Prussia and the French Revolutionary Wars (1786-1797)
Welcome to House of History. Last week we have seen Prussia shock the European theatre
under Frederick the Great. As he passed away childless, his nephew, Frederick Wilhelm II
succeeded him. This new King was quite different from his uncle. This new King chased women,
was good-natured, impulsive and a lover of the arts and high-culture. It earned him the
nickname ‘Fat Wilhelm’ and historians have been rather harsh on him. Now, during
his reign, Prussia expanded to unprecedented heights, increasing over a third in size.
But the politics of this King also signalled the beginning of a period of decline for the
Prussian Kingdom. All in all, it can be said this King stood in the Hohenzollern tradition
of being the complete contrast of his predecessor. Welcome to the complete history of Prussia.
-intro-
Fat Wilhelm
Before we get to the new King’s foreign policy, it is worth having a look at his domestic
politics. As I mentioned, this new king was the opposite
of his predecessor, certainly not a free-thinker, but a religious, art-loving, impulsive and
enterprising king. He could be somewhat compared to Prussia’s first King Frederick I, who
was a lover- and patron of the arts as well. He married several times - his first marriage
to Elisabeth of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel was disbanded after he cheated on her and in turn,
Elisabeth decided to cheat on him with officers and court musicians. His second marriage led
to seven children. He had another seven children with his mistress all the while marrying two
other women in secret. The King was very interested in mysticism and astrology, joining an esoteric
offshoot of the Freemasons. During his reign much was done for Prussia’s
architecture. The famous architect Carl Gotthard Langhans’ buildings in Silesia, Berlin and
Potsdam belong to early Neoclassical architecture. The King commissioned him to build the Brandenburg
Gate with Johann Gottfried Schadow’s chariot on top of it. During the King’s reign, August
Wilhelm Iffland put the Berlin Royal Theatre on the European map, and Carl Friedrich Zelter
did just this as leader of the Singakademie. Although a fruitless attempt, the King even
attempted to get Mozart to move to Berlin. Under his reign, Berlin turned into a city
of literary-political salons and of German romantics. Obviously, all these fantastic
cultural endeavours came at a cost, which is why historians generally aren’t favourable
when judging this King’s reign. Under his rule, the Prussian gold coffers he inherited
were depleted at an incredible pace. Court expenditure reached 2 million thalers per
year, which was around 15 per cent of the state budget (a ten-fold increase from the
expenses of Frederick the Great!). As a matter of fact, Frederick the Great left Prussia
with a massive treasury of 51 million thalers, something the new King managed to blow within
11 years.
Domestic and Foreign Policy
Now although he was only King for 11 years, during these years he managed to secure more
territory for Prussia than any other King before him. But he himself didn’t have an
aptitude for international politics and warfare, leaving these affairs in the hands of trusted
advisors and family members. Whereas the Soldier King centralized Prussia’s governmental
system, and Frederick the Great more or less perfected this, under this King it seemed
that politics returned to the old dynastic style with multiple factions at court trying
to influence the King. One such example was Johann Christoph von Wöllner, a man that
greatly influenced Prussia’s domestic politics. Under him the edict on Religion was issued,
a law that basically reversed the religious toleration that emerged under the monarchs
before. It greatly influenced several philosophers and free-thinkers in Prussia, among whom Emmanuel
Kant that was reprimanded after publishing an essay collection. Another important aspect
of his reign was his preference for German - his predecessor preferred the ‘cultured’
French language at court, but now German became the standard language.
Another development was the famed grain-policy established under the Soldier King. Using
tariffs to control grain prices and protect domestic farmers, under this new King grain
trade was radically deregulated. Free trade was encouraged and taxes were lowered. Not
everything was deregulated though - as a matter of fact in 1794 the most extensive law code
ever published to that day was published. It had nearly 20.000 paragraphs attempting
to cover every possible scenario where a law may be applicable. This project was started
under Frederick the Great’s reign, however, and not a direct result of the new king.
When it came to Prussia’s foreign policy, it somewhat resembled the early years of Frederick
the Great’s reign in terms of recklessness. Then again, he didn’t really care for military
matters and delegated most tasks to the Duke of Brunswick and General Wichard von Möllendorf.
Whereas the Prussian army had been the foundation of the Prussian state, to this King it wasn’t
an institution that interested him. And during his early years, he was notorious for ‘prestige
politics’ instead of rationally weighing the costs and benefits of certain actions.
One such example was the intervention in the Netherlands, which was embroiled in a civil
war between patriots and royalists. After the King’s sister, Wilhelmina of Prussia,
and her husband, Stadtholder Willem V were arrested by patriots King Frederick Wilhelm
II responded by invading the country with a large army of between 20 and 30 thousand
soldiers. It led to the direct fall of the patriots and the restoration of the House
of Orange, but admittedly Prussia barely gained anything from it.
The single most important event during this King’s reign was the French revolution of
1789. Not so much the revolution itself - but the developments it set in motion. Initially,
Prussia looked very favourable at the French revolutionaries. After all, they could (and
would) be crucial in breaking the Franco-Austrian alliance and it seemed the new regime was
completely in line with Prussia’s ‘liberal principles’ such as relative freedom of
religion and the inheritance of their philosopher-king, Frederick the Great. In secret, the King now
pursued a policy of peace with the revolutionaries. At the same time, the Habsburg Monarchy was
fearful of the developments in France. The Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold II, realized the
danger of a Prussia-backed revolution in Hungary and opened the door to Prussia for negotiations.
At the treaty of Reichenbach, they buried the hatchet and with it nearly 60 years (since
the invasion of Silesia in 1740) Prusso-Austrian hostilities ended. With incredible ease, Frederick
Wilhelm now broke off his attempts for peace with France and pursued a policy of war against
the revolution. It directly led to the famous declaration
of Pillnitz in August 1791. The monarchs of Prussia and Austria jointly declared that
their ‘brother (the Louis XVI) should be put in a position to form a monarchical government.’
There now was a counter-revolutionary alliance on the European continent. In response in
France, the cries for war grew louder until eventually, on the 20th of April 1792 the
French government declared war on the Austrian emperor. This could not be ignored - and it
didn’t. The Habsburg Monarchy and the Prussian Kingdom now declared a joint statement in
what became known as the Brunswick Manifesto - only antagonizing Revolutionary France even
more. In the summer of 1792 the Prussian and Austrian
forces, accompanied by a French army of émigrés under the command of Louis XVI’s brother,
the Count of Artois, marched into France. Straight from the beginning, the operation
turned out to be a failure. The French émigrés were deeply unpopular with the French population
and the Prussians and Austrians could not properly communicate. In September, at the
Battle of Valmy, the Austro-Prussian forces were mercilessly mowed down by cannon fire
without being able to advance one bit. The first battle of the French revolutionaries
was a success, but a blemish to Prussia and the Habsburg monarchy. Something else happened
in the European theatre that caused the Prussians to completely shift their attention away from
France after that battle. Obviously, they still contributed soldiers to the battles
fought against revolutionary France and they did score several victories against French
revolutionary forces, but only a fraction of the Habsburg forces. The reason for this
was pretty simple: to the East of Prussia, the opportunity presented itself to annex
large parts of the already very weakened Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
The Partitions of Poland (1793-1795)
As we have seen in the last video the first partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
was caused by internal turmoil between two factions, King Stanislaw August versus the
opposition. It led to Austria, Russia and Prussia claiming parts of the country without
much resistance in 1772. These problems continued during the 1780s. By the end of this decade,
the Russians were fighting a very costly war against the Ottoman Empire (during the same
time as the Austrians, mind you). Because of this, King Stanislaw and several reformers
decided to drastically change the political system that had given them so much trouble.
After all, the Russians were in no position to intervene and stop these developments.
On the 3rd of May 1791, a new constitution outlined the hereditary monarchy and something
that resembled a central government. In short - the Commonwealth’s rulers finally thought
they were free from the scourges on their border, namely Austria, Russia and Prussia.
An independent Poland was against Russian interests and King Frederick Wilhelm too was
afraid that if the Poles got too strong they would simply reclaim West Prussia. In May
1792 Tsarina Catherine the Great sent a 100.000 strong army to invade Poland. During this
Polish-Russian war King Frederick Wilhelm sort of baited the Polish in thinking he’d
support them. Expecting Prussian help, they avoided any serious engagements during the
early stages. These reinforcements never arrived, however, and Poland was defeated not soon
after. The treaty of Saint Petersburg was signed in January 1793 and Prussia received
the rich port cities of Danzig and Thorn and a sizeable chunk of territory that created
a larger connection between Silesia and East Prussia. The Russians took a chunk of territory
about four times as large as Prussia’s, but considering Prussia only backstabbed the
Commonwealth and didn’t properly fight for it, they already got more than they expected
in the first place. Obviously the claiming of territories from
Poland caused resentment among its nobility. In March 1794 a man that is still considered
a hero in Poland today, Tadeusz Kosciuszko, launched his revolt against the partition
powers. Although Kosciuszko’s revolt was directed mainly at the Russians, the Prussians
were the first to attempt to crush it (which they did in order to increase their potential
claim on more territory). Due to a lack of troops in the region, the Prussians initially
were put on the backfoot until a Russian army marched into Poland to crush the revolt. The
Austrian Empire now too sent in a large army to not be left out of the spoils. To his credit,
Kosciuszko resisted all three Great Powers for eight months until in October 1794 the
Russians emerged victorious at Maciejowice. A year later in 1795, an agreement was reached
between the powers with Prussia gaining a large chunk of territory to the east of their
Duchy with around 1 million inhabitants. This final partition meant the end of an independent
Poland, and it would not be independent for another 123 years. Prussia’s size increased
about a third of its original size and it gained over 3 million inhabitants. Somehow
this new King that didn’t really interest himself in military matters had managed to
expand Prussia’s territory with about a third, more than any monarch had done before
him.
About-face
Now, the King was more than satisfied with Prussia’s status in the East. In the background,
the french revolutionary wars were still waging on though. As such, the King decided he would
not waste any more energy on it. He did an about-face and signed a separate peace with
France behind the back of his allies. The Peace of Basle would last for 11 years. Once
again a Prussian King betrayed his allies - and the Habsburg Monarchy wasted no time
to denounce this action. Then again, if we look at the terms of the peace signed, it
was very advantageous to Prussia. To begin with, a clause agreed that the north German
territories would remain neutral. As such, Prussia was in a great position to exert its
influence all the way to the Rhine and Main. Because French aggression would be directed
towards Austria, it also ensured the King could consolidate his eastern territories
with any force necessary. But in reality, this move signalled the beginning
of the decline of Prussia. This was a high-risk high-reward gamble that could turn out very
advantageous, similar to the gambles of Frederick the Grea 60 years before during the Silesian
Wars. But it wasn’t like that. By this point, the King had betrayed every European power
he allied himself with within 6 years. Besides that, due to the disappearance of Poland,
a crucial buffer between Prussia and Russia disappeared. Now a largely indefensible border
was shared with Russia. Furthermore, the ‘neutrality zone’ agreed upon with revolutionary France
basically cut in half the remnants of the Holy Roman Empire, leaving the bottom half
open to Austrian influence. Oh and, perhaps even more important, over in France the young
and ambitious general Napoleon Bonaparte was quickly rising in popularity.
When in 1797 Frederick Wilhelm II passed away, the Prussia he left behind was larger than
it had ever been. He was succeeded by his son, Frederick Wilhelm III, a cautious individual.
This King sincerely opposed war and adhered to a policy of staunch neutrality. Unfortunately
for him, this neutrality would usher in one of Prussia’s darkest moments. How Prussia
fared under this new King and during the Napoleonic wars, we will see next episode!
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