[1648 - 1806] The Rise of Prussia and Absolutism

We begin in 1648. The land we now call Germany is a smoking ruin. For thirty years, a whirlwind of religious fury and political ambition called the Thirty Years’ War has torn it apart. Imagine the silence after a hurricane, but a silence that stretches over vast territories. Entire villages are gone, fields are salted with blood, and perhaps one-third of the population has vanished, victims of battle, famine, or plague. The once-mighty Holy Roman Empire is a ghost of an empire, a fractured mosaic of over 300 sovereign states, each with its own prince, its own laws, and its own petty ambitions. From this wasteland, a new power would rise. It was not the most likely candidate. Look on a map of the time and find the lands of the Hohenzollern dynasty. They are a scattered, disconnected mess. In the west, a few small territories. In the center, the heartland of Brandenburg—a poor, sandy region derisively called "the sandbox of the Holy Roman Empire." And far to the east, outside the Empire's borders, lies the Duchy of Prussia. It was a state with no natural defenses, no rich resources, and a population scarred by the recent war. Its ruler was a man named Frederick William, known to history as the "Great Elector." He had witnessed the horrors of the war firsthand, seeing his lands occupied and ravaged by foreign armies. He learned a brutal lesson: in a world of wolves, you either become a wolf or you get eaten. He vowed his lands would never be vulnerable again. To achieve this, he needed one thing above all: a powerful, permanent, professional army. But an army costs money, and the nobles—the powerful landowners known as the *Junkers*—controlled the finances. They were fiercely independent and had no interest in paying for a central army that could be used against them. So, Frederick William made a grim bargain, a deal that would shape the character of this new state for two centuries. He told the Junkers: grant me the power to tax your lands to fund my army, and in return, I will grant you absolute, unquestioned power over the peasants who work your fields. It was a deal with the devil. The Junkers agreed. They became the officer corps of his new army, while the peasants they commanded were reduced to serfs, bound to the land, their lives little better than slaves. This was the birth of Prussian absolutism: power concentrated entirely in the hands of the monarch, built on a foundation of military might and social subjugation. The Great Elector was ruthlessly efficient. He drained marshes, built canals, and reformed the tax system. When France revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, persecuting its Protestant Huguenots, Frederick William saw an opportunity. He issued the Edict of Potsdam, inviting them to Brandenburg. Over 20,000 skilled artisans, merchants, and entrepreneurs arrived, bringing with them new technologies in textiles and manufacturing, invigorating Berlin’s stagnant economy. He had built the engine. His son, Frederick I, was a different man. He craved not just power, but prestige. His father had been an Elector; he wanted to be a King. He spent lavishly on the arts and architecture, transforming Berlin with opulent Rococo palaces like Charlottenburg. His great triumph came in 1701. By pledging military support to the Holy Roman Emperor in the War of the Spanish Succession, he was granted his heart’s desire: the title of "King *in* Prussia." The subtle wording was crucial—he was not King *of* Prussia, which would have implied sovereignty over all Prussian lands and challenged the Emperor. But it was enough. The Hohenzollerns now wore a crown. Then came the pendulum swing. Frederick I’s son, Frederick William I, was his father’s opposite in every way. History calls him the "Soldier King," and rarely has a name been more apt. He was coarse, devoutly Calvinist, and pathologically frugal. He saw his father's court as a pit of wasteful decadence. He slashed court expenses by 75%, melted down silver furniture, and wore a simple, dark blue military uniform, which would become the iconic color of the Prussian state. Every spare Thaler, every ounce of state energy, was poured into one thing: the army. His obsession was legendary. He drilled the troops with terrifying ferocity, perfecting the disciplined, clockwork movements that would make the Prussian infantry the most feared in Europe. He personally designed their uniforms and equipment. He even had a bizarre personal hobby: collecting exceptionally tall soldiers for his personal guard, the "Potsdam Giants." He sent agents all over Europe to kidnap or purchase men over six feet tall, creating a regiment of titans that served more as a royal obsession than a practical fighting force. Under his iron-fisted rule, Prussia’s tiny population of 2.2 million supported an army of over 80,000 men—the fourth largest in Europe. It was said that Prussia was not a state with an army, but an army with a state. This spartan king had a son who seemed to be his antithesis. The young Frederick loved poetry, philosophy, and playing the flute. The father saw this as effeminate and degenerate. The relationship was a domestic warzone of psychological and physical abuse. At 18, the young prince tried to flee to England with his friend, Hans Hermann von Katte. They were caught. In a moment of calculated cruelty, the King forced his son to watch from his prison cell window as Katte, his closest companion, was beheaded. The trauma broke the prince, but it also forged him. He learned to be secretive, cynical, and ruthless. In 1740, the "Soldier King" died, leaving behind a full treasury and the finest army in the world. His son, now King Frederick II, ascended the throne. Europe’s intellectual salons buzzed with excitement. Here was the "Philosopher King," the friend of Voltaire, who had written tracts against the very idea of Machiavellian politics. They expected an era of peace and enlightenment. They were wrong. Just months into his reign, the Habsburg Emperor in Vienna died, leaving his throne to his 23-year-old daughter, Maria Theresa. Seeing an opportunity, Frederick tore up the treaties guaranteeing her succession and, without a declaration of war, marched his father’s perfectly drilled army into the rich Austrian province of Silesia. It was a thunderclap that plunged Europe into the War of the Austrian Succession. The philosopher had a serpent’s strike. Frederick II, soon to be known as "Frederick the Great," would spend much of his reign at war. In the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), he faced a coalition of Austria, France, and Russia that nearly annihilated him. His tiny kingdom was on the brink of collapse. Then came what he called the "Miracle of the House of Brandenburg." In 1762, Tsarina Elizabeth of Russia, who hated him personally, died. Her successor, a fervent admirer of Frederick, immediately pulled Russia out of the war, saving Prussia from certain destruction. In peace, Frederick was the enlightened despot he had promised to be. He codified the laws, abolished torture, and promoted religious tolerance. He famously championed the potato, a new crop from the Americas, even employing reverse psychology by planting a royal field and posting guards to make it seem valuable, encouraging peasants to steal and plant the hardy tuber that would save countless from famine. He built his jewel-box palace, Sanssouci ("Without a Care"), in Potsdam—a testament to his love of art and music, a personal escape from the brutal realities of statecraft he had mastered. But the machine Frederick the Great perfected had a fatal flaw. It depended entirely on the genius of its operator. His successors lacked his brilliance and his drive. The army, resting on the laurels of its victories, grew complacent. Its generals were old, its tactics outdated. And at the turn of the century, a new force was rising in the west: Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1806, at the twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt, Napoleon's modern, flexible army met the vaunted Prussian military machine. The result was not a defeat; it was a cataclysm. The Prussian army, the very soul of the state, disintegrated in a single day. The legacy of the Great Elector and the Soldier King was shattered. The state built on military invincibility was utterly humiliated. Prussia lay broken at Napoleon's feet, its great century brought to an abrupt and brutal end. But from these ashes of defeat, a new, and perhaps more dangerous, German spirit would begin to smolder.