The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918. It played a significant role in the unification of Germany in 1871 and was a major constituent of the German Empire until its dissolution in 1918.
The kings of Prussia were from the House of Hohenzollern. The polity of Brandenburg-Prussia, predecessor of the kingdom, became a military power under Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, known as "The Great Elector". As a kingdom, Prussia continued its rise to power, especially during the reign of Frederick II "the Great". Frederick the Great was instrumental in starting the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), holding his own against Austria, Russia, France and Sweden and establishing Prussia's dominant role among the German states, as well as establishing the country as a European great power through the victories of the powerful Prussian Army. Prussia made attempts to unify all the German states (excluding the German cantons in Switzerland) under its rule, and whether Austria would be included in such a unified German domain became an ongoing question. After the Napoleonic Wars led to the creation of the German Confederation, the issue of unifying the German states caused the German revolutions of 1848–1849, with representatives from all states attempting to unify under their own constitution. The bubonic plague reached Prenzlau in August 1710 but receded before it could reach the capital Berlin, which was only away.
The Great Northern War was the first major conflict in which the Kingdom of Prussia was involved. Starting in 1700, the war involved a coalition led by Tsarist Russia against the dominant North European power at the time, the Swedish Empire. Crown Prince Frederick William tried in 1705 to get Prussia involved in the war, stating, "best Prussia has her own army and makes her own decisions." His views, however, were not considered acceptable by his father, and it was not until 1713 that Frederick William ascended to the throne.
The Great Elector had incorporated the Junkers, the landed aristocracy, into the kingdom's bureaucracy and military machine, giving them a vested interest in the Prussian Army and compulsory education. King Frederick William I inaugurated the Prussian compulsory conscription system in 1717. After the Treaties 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 the Duchy of Warsaw) and all land west of the Elbe 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 the Continental System.
The Prussian reforms were a reaction to the Prussian defeat in 1806 and the Treaties of Tilsit. It describes a series of constitutional, administrative, social and economic reforms of the kingdom of Prussia. They are sometimes known as the Stein-Hardenberg Reforms after Karl Freiherr vom Stein and Karl August Fürst von Hardenberg, their main instigators.
After the defeat of Napoleon in Russia in 1812, Prussia quit the alliance and took part in the Sixth Coalition during the "Wars of Liberation" () against the French occupation. Prussian troops under Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher contributed crucially in the Battle of Waterloo of 1815 to the final victory over Napoleon.
1815: After Napoleon
thumb|upright=1.0|Expansion of Prussia, 1807–1871
Prussia's reward for its part in France's defeat came at the Congress 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 became Congress 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 the Kingdom of Saxony and much of Westphalia 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.
With these gains in territory, the kingdom was reorganized into 10 provinces. Most of the kingdom, aside from the provinces of East Prussia, West Prussia, and the autonomous Grand Duchy of Posen but including the formerly Polish Lauenburg and Bütow Land and the Draheim territory, became part of the new German Confederation, a confederacy of 39 sovereign states (including Austria and Bohemia) replacing the defunct Holy Roman Empire.
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, reformed Calvinist Frederick William III — as Supreme Governor of the Protestant Churches — asserted his long-cherished project (started in 1798) to unite the Lutheran and the Reformed Church in 1817, (see Prussian Union). The Calvinist minority, strongly supported by its co-religionist Frederick William III, and the partially reluctant Lutheran majority formed the united Protestant Evangelical Church in Prussia. However, ensuing quarrels caused a permanent schism among the Lutherans into united and Old Lutherans by 1830.
As a consequence of the Revolutions of 1848, the Principalities of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen and Hohenzollern-Hechingen (ruled by a Catholic cadet branch of the House of Hohenzollern) were annexed by Prussia in 1850, later united as the Province of Hohenzollern.
1848–1871: German wars of unification
thumb|left|King [[William I, German Emperor|Wilhelm I on a black horse with his suite, Bismarck, Moltke, and others, watching the Battle of Königgrätz]]
During the half-century that followed the Congress of Vienna, a conflict 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 the Austrian 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 () in 1834, which excluded Austria, increased Prussian influence over the member states. In the wake of the Revolutions of 1848, the Frankfurt Parliament in 1849 offered King Frederick 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 including William I) feared that the formation of a German Empire would mean the end of Prussia's independence within the German states.
In 1848, actions taken by Denmark towards the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein led to the First War of Schleswig (1848–1851) between Denmark and the German Confederation, resulting in a Danish victory.
Frederick William issued Prussia's first constitution by his own authority in 1848, modifying it in the Constitution of 1850. These documents — moderate by the standards of the time but conservative by today's — provided for a two-chamber parliament, the Landtag. The lower house, later known as the , was elected by all males over the age of 25 using the Prussian three-class franchise. Voters were divided into three 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. The system all but assured dominance by the more well-to-do men of the population. The upper house, later renamed the ("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, the Junkers, 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.
Frederick William suffered a stroke in 1857, and his younger brother, Prince William, became regent. William pursued a considerably more moderate policy. Upon Frederick William IV's death in 1861, he succeeded to the Prussian throne as William 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 Prince Frederick. Ultimately, he decided to appoint Otto 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 was 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 was 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 the Second 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.
thumb|upright=1.5|Aftermath of the [[Austro-Prussian War (1866):
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The divided administration of Schleswig and Holstein then became the trigger for the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 — also known as the Seven Weeks' War. Prussia, allied with the Kingdom 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 — the Kingdom of Hanover, the Electorate of Hesse, the Duchy of Nassau and the Free City of Frankfurt. Prussia also annexed Schleswig and Holstein, and also effectively annexed Saxe-Lauenburg by forcing it into a personal 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 the de 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 by Article IV of the peace treaty with Austria. In its place, Prussia cajoled the 21 states north of the Main into forming the North 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 of Province of Posen and West 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 a constitution written by Bismarck. Executive power was vested in a president — 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, or Reichstag (Diet), was elected by universal male suffrage. The upper house, or Bundesrat (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 to accept military alliances with Prussia as part of the peace settlement, and Prussia began steps to merge them with the North German Confederation. Bismarck's planned unification of Germany had come considerably closer to realisation.
The final act came with the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), where Bismarck maneuvered Emperor Napoleon III of France 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 the end of the war, 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 unified nation, and on 18 January 1871 (the 170th anniversary of the coronation of the first Prussian king, Frederick I), the German Empire was proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles outside of Paris, while the French capital was still under siege. King William became the first emperor () 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.
1871–1918: Peak and fall
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. The Imperial German Army was essentially an enlarged Prussian army, and the embassies of the new empire were mostly old Prussian embassies. The Constitution of the German Empire was essentially an amended version of the constitution of the North German Confederation.
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 its three-class franchise, in which votes were weighted by taxes paid.
Politics
thumb|The [[Crown of Wilhelm II|Prussian King's Crown (Hohenzollern Castle Collection)]]
The Kingdom of Prussia was an absolute monarchy until the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states, after which Prussia became a constitutional monarchy and Adolf Heinrich von Arnim-Boitzenburg was appointed as Prussia's first Minister President. Following Prussia's first constitution, a two-house parliament was formed, called the Landtag. The lower house, or Prussian House of Representatives, was elected by all males over the age of 25 using the Prussian three-class franchise introduced in the Constitution of 1850, which assured dominance by the more well-to-do elements of the population. Elections were called in early 1848 for a Prussian 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, a ("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 the Constitution 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 ensure legal certainty. It also guaranteed many fundamental rights such as freedom of speech, the press and religion.
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 a state within the state. All adult male citizens, regardless of class, had the right to vote, but the Prussian three-class franchise that weighted votes based on the amount of taxes paid significantly limited the political voice of the middle and lower classes. 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.
Religion
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.
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 practising Catholics, 13,348.8 practising Jews, 925.1 Mennonites, 121.4 Greek Orthodox and 0.6 Muslims. 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, 13,042 Mennonites, 1,712 Greek Orthodox, and 8 Muslims.
Although dominated by Protestant Lutherans (along with some Calvinists), 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.
Ethnicity
Apart from ethnic Germans, the country was also inhabited by ethnolinguistic minorities. Minority groups included Poles (including Kashubs in West Prussia and Mazurs in East Prussia), Prussian Lithuanians (in East Prussia), Sorbs (in Lusatia), Czechs and Moravians (in Silesia), Danes (in Schleswig), Jews, Frisians, Dutch, Walloons, Russians (in Wojnowo (Eckertsdorf)), French, Italians, Hungarians and others.
<gallery widths=250px heights=250px>
Ethnic structure of eastern regions of Prussia.png|Ethnic structure of the eastern regions of Prussia in 1817–1823
Poles Prussia.png|Poles in the Kingdom of Prussia in the 19th century:
Poles Prussia 1910.png|Poles in eastern provinces of Germany in 1910:
</gallery>
Subdivisions
The original core regions of the Kingdom of Prussia were the Margraviate of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia, which together formed Brandenburg-Prussia. A Further Pomeranian province had been held by Prussia since 1653. Combined with Swedish Pomerania, gained from Sweden in 1720 and 1815, this region formed the Province of Pomerania. Prussian gains in the Silesian Wars led to the formation of the Province of Silesia in 1740.
After the First Partition of Poland in 1772, the newly annexed Royal Prussia and Warmia became the Province of West Prussia, while the Duchy of Prussia (along with part of Warmia) became the Province of East Prussia. Other annexations along the Noteć (Netze) River became the Netze District. Following the second and third partitions (1793–1795), the new Prussian annexations became the provinces of New Silesia, South Prussia, and New East Prussia, with the Netze District redivided between West and South Prussia. All the acquired Polish lands remained outside of the Holy Roman Empire, and the latter three provinces were disentangled from Prussia following the Treaties of Tilsit to be included in the Napoleonic Grand Duchy of Warsaw in 1806, and were ultimately lost to Congress Poland after the Congress of Vienna in 1815, except for the western part of South Prussia, which would form part of the Grand Duchy of Posen, the latter however also remained outside of German Confederation, the successor of the dissolved Holy Roman Empire, as did the province of East Prussia and the province of West Prussia.
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 as . The provinces were:
- Province of Brandenburg
- Province of East Prussia (outside of German Confederation)
- Province of Jülich-Cleves-Berg
- Grand Duchy of the Lower Rhine
- Province of Pomerania
- Grand Duchy of Posen (autonomous, outside of German Confederation)
- Province of Saxony
- Province of Silesia
- Province of West Prussia (outside of German Confederation)
- Province of Westphalia
In 1822, the provinces of Jülich-Cleves-Berg and the Lower Rhine were merged to form the Rhine Province. In 1829, the provinces of East and West Prussia merged to form the Province of Prussia, but the separate provinces were reformed in 1878. The principalities of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen and Hohenzollern-Hechingen were annexed in 1850 to form the Province of Hohenzollern.
After Prussia's victory in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War, territories annexed by Prussia were reorganised into three new provinces:
- Province of Hanover
- Province of Hesse-Nassau
- Province of Schleswig-Holstein
<gallery widths=300px heights=300px>
Map-DB-PrussiaProvs-1818.svg|The ten provinces of the Kingdom of Prussia, after the Congress of Vienna. The other member states of the German Confederation are shown in beige. The Canton of Neuchâtel in the south-west was under Prussian administration until 1848.
Germany former prussian lander.png|Map of the current states of Germany (in dark green) that are completely or mostly situated inside the old borders of Imperial Germany's Kingdom of Prussia
</gallery>