By 1688, his various territories had come under more centralized rule, his standing army was the second largest in Germany, and Brandenburg-Prussia had become the leading north German state. They wanted Austria to stay a unified country and not be broken up. {n-1y. On Blumenthal's advice he agreed to exempt the nobility from taxes and in return they agreed to dissolve the Estates-General. Painting of his 1646 wedding ceremony by Johannes Mytens. Frederick William reacted promptly by marching his armies from the Rhine to northern Brandenburg, and encountered the rear of the Swedish army, which was in the process of crossing a swamp, in the Battle of Fehrbellin (1675). By 1678, Frederick William had cleared Swedish Pomerania and occupied most of it, with the exception of Rgen which was held by DenmarkNorway. hypocrisy. kk2-,-k}$d/'y32I=E4gV29gsw 9cSGg(CO
kOpy^^JL,oR+/sS%-yb |"Ly(KO~"Hd,Vyf After marching 250 kilometres in 15 days back to Brandenburg, he caught the Swedes by surprise and managed to defeat them on the field at the Battle of Fehrbellin, destroying the myth of Swedish military invincibility. Although he had escaped a potentially deadly situation relatively unharmed, Frederick William could not shake off the feeling of disgrace he experienced by having to sign the Peace of Vossem. Psychologically, however, the triumph belonged to Brandenburg, which earned the distinction of being the first minor German state in modern times to deal such a stunning blow to a major European power. The army supported Frederick William and his decisions. [8], In 1682, at the suggestion of the Dutch merchant and privateer Benjamin Raule, he granted a charter to the Brandenburg Africa Company (BAC), marking the first organised and sustained attempt by a German state to take part in the Atlantic slave trade. The one who will be found in trial capable of great acts of love is ever the one who is always doing considerate small ones. Compounding matters, the Austrians consistently blamed the campaigns dismal outcome directly on Frederick William. 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Knowing that success relied entirely upon the element of surprise, he prepared to move with great speed and accordingly decided to advance with only his cavalry and as many infantry as could be loaded onto available wagons. After a reign of forty-eight years, Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, left behind him in 1688 a military and bureaucratic system that endured until 1945. Brandenburg now possessed an officer corps that was tied to the interests of the state rather than functioning merely as a group of mercenaries concerned with their own careers and financial gain. For nearly two and a half centuries, Prussia celebrated June 28 as a birthday of sorts. Write the letter of your choice on the answer line. They were there to decide the future of their state. Unlike the elector, Leopold was intimidated by French arms and had little interest in rescuing the beleaguered Dutch. The Ottomans lost in 1697. By the end of the Thirty Years War he understood that his power depended upon having a standing army, and at the height of the war against the Dutch his army totaled forty-five thousand. Frederick William was livid. On 7 December 1646 in The Hague, Frederick William entered into a marriage, proposed by Blumenthal as a partial solution to the Jlich-Berg question, with Luise Henriette of Nassau (16271667), daughter of Frederick Henry of Orange-Nassau and Amalia of Solms-Braunfels and his 1st cousin once removed through William the Silent. In 1672, when Louis launched a war of conquest against the Dutch Republic, two very different states were forced to make that difficult choice. Even when the chance arose to win a decisive victory at Marlenheim, the Austrian commander dallied. Louis was indeed growing impatient with his northern ally, suspecting the Swedes of being content to selfishly drain his coffers without lifting a finger to come to his aid. was when the Ottomans attacked the Habsburg City of Vienna to revitalize the assault on Christianity. His inheritance consisted of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the Duchy of Cleves, the County of Mark, and the Duchy of Prussia. It would take nothing short of a miracle to revive them. WebFrederick II, byname Frederick the Great, German Friedrich der Grosse, (born January 24, 1712, Berlin, Prussia [Germany]died August 17, 1786, Potsdam, near Berlin), king of Prussia (174086), a brilliant military campaigner who, in a series of diplomatic stratagems and wars against Austria and other powers, greatly enlarged Prussias territories and Brandenburg-Prussia benefited from his policy of religious tolerance and he used French subsidies to build up an army that took part in the 1655 to 1660 Second Northern War. Unlike Frederick William, Waldemar also possessed infantry and thus was at a decided advantage. He united the multiple separate domains that his family had acquired primarily by marriage over the decades, and built the powerful unified state of Prussia out of them. Until the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, Brandenburg remained a battleground for Swedish, early 1650s, had a peacetime mobilization of over 20,000 by the end of Frederick William's reign. Upon reaching its destination, the raiding party immediately set the bridge afire, but the destruction had barely commenced when the Swedes began arriving early on June 28. WebFrederick, Prince of Anhalt-Harzgerode (16131670) Austria. A loyal soldier, Derfflinger dropped his objection and set out at once. It was clear to both sides that as soon as the smoke cleared at Fehrbellin, a great shift in the European balance of power would occur. This put Waldemars entire army in danger of being outflanked. Owing to the disorder in Brandenburg during the Thirty Years' War, he passed part of his youth in the Netherlands, studying at Leiden University and learning something of war and statecraft under Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange. The two sides subsequently forged the Peace of Vossem, in which Louis asked nothing of Brandenburg and even pledged to provide the electorate with subsidies, an obvious attempt to keep it from considering a re-entry into the conflict. He saw the importance of trade and promoted it vigorously. At his accession to the electorship, Brandenburg was ravaged by war and occupied by foreign troops. Nevertheless, both sides claimed victory. The ensuing attack failed, and the desperate Swedish soldiers held firm. The elector begged his Austrian ally to advance against Henri Turenne, the great French general leading the enemy forces in Westphalia, but Montecuccoli refused to budge. Please try again. Frederick William, Derfflinger, and the rest of the Brandenburger cavalry arrived at noon, raising the electors total strength to roughly 7,000 horsemen against the equally numerous Swedes. Towns and cities in the west were more prosperous than those in the east, but only Berlin benefited from the great electors reign, with the population growing from five thousand in 1648 to twenty thousand by his death. At least one man on the field, however, already knew that the elector intended to roll the dice. His frustration mounting, Frederick William attempted to push the Austrians into the war, convincing them that he, being an elector of the Empire, was in overall command. a form of government in which a single person holds unlimited political power. Frederick William was Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia, thus ruler of Brandenburg-Prussia, from 1640 until his death in 1688. Although the Brandenburgers put up a valiant resistance, Bournonvilles decision to withdraw the following day rather than renew the battle spoiled the stunning achievement of the electors men. At his accession the scattered lands of the Hohenzollern were devastated and depopulated by the Thirty Years War and occupied by Swedish troops. Frederick William called off further offensives and was content to allow the remaining Swedes to withdraw. Finally, the old veteran could take his dishonorable role no longer and left the field. What was Frederick William the Great Elector known for? He settled some 20,000 Huguenot refugees from France in his domains, which helped establish industry and trade, as did the foreign craftsmen he brought in. By 1678, the Dutch were trying to push Frederick William into making peace out of fear of the electors growing strength. The march was a stunning success. Out of these unpromising beginnings Frederick William managed to rebuild his war-ravaged territories. Another consequence of his military ambitions was the alliance between the elector and the nobility of Brandenburg and Prussia, that is, between the elector and the Junkers (landowners, who controlled territories in the east). However, it was never big enough to allow him to conduct independent foreign Continue Reading Check Writing Quality You May Also Find These Documents Helpful Frederick William had no intention of providing the time necessary to do so, declaring confidently, We are so close to the enemy, that he must lose his hair or his feathers.. ", Upton, George P. Youth of the Great Elector (1909), This page was last edited on 8 December 2022, at 06:17. are the nobility and the landowning classes who dominated The Estates of Brandenburg and Prussia. Generally, Frederick William was more successful upon building up the infrastructure of his lands than in promoting prosperous industries, but unlike his eighteenth century successors, he had little interest in developing an educational system. With the help of French subsidies, he built up an army to defend the country. The Great Elector: Frederick William of Brandenburg-Pr ussia (Profiles In Power) Be the first to write a review. his forces were defeated, but the Hapsburgs had to compromise with Hungary and give them more power over themselves. Luckily for him, the Swedes were in no mood to press their advantage. His master of stables, Emanuel Froben, was struck down, supposedly on account of his riding Frederick Williams gray horse (an exchange in mounts having been made to help ensure the electors safety). The elector was perhaps happier with Dorothea, who was more willing to join him in hunting and drinking than was Louise Henrietta. 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