PRUSSIA
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PRUSSIA
feudal suzerainty of Poland. Joachim was unable
to maintain his claims to the right of succession on
the extinction of the Pomeranian dukes, but had to
give up the claim to feudal supremacy (Treaty of
Grimnitz, 1529).
Of all the ecclesiastical principaUties, Joachim's successors were able to retain Magdeburg alone, and this only to the end of the century. In Prussia (1569) they obtained the right to joint feudal pos- session, and thus gained for the main branch of the family a claim to the Duchy of Prussia. Taken al- together, however, the Hohenzollern power declined very decidedly. The ruling branch in Brandenburg was badly crippled by debts, and the last member of the line ruhng in Prussia was weak-minded. This enabled the Estates, which had rapidly developed in all German territories from the second half of the fifteenth centurj', to obtain great influence over the administration, both in Prussia and Brandenburg. This influence was due to the fact that the Estates, owing to their possessing the right of granting the taxes, were equivalent to a representative assembly composed in part of the landowners, the nobility, and the clergy, and in part of the cities, who con- trolled considerable ready money. At first the nobility was the most powerful section of the Estates. In order to keep the nobles well-disposed the ruling princes, both in Brandenburg and Prussia, and also in Pomerania, transferred to them the greater part of the princely jurisdiction and other legal rights over the peasants, so that the feudal lords were able to bring the peasants into complete economic de- pendence upon themselves and to make them serfs. As a result the influence of the nobility constantly grew. But as the nobles were men without breadth of view, and in all foreign complications saw the means of reviving the power of the princes and of imposing taxes, the strength of the three Baltic duchies waned equally in the second half of the sixteenth century. None of them seemed to have any future.
II. At this juncture the head of the Franconian branch of the Hohenzollern family, George Frederick of Ansbach-Bayreuth, persuaded the Brandenburg branch of the family to enter upon a far-reaching policy of extension which, in the end, resulted in leading the dynasty and the state over which it reigned into an entirely new path. Influenced by George Frederick, John George of Brandenburg (1571-98) strengthened his claim upon Prussia by marrying his daughter to the weak-minded Duke of Prussia, and secured for himself by another marriage a new reversionary right to the Duchy of Cleve- Jiilich, the ruling family of which was nearing ex- tinction. Up to this time Prussian policy had been entirely directed to gaining control in eastern Ger- many, and this marriage was the first attempt to make acquisitions in western Germany. During the reign of John Sigismund (1608-19) the ducal line of Cleve-Jiilich became extinct in 1609, and in 1618 that of Prussia. Of the possessions of Cleve-Jiilich, however, JiiUch and Berg were claimed by the Wittels- bach family, and Brandenburg was only able to ac- quire Cleve and a few adjacent districts (1614); even the hold on this inheritance was for a long time very insecure. On the other hand Prussia was united with Brandenburg without any dispute arising because Poland in the meantime had become involved in war with Gustavus Adolphus and was obliged to act with caution. At about the same time the ducal House of Pomerania was nearing extinction, so that all at once the state ruled by the HohenzoUems seemed to ap- proach a great extension of its territories.
In 1613 John Sigismund became a Calvinist, a faith at that time which had a great attraction for all the energetic and ambitious among th(r German Protestant princes. The ruler of Brandenburg and Prussia became the son-in-law of the leader of the
Calvinistic party, the Elector Palatinate, and his
daughter married Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.
However, on account of the great power which the
Estates had acquired in his dominions John Sigismund
was not able to undertake a vigorous policy. The
Estates were strongly opposed to his adoption of Cal-
vinism, and his promise to leave the Lutheran Con-
fession luidisturbed hardly satisfied them, nor were
they wUling to grant any money for his external pol-
icies. On account of these financial difficulties his
successor, George William (1619-40), during the
Thirty Years' War, came near losing the territories
just inherited; and he was not able to make good his
claims to Pomerania when, in 1637, his right of in-
heritance was to be enforced. It became evident that
the power of the Estates must be crushed and the
people forced to pay their taxes regularly, before the
HohenzoUerns could obtain firm possession of their
newly acquired domain, establish their authority in
Pomerania, and then build up their power in the Baltic
coast lands in the valleys of the Oder and Vistula.
George Wilham's chief adviser. Count Adam von
Schwarzenberg, recognized this and made the attempt
to carry out this policy; from 1637 he was engaged in
a severe struggle with Sweden, to prevent the Swedes
from taking possession of Pomerania.
The merit of finally carrying out this policy and of turning the small and far from cultured state into a strong instrument for poUtical and military aggression belongs to the Great Elector, Frederick WOfiam (1640^88), and to his grandson. King Frederick Wil- liam I (1713-40). In 1644 the Great Elector laid the foundation of the standing army with the aid of which his successors raised Brandenburg-Prussia to its lead- ing position; Frederick William I increased the stand- ing army to 83,000 men. In order to procure the resources for maintaining his army the Great Elector gradually reorganized the country on entirely different principles, and ditl his utmost to further the prosperity of his people so as to enable them to bear increased taxation. His grandson continued and completed the same policy. At this period a like internal policy was followed in all the states of the German Empire, in- cluding the larger ones. Nowhere, however, was it carried out in so rational and systematic a manner as in Brandenburg-Prussia, and nowhere else were its results so permanent. In this, not in its originaUty, consists the greatness of the political achievement of the HohenzoUerns. The Estates and their provincial diets were not opposed and put down on principle, but they were forced in Prussia and Cleve to grant what was needed for the army; the cities were then subjected to a special indirect taxation (excise duties), and in this way were withdrawn from the government of the Estates. The nobility, now the only members of the Estates, were subjected to personal taxation by reforms in the existing system of direct taxation, by the abolition of the feudal system, and especially by the introduction into Prussia of the general taxation of land. At the same time the control that the Estates had acquired over the collection and administration of the taxes was abolished, and the assessment and collection of the taxes was transferred to the officials of the Government, who had originally charge only of the administrative and commissariat departments of the army. All these officials were placed untler a central bureau, the general commissariat, and a more rigid and regular state system of state receipts and expenditures was estabii-shed. Among the changes were the founding of the exchequer, the drawing-up of a budget, which was prepared for the first time in 1689, and the creation of an audit-office. Moreover, there was a stricter regulation of the finances in every part of the Government, and an extension of the su- pervision of every branch of the administration by the fiscal authorities so as to include even the inde- pendent departments of the state, the result being
