Brandenburg-Prussia

Frederick William, "Great Elector" of Brandenburg-Prussia

Frederick William took over Brandenburg-Prussia in times of a political, economical and demographic crisis caused by the war.[11] Upon his succession, the new elector retired the Brandenburgian army, but had an army raised again in 1643/44.[12] Whether or not Frederick William concluded a truce and neutrality agreement with Sweden is disputed: while a relevant 1641 document exists, it was never ratified and has repeatedly been described as a falsification. However, it is not disputed that he established the growth of Brandenburg-Prussia.[13]

At the time, the forces of the Swedish Empire dominated Northern Germany, and along with her ally France, Sweden became guarantee power of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The Swedish aim of controlling the Baltic Sea by establishing dominions on the coastline ("dominium maris baltici")[14] thwarted Frederick William's ambitions to gain control over the Oder estuary with Stettin (Szczecin) in Pomerania.[15]

The Brandenburgian margraves had long sought to expand northwards, connecting land-locked Brandenburg to the Baltic Sea. The Treaty of Grimnitz (1529) guaranteed Brandenburgian succession in the Duchy of Pomerania upon the extinction of the local House of Pomerania, and would have come into effect by the death of Pomeranian duke Bogislaw XIV in 1637.[12] By the Treaty of Stettin (1630) however, Bogislaw XIV had also effectively handed over control of the duchy to Sweden,[16] who refused to give in to the Brandenburgian claim. The Peace of Westphalia settled for a partition of the duchy between Brandenburg and Sweden, who determined the exact border in the Treaty of Stettin (1653).[17] Sweden retained the western part including the lower Oder (Swedish Pomerania), while Brandenburg gained the eastern part (Farther Pomerania).[17] Frederick William was dissatisfied by this outcome, and the acquisition of the whole Duchy of Pomerania was to become one of the main goals of his foreign policy.[18]

In the Peace of Westphalia, Frederick William was compensated for Western Pomerania with the secularized bishoprics of Halberstadt and Minden and the right of succession to the likewise secularized Archbishopric of Magdeburg.[15] With Halberstadt, Brandenburg-Prussia also gained several smaller territories: the Lordship of Derenburg, the County of Regenstein, the Lordship of Klettenberg and the Lordship of Lohra.[17] This was primarily due to French efforts to counterbalance the power of the Habsburg emperor by strengthening the Hohenzollern, and while Frederick William valued these territories lower than Western Pomerania, they became step-stones for the creation of a closed, dominant realm in Germany in the long run.[15]

Of all Brandenburg-Prussian territories, the Electorate of Brandenburg was among the most devastated at the end of the Thirty Years' War.[15] Already before the war, the population density and wealth in the electorate had been low compared to other territories of the empire, and the war had destroyed 60 towns, 48 castles and about 5,000 villages.[15] An average of 50% of the population was dead, in some regions only 10% survived.[19] The rural population, due to deaths and flight to the towns, had dropped from 300,000 before the war to 75,000 thereafter.[19] In the important towns of Berlin-Cölln and Frankfurt an der Oder, the population drop was one third and two-thirds, respectively.[19] Some of the territories gained after the war were likewise devastated: in Pomerania, only one third of the population survived,[20] and Magdeburg, once among the wealthiest cities of the empire, was burned down with most of the population slain.[21] Least hit were the Duchy of Prussia, which was only peripherally involved in the war,[5] and Minden.[17]

Despite efforts to resettle the devastated territories, it took some of them until the mid-18th century to reach the pre-war population density.[19]

Map of the Lower Rhenish duchies

In June 1651, Frederick William broke the provisions of the Peace of Westphalia by invading Jülich-Berg, bordering his possessions in Cleves-Mark at the lower Rhine river.[22] The Treaty of Xanten, which had ended the War of the Jülich succession between Brandenburg and the count palatines in 1614, had partitioned the once united Duchies of Jülich-Cleves-Berg among the belligerents, and Jülich-Berg was since ruled by the Catholic counts of Palatinate-Neuburg. After the Thirty Years' War, Wolfgang William, Count Palatine of Neuburg, disregarded a 1647 agreement with Frederick William which had favored the Protestants in the duchies, while Frederick William insisted that the agreement be upheld.[23] Besides these religious motives, Frederick William's invasion also aimed at territorial expansion.[22]

The conflict had the potential to spark another international war[24] since Wolfgang William wanted to have the still not demobilized army of Lorraine, which continued to operate in the region despite the Peace of Westphalia, to intervene on his side, and Frederick William sought support of the Dutch Republic.[22] The latter however followed a policy of neutrality and refused to aid Frederick William's campaign, which was furthermore opposed by the Imperial estates as well as the local ones.[24] Politically isolated, Frederick William aborted the campaign after the Treaty of Cleves negotiated by Imperial mediators in October 1651.[24] The underlying religious dispute was only solved in 1672.[25] While military confrontations were avoided and the Brandenburg-Prussian army was primarily occupied with stealing cattle (hence the name), it considerably lowered Frederick William's reputation.[26]

Uniforms of the Brandenburg-Prussian army in 1698

Due to his wartime experiences, Frederick William was convinced that Brandenburg-Prussia would only prevail with a standing army.[12][27] Traditionally, raising and financing army reserves was a privilege of the estates, yet Frederick William envisioned a standing army financed independently of the estates.[12] He succeeded in getting the consent and necessary financial contributions of the estates in a landtag decree of 26 July 1653.[27] In turn, he confirmed several privileges of the knights, including tax exemption, assertion of jurisdiction and police powers on their estates (Patrimonialgerichtsbarkeit) and the upholding of serfdom (Leibeigenschaft, Bauernlegen).[28]

Initially, the estates' contributions were limited to six years, yet the Frederick William obliged the estates to continue the payments thereafter and created a dedicated office to collect the contributions.[28] The contributions were confirmed by the estates in 1662, but transformed in 1666 by decree from a real estate tax to an excise tax.[28] Since 1657, the towns had to contribute not soldiers, but monetary payments to the army, and since 1665, the estates were able to free themselves from contributing soldiers by additional payments.[28] The initial army size of 8,000 men[29] had risen to 25,000[12] to 30,000 men by 1688.[29] By then, Frederick William had also accomplished his second goal, to finance the army independently of the estates.[12] By 1688, these military costs amounted to considerable 1,500,000 talers or half of the state budget.[12] Ensuring a solid financial basis for the army, undisturbed by the estates, was the foremost objective of Frederick William's administrative reforms.[30] He regarded military success as the only way to gain international reputation.[13]

The Prussian estates paying homage to sovereign Frederick William I in Königsberg Castle, 1663.

The Swedish invasion of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the following year started the Second Northern War.[31] Frederick William offered protection to the Royal Prussian towns in the Treaty of Rinsk, but had to yield Swedish military supremacy and withdraw to his Prussian duchy.[32] Pursued by Swedish forces to the Prussian capital,[33] Frederick William made peace and allied with Sweden, taking the Duchy of Prussia and Ermland (Ermeland, Warmia) as fiefs from Charles X Gustav of Sweden in the Treaty of Königsberg in January 1656.[34] The alliance proved victorious in the Battle of Warsaw in June, enhancing the elector's international reputation.[7] Continued pressure on Charles X Gustav resulted in him conceding full sovereignty in Ducal Prussia and Ermland to Frederick William by the Treaty of Labiau in November to ensure the maintenance of the alliance.[35] The Treaty of Radnot, concluded in December by Sweden and her allies, further awarded Greater Poland to Brandenburg-Prussia in case of a victory.[35]

When the anti-Swedish coalition however gained the upper hand, Frederick William changed sides when Polish king John II Casimir Vasa confirmed his sovereignty in Prussia, but not in Ermland, in the Treaty of Wehlau-Bromberg in 1657.[5] The duchy would legally revert to Poland if the Hohenzollern dynastic line became extinct.[36] Hohenzollern sovereignty in the Prussian duchy was confirmed in the Peace of Oliva, which ended the war in 1660.[5] Brandenburg-Prussian campaigns in Swedish Pomerania did not result in permanent gains.[37]

Siege of Stettin in 1677

In 1672, the Franco-Dutch War broke out, with Brandenburg-Prussia involved as an ally of the Dutch Republic. This alliance was based on a treaty of 1669, and resulted in French occupation of Brandenburg-Prussian Cleves.[38] In June 1673, Frederick William abandoned the Dutch alliance and concluded a subsidy treaty with France, who in return withdrew from Cleves.[38] When the Holy Roman Empire declared war on France, a so-called Reichskrieg, Brandenburg-Prussia again changed sides and joined the imperial forces.[38] France pressured her ally Sweden to relieve her by attacking Brandenburg-Prussia from the north.[39] Charles XI of Sweden, dependent on French subsidies, reluctantly occupied the Brandenburgian Uckermark in 1674, starting the German theater of the Scanian War (Brandenburg-Swedish War).[39] 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).[40] Though a minor skirmish from a military perspective, Frederick William's victory turned out to be of huge symbolic significance.[41] The "Great Elector" started a counter-offensive, pursuing the retreating Swedish forces through Swedish Pomerania.[42]

Great Sleigh Drive (1678):Frederick William pursues Swedish troops across the frozen Curonian Lagoon; fresco by Wilhelm Simmler, ca. 1891

Polish king John III Sobieski planned to restore Polish suzerainty over the Duchy of Prussia, and for this purpose concluded an alliance with France on 11 June 1675.[43] France promised assistance and subsidies, while Sobieski in turn allowed French recruitment in Poland-Lithuania and promised to aid Hungarian rebel forces who were to distract the Habsburgs from their war against France.[43] For this plan to work out, Poland-Lithuania had to first conclude her war against the Ottoman Empire, which French diplomacy despite great efforts failed to achieve.[44] Furthermore, Sobieski was opposed by the Papacy, by Polish gentry who saw the Ottomans as the greater threat, and by Polish magnates bribed by Berlin and Vienna.[45] Inner-Polish Catholic opposition to an intervention on the Protestant Hungarian rebels' side added to the resentments.[46] Thus, while Treaty of Żurawno ended the Polish-Ottoman war in 1676, Sobieski sided with the emperor instead,[46] and the plan for a Prussian campaign was dropped.[45]

By 1678, Frederick William had cleared Swedish Pomerania and occupied most of it, with the exception of Rügen which was held by Denmark–Norway.[42] This was followed by another success against Sweden, when Frederick William cleared Prussia of Swedish forces in what became known as the Great Sleigh Drive.[47] However, when Louis XIV of France concluded the Dutch War by the Nijmegen treaties, he marched his armies east to relieve his Swedish ally, and forced Frederick William to basically return to the status quo ante bellum by the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1679).[38] Though the Scanian War resulted only in minor territorial gains, attaching a small strip of the Swedish Pomeranian right bank of the lower Oder to Brandenburg-Prussian Pomerania, the war resulted in a huge gain of prestige for the elector.[40]

(Kotulla (2008), p. 261)

In 1675, after the victory at Fehrbellin and the Brandenburg-Prussian advance in Swedish Pomerania during the Scanian War, Frederick William decided to establish a navy.[67] He engaged Dutch merchant and shipowner Benjamin Raule as his advisor, who after a first personal meeting with Frederick William in 1675 settled in Brandenburg in 1676[67] and became the major figure of Brandenburg-Prussia's emerging naval and colonial enterprise. The Brandenburg-Prussian navy was established from ten ships which Frederick William leased from Raule, and achieved first successes in the war against Sweden supporting the siege of Stralsund and Stettin and the invasion of Rügen.[68] In Pillau (now Baltiysk) on the East Prussian coast, Raule established shipyards and enlarged the port facilities.[67]

After the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1679), the navy was used to hijack Swedish ships in the Baltic Sea, and in 1680, six Brandenburg-Prussian vessels captured the Spanish vessel Carolus Secundus near Oostende to pressure Spain to pay promised subsidies.[68] The Spanish ship was renamed Markgraf von Brandenburg ("Margrave of Brandenburg") and became the flagship of an Atlantic fleet that was ordered to capture Spanish vessels carrying silver; it was not successful in this mission.[68] In the following years, the navy was expanded, and the policy of leasing ships was replaced by the policy of building or purchasing them.[69] On 1 October 1684 Frederick William bought all ships that had been leased for 110,000 talers.[69] Also in 1684, the East Frisian port of Emden replaced Pillau as the main Brandenburg-Prussian naval base.[70] From Pillau, part of the shipyard, the admiral's house and the wooden church of the employees was transferred to Emden.[70] While Emden was not part of Brandenburg-Prussia, the elector owned a nearby castle, Greetsiel, and negotiated an agreement with the town to maintain a garrison and a port.[70]

The Brandenburg Navy on the Open Sea by Lieve Pietersz Verschuier, 1684.

In 1679, Raule presented Frederick William a plan to establish colonies in African Guinea, and the elector approved.[68] In July 1680, Frederick William issued respective orders, and two ships were selected to establish trade contacts with African tribes and explore places where colonies could be established.[71] On 17 September, frigate Wappen von Brandenburg ("Seal of Brandenburg") and Morian (poetic for "Mohr", "Negro") left for Guinea.[71] The ships reached Guinea in January 1681.[71] Since the crew of the Wappen von Brandenburg sold a barrel of brandy to Africans in a territory claimed by the Dutch West Indies Company, the latter confiscated the ship in March.[71] The crew of the remaining ship Morian managed to have three Guinean chieftains sign a contract on 16 May, before the Dutch expelled the vessel from the coastal waters.[71] This treaty, officially declared as trade agreement, included a clause of subjection of the chiefs to Frederick William's overlordship[71] and an agreement allowing Brandenburg-Prussia to establish a fort,[72] and is thus regarded the beginning of the Brandenburg-Prussian colonial era.[71]

To facilitate the colonial expeditions, the Brandenburg African Company was founded on 7 March 1682,[73] initially with its headquarters in Berlin and its shipyards in Pillau, since 1683 in Emden.[74] Throughout its existence, the company was underfunded, and expeditions were financed also by private capital, including payments by Raule and Frederick William.[73] In July 1682, an expedition under East Prussian Otto Friedrich von der Groeben was sent to Guinea to erect the fortress Großfriedrichsburg.[75] On 24 February 1684, another treaty with indigenous chiefs was signed that allowed the erection of a second fort in nearby Accada (now Akwida),[76] named Dorotheenschanze after Frederick William's second wife.[77] On 4 February 1685, a treaty was signed with the chiefs of Taccararay (now Takoradi), some 30 kilometers east of Großfriedrichsburg.[77] A fourth fort was built at a spring near the village of Taccrama, between Großfriedrichsburg and Dorotheenschanze, named Loge or Sophie-Louise-Schanze.[77] Overall, the colony comprised roughly 50 kilometers of coastline, and did not extend into the hinterland.[78]

Fort Arguin (1721)

A second colony was established at the Arguin archipelago off the West African coast (now part of Mauritania). In contrast to the Guinean colony, Arguin had been a colony before: In 1520, Portugal had built a fort on the main island, which with all of Portugal came under Spanish control in 1580.[79] In 1638 it was conquered by the Dutch Republic, and in 1678 by France, who due to high maintenance costs abandoned it and demolished the fort soon after.[79] On 27 July 1685, an expedition was mounted by Frederick William and Raule, who took possession of the vacated colony on 1 October.[79] Subsequently, the fort was rebuilt and contacts to the indigenous population established.[80] France was alarmed and sent a vessel to re-conquer the fort in late 1687,[80] but the attack of a French frigate and a smaller vessel was beaten back by the Brandenburg-Prussian garrison.[81] The victory improved the relations to the indigenous people, many of whom were carried off as slaves by the French before.[81] While Arguin did not reach the economic importance of Großfriedrichsburg, it temporarily advanced to the world's primary staple port for slaves.[82]

The African colonies enabled Brandenburg-Prussia to participate in the Triangular trade, yet it lacked its own trading post in the Caribbean Sea. In 1684, Brandenburg-Prussia was denied the purchase of the French islands Sainte Croix and Saint Vincent.[83] In November 1685,[84] after a failed attempt to purchase Saint Thomas from Denmark–Norway,[83] a Brandenburg-Danish agreement was reached that allowed the Brandenburg African Company to rent part of Saint Thomas as a base for 30 years, while the sovereignty remained with Denmark and administration with the Danish West Indies and Guinean Company.[84] The first Brandenburgian vessel arrived in 1686 with 450 Slaves from Großfriedrichsburg.[84] Brandenburg-Prussia was allotted an area near the capital city Charlotte Amalie, called Brandenburgery, and other territories named Krum Bay and Bordeaux Estates further west.[84] In 1688, 300 Europeans and several hundred slaves lived on the Brandenburgian estates.[85] In November 1695, French forces looted the Brandenburgian (not the Danish) colony.[86] In 1731, the Brandenburg-Prussian company on Saint Thomas (BAAC) became insolvent, and abandoned the island in 1735.[87] Their last remains were sold by auction in 1738.[87]

Brandenburg-Prussia tried to claim Crab Island in 1687, but the island was also claimed by other European powers beforehand, and when a second expedition in 1692 found the island under Danish control, the plan was abandoned.[88] In 1689, Brandenburg-Prussia claimed Peter Island, but the small rock proved unsuitable for trade or settlement.[89] In 1691, Brandenburg-Prussia and the Duchy of Courland agreed on a partition of Tobago, but since Courland later abandoned the territory and thus was no longer present on the island, the agreement was nullified, and negotiations with the English government which had interests in Tobago did not result in an agreement.[89] In 1695, Brandenburg-Prussia attempted to acquire Tortola from England via diplomacy, but the negotiations went nowhere, and were eventually called off.[89] Likewise, England declined an offer to purchase Sint Eustatius in 1697.[89]