took this title. Joining the Confederation of the Rhine in 1807, they supported Napoleon until 1813, when they transferred their allegiance to the allies; in 1815 they became members of the Germanic Confederation, and in 1828 joined, somewhat reluctantly, the Prussian Zollverein.
Anhalt-Cöthen was ruled without division by a succession of princes, prominent among whom was Louis (d. 1650), who was both a soldier and a scholar; and after the death of Prince Charles at the battle of Semlin in 1789 it passed to his son Augustus II. This prince sought to emulate the changes which had recently been made in France by dividing Cöthen into two departments and introducing the Code Napoléon. Owing to his extravagance he left a large amount of debt to his nephew and successor, Louis II., and on this account the control of the finances was transferred from the prince to the estates. Under Louis’s successor Ferdinand, who was a Roman Catholic and brought the Jesuits into Anhalt, the state of the finances grew worse and led to the interference of the king of Prussia and to the appointment of a Prussian official. When the succeeding prince, Henry, died in 1847, this family became extinct, and according to an arrangement between the lines of Anhalt-Dessau and Anhalt-Bernburg, Cöthen was added to Dessau.
Anhalt-Bernburg had been weakened by partitions, but its princes had added several districts to their lands; and in 1812, on the extinction of a cadet branch, it was again united under a single ruler. The feeble rule of Alexander Charles, who became duke in 1834, and the disturbed state of Europe in the following decade, led to considerable unrest, and in 1849 Bernburg was occupied by Prussian troops. A number of abortive attempts were made to change the government, and as Alexander Charles was unlikely to leave any children, Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau took some part in the affairs of Bernburg. Eventually in 1859 a new constitution was established for Bernburg and Dessau jointly, and when Alexander Charles died in 1863 both were united under the rule of Leopold.
Anhalt-Dessau had been divided in 1632, but was quickly reunited; and in 1693 it came under the rule of Leopold I. (see Anhalt-Dessau, Leopold I., Prince of), the famous soldier who was generally known as the “Old Dessauer.” The sons of Leopold’s eldest son were excluded from the succession on account of the marriage of their father being morganatic, and the principality passed in 1747 to his second son, Leopold II. The unrest of 1848 spread to Dessau, and led to the interference of the Prussians and to the establishment of the new constitution in 1859. Leopold IV., who reigned from 1817 to 1871, had the satisfaction in 1863 of reuniting the whole of Anhalt under his rule. He took the title of duke of Anhalt, summoned one Landtag for the whole of the duchy, and in 1866 fought for Prussia against Austria. Subsequently a quarrel over the possession of the ducal estates between the duke and the Landtag broke the peace of the duchy, but this was settled in 1872. In 1871 Anhalt became a state of the German Empire. Leopold IV. was followed by his son Frederick I., and on the death of this prince in 1904 his son Frederick II. became duke of Anhalt.
Authorities.—F. Knoke, Anhaltische Geschichte (Dessau, 1893); G. Krause, Urkunden, Aktenstücke und Briefe zur Geschichte der anhaltischen Lande und ihrer Fürsten unter dem Drucke des 30 jährigen Krieges (Leipzig, 1861–1866); O. von Heinemann, Codex diplomaticus Anhaltinus (Dessau, 1867–1883); Siebigk, Das Herzogthum Anhalt historisch, geographisch und statistisch dargestellt (Dessau, 1867).
ANHALT-DESSAU, LEOPOLD I., Prince of (1676–1747), called the “Old Dessauer” (Alter Dessauer), general field marshal in the Prussian army, was the only surviving son of John George II., prince of Anhalt-Dessau, and was born on the 3rd of July 1676 at Dessau. From his earliest youth he was devoted to the profession of arms, for which he educated himself physically and mentally. He became colonel of a Prussian regiment in 1693, and in the same year his father’s death placed him at the head of his own principality; thereafter, during the whole of his long life, he performed the duties of a sovereign prince and a Prussian officer. His first campaign was that of 1695 in the Netherlands, in which he was present at the siege of Namur. He remained in the field to the end of the war of 1697, the affairs of the principality being managed chiefly by his mother, Princess Henriette Catherine of Orange. In 1698 he married Anna Luise Föse, an apothecary’s daughter of Dessau, in spite of his mother’s long and earnest opposition, and subsequently he procured for her the rank of a princess from the emperor (1701). Their married life was long and happy, and the princess acquired an influence over the stern nature of her husband which she never ceased to exert on behalf of his subjects, and after the death of Leopold’s mother she performed the duties of regent when he was absent on campaign. Often, too, she accompanied him into the field. Leopold’s career as a soldier in important commands begins with the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession. He had made many improvements in the Prussian army, notably the introduction of the iron ramrod about 1700, and he now took the field at the head of a Prussian corps on the Rhine, serving at the sieges of Kaiserswerth and Venlo. In the following year (1703), having obtained the rank of lieutenant-general, Leopold took part in the siege of Bonn and distinguished himself very greatly in the battle of Höchstädt, in which the Austrians and their allies were defeated by the French under Marshal Villars (September 20, 1703). In the campaign of 1704 the Prussian contingent served under Prince Louis of Baden and subsequently under Eugene, and Leopold himself won great glory by his conduct at Blenheim. In 1705 he was sent with a Prussian corps to join Prince Eugene in Italy, and on the 16th of August he displayed his bravery at the hard-fought battle of Cassano. In the following year he added to his reputation in the battle of Turin, where he was the first to enter the hostile entrenchments (September 7, 1706). He served in one more campaign in Italy, and then went with Eugene to join Marlborough in the Netherlands, being present in 1709 at the siege of Tournay and the battle of Malplaquet. In 1710 he succeeded to the command of the whole Prussian contingent at the front, and in 1712, at the particular desire of the crown prince, Frederick William, who had served with him as a volunteer, he was made a general field marshal. Shortly before this he had executed a coup de main on the castle of Mörs, which was held by the Dutch in defiance of the claims of the king of Prussia to the possession. The operation was effected with absolute precision and the castle was seized without a shot being fired. In the earlier part of the reign of Frederick William I., the prince of Dessau was one of the most influential members of the Prussian governing circle. In the war with Sweden (1715) he accompanied the king to the front, commanded an army of 40,000 men, and met and defeated Charles XII. in a severe battle on the island of Rügen (November 16). His conduct of the siege of Stralsund which followed was equally skilful, and the great results of the war to Prussia were largely to be attributed to his leadership in the campaign. In the years of peace, and especially after a court quarrel (1725) and duel with General von Grumbkow, he devoted himself to the training of the Prussian army. The reputation it had gained in the wars of 1675 to 1715, though good, gave no hint of its coming glory, and it was even in 1740 accounted one of the minor armies of Europe. That it proved, when put to the test, to be by far the best military force existing, may be taken as the summary result of Leopold’s work. The “Old Dessauer” was one of the sternest disciplinarians in an age of stern discipline, and the technical training of the infantry, under his hand, made them superior to all others in the proportion of five to three (see Austrian Succession, War of the). He was essentially an infantry soldier; in his time artillery did not decide battles, but he suffered the cavalry service, in which he felt little interest, to be comparatively neglected, with results which appeared at Mollwitz. Frederick the Great formed the cavalry of Hohenfriedberg and Leuthen himself, but had it not been for the incomparable infantry trained by the “Old Dessauer” he would never have had the opportunity of doing so. Thus Leopold, heartily supported by Frederick William, who was himself called the great drill-master of Europe, turned to good account the twenty years following the peace with Sweden. During this time two incidents in his career call for special mention: first, his intervention in the case of the crown prince Frederick, who was condemned to death for desertion, and his continued and finally successful efforts to
