described as astate within the state. All adult male citizens regardless of class had the right to vote, but thePrussian three-class franchise that weighted votes based on the amount of taxes paid significantly limited the political voice of the middle and lower classes.[20]
The1850 Constitution of Prussia was an amended version of the 1848 Constitution. Unlike the earlier version, the 1850 revision was a cooperative effort between the new Prussian Parliament, the King and his ministers.[29] The changes they made to the 1848 Constitution were mostly of a minor nature. The king remained in a position of dominance over the three branches of government, and parliament had no control over the military, but the liberal elements introduced in the 1848 Constitution remained largely in place.
The 1850 Constitution, frequently amended, was the fundamental law of Prussia until the end of the German Empire in 1918.
The Prussian Constitution of 1850 allowed for freedom of conscience, freedom of public and private worship and freedom of association with religious bodies. It stated that all churches and other religious associations should administer everything independently and privately from the state and that no part of the government may affect the Church. The constitution also stated that all children should be taught their religion from people of their own religion and not by someone else.[30][31]
According to a census taken in the early- to mid-1800s, there was a division of six religions around the 1830s: this was, per million inhabitants, 609,427.0 practising Protestants, 376,177.1 practisingCatholics, 13,348.8 practising Jews, 925.1 Mennonites, 121.4 Greek Orthodox and 0.6Muslims. At this time, the total population was 14,098,125 people, meaning there were approximately 8,591,778 practising Protestants, 5,303,392 practising Catholics, 188,193 practising Jews, 13,042Mennonites, 1,712 Greek Orthodox, and 8 Muslims.[32]
Although dominated by Protestant Lutherans (along with some Calvinist), it contained millions of Catholics in the west and in Poland. There were numerous Catholic populations in the Rhineland and parts of Westphalia. In addition, West Prussia, Warmia, Silesia, and the province of Posen had predominantly Catholic Polish-speaking populations. East Prussia's southern region of Masuria was mostly made up of Germanised Protestant Masurs.
Following the major western gains made by Prussia after the Vienna Congress, a total of ten provinces were established, each one subdivided further into smaller administrative regions known asRegierungsbezirke. The provinces were:
The ten provinces of the Kingdom of Prussia, after theCongress of Vienna. The other member states of theGerman Confederation are shown in beige. TheCanton of Neuchâtel in the south-west was under Prussian administration until 1848.
Map of the currentstates of Germany (in dark green) that are completely or mostly situated inside the old borders ofImperial Germany's Kingdom of Prussia
^Due to Brandenburg's prominence as the seat of power within the kingdom, it isalso sometimes referred to asPrussia-Brandenburg orBrandenburg-Prussia. The erroneous labelsKingdom of Brandenburg andKingdom ofNordmark have also been applied to the Prussia of this period.
^When the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806, the function of prince-electors electing its emperors had lapsed.
Citations
^E. Alvis, Robert (2005).Religion and the Rise of Nationalism: A Profile of an East-Central European City. Syracuse University Press. p. 133.ISBN9780815630814.
^Browning, Reed S. (1993). "The War of the Austrian Succession." New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-09483-6. Page 24.
^Ernest John Knapton. "Revolutionary and Imperial France, 1750–1815." Scribner: 1971. Page 12.
^Horn, D. B. "The Youth of Frederick the Great 1712–30." In Frederick the Great and the Rise of Prussia, 9–10. 3rd ed. London: English Universities Press, 1964.
^Horn, D. B. "The Seven Years' War." InFrederick the Great and the Rise of Prussia, pp. 81–101. 3rd ed. London: English Universities Press, 1964.
^Atkinson, C. T.A History of Germany, 1715–1815. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1969.
^Walker, Mack,The Salzburg transaction: expulsion and redemption in eighteenth-century Germany, (Cornell University Press, 1992), 74.
^abcdFeuchtwanger, E. J. Prussia: Myth and Reality: The Role of Prussia in German History. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1970.
^Shennan, Margaret. The Rise of Brandenburg-Prussia. London: Routledge, 1995
^abcdPeter, Jelena (1 February 2000)."Das Preußische Dreiklassenwahlrecht" [The Prussian Three-Class Franchise].Deutsches Historisches Museum (in German). Retrieved3 April 2023.
^Die Reichsgründung 1871Archived 2014-08-18 at theWayback Machine (The Foundation of the Empire, 1871), Lebendiges virtuelles Museum Online, accessed 2008-12-22. German text translated: [...] on the wishes of Wilhelm I, on the 170th anniversary of the elevation of the House of Brandenburg to princely status on 18 January 1701, the assembled German princes and high military officials proclaimed Wilhelm I as German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at the Versailles Palace.
^Robinson, James Harvey (September 1894)."The Constitution of the Kingdom of Prussia".Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science:12–13.Archived from the original on 7 April 2023. Retrieved7 April 2023.
^Robinson, James Harvey ( (September 1894)."The Constitution of the Kingdom of Prussia".Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science:13–14.Archived from the original on 2 April 2023. Retrieved7 April 2023.
^Wilhelm, Friedrich; Robinson, James (1894). "Supplement: Constitution of the Kingdom of Prussia".Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.5 (Supplement 8). Sage Publications Inc., American Academy of Political and Social Science:1–54.JSTOR1009032.
^Burgess, John (1887). "The Culturconflict" in Prussia".Political Science Quarterly.2 (2). The Academy of Political Science:313–340.doi:10.2307/2139282.JSTOR2139282.
^Hebeler, Bernard (1847). "Statistics of Prussia".Journal of the Statistical Society of London.10 (2). Wiley for the Royal Statistical Society:154–186.doi:10.2307/2337688.JSTOR2337688.
^Belzyt, Leszek (1998).Sprachliche Minderheiten im preussischen Staat: 1815 – 1914; die preußische Sprachenstatistik in Bearbeitung und Kommentar. Marburg: Herder-Inst.ISBN978-3-87969-267-5.
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