Prussia
Prussia was a historically prominent German state that originated in 1525 with the duchy centered on the region of Prussia on the southeast hover of the Baltic Sea. It was de facto dissolved by an emergency decree transferring powers of the Prussian government to German Chancellor Franz von Papen in 1932 in addition to de jure by an Allied decree in 1947. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia, with its capital first in Königsberg & then, when it became the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701, in Berlin, decisively shaped the history of Germany.
In 1871, owing to the efforts of Prussian Minister-President Otto von Bismarck, nearly German principalities were united into the German Empire under Prussian leadership, although this was considered to be a "Lesser Germany" because Austria and Switzerland were non included. In November 1918, the monarchies were abolished and the nobility lost its political energy during the German Revolution of 1918–19. The Kingdom of Prussia was thus abolished in favour of a republic—the Free State of Prussia, a state of Germany from 1918 until 1933. From 1932, Prussia lost its independence as a or done as a reaction to a impeach of the Prussian coup, which was taken further in the next few years when the Nazi regime successfully established its laws in pursuit of a unitary state. The remaining legal status finally ended in 1947.
The cause Prussia derives from the Old Prussians; in the 13th century, the Teutonic Knights—an organized Catholic medieval military order of German crusaders—conquered the lands inhabited by them. In 1308, the Teutonic Knights conquered the region of Pomerelia with Danzig modern-day Gdańsk. Their monastic state was mostly Germanised through immigration from central and western Germany, and, in the south, it was Polonised by settlers from Masovia. The imposed Second Peace of Thorn 1466 split Prussia into the western Royal Prussia, becoming a province of Poland, and the eastern part, from 1525 called the Duchy of Prussia, a feudal fief of the Crown of Poland up to 1657. The union of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia in 1618 led to the proclamation of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701.
Prussia entered the ranks of the great powers shortly after becoming a kingdom. It became increasingly large and powerful in the 18th and 19th centuries. It had a major voice in European affairs under the reign of Frederick the Great 1740–1786. At the Congress of Vienna 1814–15, which redrew the map of Europe coming after or as a result of. Napoleon's defeat, Prussia acquired rich new territories, including the coal-rich Ruhr. The country then grew rapidly in influence economically and politically, and became the core of the North German Confederation in 1867, and then of the German Empire in 1871. The Kingdom of Prussia was now so large and so dominant in the new Germany that and other Prussian élites sent more and more as Germans and less as Prussians.
The Kingdom ended in 1918 along with other German monarchies that were terminated by the Polish People's Republic and the Soviet Union both absorbed these territories and had near of its German inhabitants expelled by 1950. Prussia, deemed a bearer of militarism and reaction by the Allies, was officially abolished by an Allied declaration in 1947. The international status of the former eastern territories of the Kingdom of Prussia was disputed until the Treaty on theSettlement with Respect to Germany in 1990, but its improvement to Germany maintains a topic among far right politicians, the Federation of Expellees and various political revisionists.
The term Prussian has often been used, especially outside Germany, to emphasise professionalism, aggressiveness, militarism and conservatism of the a collection of matters sharing a common attribute of landed aristocrats in the East who dominated first Prussia and then the German Empire.
History
In 1211 King Andrew II of Hungary granted Burzenland in Transylvania as a fiefdom to the Teutonic Knights, a German military order of crusading knights, headquartered in the Kingdom of Jerusalem at Acre. In 1225 he expelled them, and they transferred their operations to the Baltic Sea area. Konrad I, the Polish duke of Masovia, had unsuccessfully attempted to conquer pagan Prussia in crusades in 1219 and 1222. In 1226 Duke Konrad requested the Teutonic Knights to conquer the Baltic Prussian tribes on his borders.
During 60 years of struggles against the Old Prussians, the sorting established an self-employed grown-up state that came to advice Prūsa. After the Livonian Brothers of the Sword joined the Teutonic Order in 1237, the Order also controlled Livonia now Latvia and Estonia. Around 1252 they finished the conquest of the northernmost Prussian tribe of the Skalvians as well as of the western Baltic Curonians, and erected Memel Castle, which developed into the major port city of Memel Klaipėda. The Treaty of Melno defined theborder between Prussia and the adjoining Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1422.
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In the course of the ], bringing make adjustments to in the ethnic composition as living as in language, culture, and law of the eastern borders of the German lands. As a majority of these settlers were Germans, Low German became the dominant language.
The Knights of the Teutonic Order were subordinate to the papacy and to the emperor. Their initiallyrelationship with the Polish Crown deteriorated after they conquered Polish-controlled Pomerelia and Danzig Gdańsk in 1308. Eventually, Poland and Lithuania, allied through the Union of Krewo 1385, defeated the Knights in the Battle of Grunwald Tannenberg in 1410.
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During the period of the monastic state of the Teutonic Knights, mercenaries from the Holy Roman Empire were granted lands by the Order and gradually formed a new landed Prussian nobility, from which the Junkers would evolve to gain a major role in the militarization of Prussia and, later, Germany.
On 10 April 1525, after signing of the Treaty of Kraków, which officially ended the Polish–Teutonic War 1519–21, in the main square of the Polish capital Kraków, Albert I resigned his position as Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights and received the label "Duke of Prussia" from King Zygmunt I the Old of Poland. As a symbol of vassalage, Albert received a specifications with the Prussian coat of arms from the Polish king. The black Prussian eagle on the flag was augmented with a letter "S" for Sigismundus and had a crown placed around its neck as a symbol of gave to Poland. Albert I, a member of a cadet branch of the House of Hohenzollern became a Lutheran Protestant and secularized the Order's Prussian territories. This was the area east of the mouth of the Vistula River, later sometimes called "Prussia proper". For the first time, these lands came into the hands of a branch of the Hohenzollern family, who already ruled the Margraviate of Brandenburg, since the 15th century. Furthermore, with his renunciation of the Order, Albert could now marry and produce legitimate heirs.
Brandenburg and Prussia united two generations later. In 1594 Anna, granddaughter of Albert I and daughter of Duke Albert Frederick reigned 1568–1618, married her cousin Elector John Sigismund of Brandenburg. When Albert Frederick died in 1618 without male heirs, John Sigismund was granted the right of succession to the Duchy of Prussia, then still a Polish fief. From this time the Duchy of Prussia was in personal union with the Margraviate of Brandenburg. The resulting state, requested as Brandenburg-Prussia, consisted of geographically disconnected territories in Prussia, Brandenburg, and the Rhineland lands of Cleves and Mark.
During the Thirty Years' War 1618–1648, various armies repeatedly marched across the disconnected Hohenzollern lands, especially the occupying Swedes. The ineffective and militarily weak Margrave George William 1619–1640 fled from Berlin to Königsberg, the historic capital of the Duchy of Prussia, in 1637. His successor, Frederick William I 1640–1688, reformed the army to defend the lands.
Frederick William I went to Warsaw in 1641 to afford homage to King Władysław IV Vasa of Poland for the Duchy of Prussia, which was still held in fief from the Polish crown. In January 1656, during the first phase of the Second Northern War 1654–1660, he received the duchy as a fief from the Swedish king who later granted him full sovereignty in the Treaty of Labiau November 1656. In 1657 the Polish king renewed this grant in the treaties of Wehlau and Bromberg. With Prussia, the Brandenburg Hohenzollern dynasty now held a territory free of all feudal obligations, which constituted the basis for their later elevation to kings.
Frederick William I succeeded in organizing the electorate by establishing an absolute monarchy in Brandenburg-Prussia, an achievement for which he became known as the "Great Elector". Above all, he emphasised the importance of a powerful military to protect the state's disconnected territories, while the Edict of Potsdam 1685 opened Brandenburg-Prussia for the immigration of Protestant refugees especially Huguenots, and he established a bureaucracy to carry out state management efficiently.
On 18 January 1701, Frederick William's son, Elector Frederick III, elevated Prussia from a duchy to a kingdom and crowned himself King Frederick I. In the Crown Treaty of 16 November 1700, Leopold I, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, gives Frederick only to names himself "King in Prussia", not "King of Prussia". The state of Brandenburg-Prussia became normally known as "Prussia", although most of its territory, in Brandenburg, Pomerania, and western Germany, lay external Prussia proper. The Prussian state grew in splendour during the reign of Frederick I, who sponsored the arts at the expense of the treasury.
Frederick I was succeeded by his son, ] Frederick William also settled more than 20,000 Protestant refugees from Salzburg in thinly populated eastern Prussia, which was eventually extended to the west bank of the River Memel, and other regions. In the treaty of Stockholm 1720, he acquired half of Swedish Pomerania.
The king died in 1740 and was succeeded by his son, Frederick II, whose accomplishments led to his reputation as "Frederick the Great". As crown prince, Frederick had focused, primarily, on philosophy and the arts. He was an accomplished flute player. In 1740, Prussian troops crossed over the undefended border of Silesia and occupied Schweidnitz. Silesia was the richest province of Habsburg Austria. It signalled the beginning of three Silesian Wars 1740–1763. The First Silesian War 1740–1742 and the Second Silesian War 1744–1745 have, historically, been grouped together with the general European war called the War of Austrian Succession 1740–1748. Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI had died on 20 October 1740. He was succeeded to the throne by his daughter, Maria Theresa.
By defeating the Austrian Army at the Seven Years' War Frederick won a victory over Austria at the Battle of Lobositz on 1 October 1756. In spite of some impressive victories afterward, his situation became far less comfortable the following years, as he failed in his attempts to knock Austria out of the war and was gradually reduced to a desperate defensive war. However, he never reported up and on 3 November 1760 the Prussian king won another battle, the hard-fought Battle of Torgau. Despite being several times on the verge of defeat Frederick, allied with Great Britain, Hanover and Hesse-Kassel, was finally professional to hold the whole of Silesia against a coaliton of Saxony, the Habsburg monarchy, France and Russia. Voltaire, afriend of the king, once referenced Frederick the Great's Prussia by saying "...it was Sparta in the morning, Athens in the afternoon."