European State Consolidation in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries study guide chapter summary

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European State Consolidation in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries study guide chapter summary

AP European History
Chapter 13: European State Consolidation in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Chapter Overview

From the early seventeenth century through World War II, no region so dominated the world politically, militarily, and economically as Europe.
During this period, power shifted from the Mediterranean area—where Spain and Portugal had taken a lead in the conquest and early exploitation of the New World—to the states of northwest and later north-central Europe.
Five major states, Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia were the leading powers in Europe.

Section One: The Netherlands: Golden Age to Decline

Section Overview

The United Provinces of the Netherland gained independence from Spain in 1572 but continued to battle other European powers like England and France throughout the second half of the 17th century.
Prince William III of Orange (1650-1702), the chief executive, or stadtholder, of Holland which was the most important of the provinces, led the Dutch to victory against France.
The Netherlands maintained a republican system of government in which each of the provinces maintained a certain degree of autonomy. The central government in the Netherlands was known as the States General and met in the Hague but the Dutch distrusted monarchy and honored the freedoms of the provinces.
Although the official religion of the Netherlands was the Reformed Calvinist Church, the Dutch tolerated people of all faiths including Roman Catholics and Jews.

Urban Prosperity

The prosperous Dutch economy stemmed from high urban consolidation, transformed agriculture, extensive trade and finance, and an overseas commercial empire.
The Dutch drained and reclaimed land from the sea which became very fertile and highly profitable soil for farming.

The Dutch imported grain which allowed farmers to produce dairy products and beef and cultivate products like tulip bulbs.

Dutch fishermen caught and sold herring and dominated the dried fish market in Europe.
Dutch manufacturers supplied textiles to the people throughout Europe
Overseas trade and shipbuilding were the foundations of the Dutch economy.

The Dutch East India Company (chartered in 1602) sailed to areas of East Asia—like Java, Moluccas, and Sri Lanka—to participate in the profitable trade of spices.
Although the Dutch initially only had commercial interests in this region, they came to dominate the production of the spices themselves which led them to colonize many of the islands that now form Indonesia of which they maintained possession until after World War II.

Economic Decline

When William III died in 1702, the provinces resisted the rise of a strong stadtholder and consequently unified political leadership vanished.
The Dutch lost naval supremacy which was passed to Great Britain.
Countries between which the Dutch once carried goods began trading directly with each other as other states developed sophisticated shipbuilding technology.
The Dutch banks, however, maintained an important position in the financing trade and the Amsterdam stock exchange remained an important financial institution.

Section Two: Two Models of European Political Development

Section Overview

The United Provinces, like Venice and the Swiss Confederacy, was a republic governed without a monarchy.
Elsewhere in Europe, monarchs ruled with varying degrees of power.

Political Absolutism--France

Due to changes in warfare and increased expenses of commercial centralized states, only monarchies that succeeded in building a secure financial base that was not dependent on the support of nobles or assemblies achieved absolute rule.
As we saw with the French Wars of religion, noble families in France like the Bourbon, Valois, and Montmorency-Chatillons, had significant military forces at their disposal but that drastically changed when Louis XIII took power.

Parliamentary Monarchy—England

Queen Elizabeth had established a strong central monarchy in England and the Stuart monarchs who followed her sought to establish the autocracy achieved by Louis XIV in France.
However, through the course of several events like the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution, Parliament gained tremendous power in England by the beginning of the eighteenth century.

Section Three: Constitutional Crisis and Settlement in Stuart England

James I

King James IV of Scotland—the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, succeeded the childless Elizabeth to the throne of England in 1602.
He strongly believed in the divine right of kings and expected to rule with little consultation beyond his own royal court.
In place of parliamentary approved revenues, James gained a new source of income when he levied new custom duties known as impositions which Parliament felt violated their power of the purse.
Puritans wanted to destroy the hierarchical organization of the Anglican Church and do away with the Episcopal system of church governance under bishops appointed by the king with a more representative Presbyterian form, but James refused to consider their ideas and sought to enhance the Anglican episcopacy.
Many religious dissenters left England during James’s reign and founded Plymouth Colony in North America where they could freely practice.
The court of James had a scandalous reputation due to the authority wielded by the duke of Buckingham who was not only rumored to be James’s homosexual lover but also sold positions of rank to the highest bidder which annoyed the nobles who believed this undermined their rank.
Many believed that James sought to re-Catholicize England due to the peace he established with Spain, the fact that he relaxed penal laws against Catholics, he did not rush to send troops to defend the German Protestants at the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War, and he arranged the marriage of his son, Charles, to Henrietta Maria, the Catholic daughter of Henry IV of France.
In 1624, shortly before James’s death, England again went to war with Spain largely in response to parliamentary pressures

Charles I

Although pressure from Parliament plunged Europe into war with Spain, its members refused to allow Charles to raise taxes that were needed to finance the war.
Charles decided to levy new tariffs and duties and added a tax on property owners—which was called a forced loan which the monarchy was theoretically supposed to repay—and imprisoned those who refused to pay.
People in England were outraged when troops were quartered in private homes.
Parliament met in 1623 and agreed to grant new funds to Charles if he agreed to sign the Petition of Right that required no forced loans or taxes without Parliament’s consent, that no freeman should be imprisoned without due cause, and troops should not be quartered in private homes.
Charles agreed to it but then dissolved Parliament the next year in 1624 and did not recall it until 1640.
Years of Personal Rule

Charles ended his wars with France and Spain in order to conserve money
His chief advisor, Thomas Wentworth, worked to centralize the power of the monarchy and exploited every means possible to impose new taxes.
In 1637, Charles—with the help of Archbishop William Laud--attempted to impose the English episcopate system and prayer book on Scotland in order to establish religious uniformity.

The Scots rebelled and Charles was forced to call Parliament into session in 1640 in order to raise revenue to suppress the rebellion.
Parliament refused to allocate more funds to Charles and he immediately dissolved Parliament.
When the Scots defeated the English at the Battle of Newburn, Charles reconvened Parliament for a long duration.

The Long Parliament and Civil War

Enemies of Charles in Parliament

Landowners and merchants did not agree with his financial measures and paternalistic rule.
Puritans in Parliament resented his religious policies and distrusted his Catholic wife.

Parliament forces Charles to meet with them continuously from 1640-1660

During this session the House of Commons impeached Strafford and Laud and both were executed.
Parliament abolished the royal courts used to enforce royal policy and prohibited the levying of new taxes without its consent.
Religious issues divided Parliament

Both moderate Puritans (the Presbyterians) and more extreme Puritans (the Independents) wanted to abolish bishops and the Book of Common Prayer.
Religious conservatives, however, wanted to preserve the Church of England in its current form.

Civil War Erupts

In 1641, Parliament was asked to raise revenue in order to suppress the Scottish rebellion.
Parliament feared what the king would do if he had an army at his disposal so they discussed making Parliament commander –in –chief of the armed forces.
In January 1642, Charles invaded a meeting of Parliament intent on arresting certain members who opposed his policies. Charles then left London to raise an army to suppress the rebellious members of Parliament.
The House of Commons passed the Militia Ordinance which gave Parliament the authority to raise an army of its own.
Fighting between the Roundheads (those who supported Parliament) and the Cavaliers (those who supported the king) waged war from 1642-1646.

Oliver Cromwell and the Puritan Republic

Two factors led to Parliament’s victory over the king

Parliament established an alliance with Scotland in 1643 that committed Parliament to a Presbyterian system of church government.
Oliver Cromwell, a country squire known for discipline and his devout Puritan beliefs, took charge of the Roundhead army.

The Cavaliers were defeated militarily by June of 1645, members of Parliament known to be sympathizers of Charles were expelled from Parliament in December 1648, then on January 30—after a “special” trial—Charles was executed.
Parliament abolished the monarchy, the House of Lords, and the Anglican Church.
Cromwell rules England

From 1649 to 1660, England was a Puritan republic although Cromwell dominated it.
Cromwell’s army brutally conquered Scotland and Ireland where they carried out atrocities against Irish Catholics.
When the House of Commons suggested that Cromwell disband his army of 50,000 men because it was expensive to maintain, he disbanded Parliament and named himself Lord Protector of England which he ruled by means of a military dictatorship.
The English people hated the strict Puritan regulations against drunkenness, theatergoing, and dancing as political liberty vanished for the sake of religious conformity.
When Cromwell died in 1658, the people of England were ready to restore Anglicanism and the monarchy.

Charles II and the Restoration of Monarchy

Charles II—the son of the beheaded Charles—was asked by the leaders of England’s armed forces to return and take the throne.
Charles II took the throne in 1660 and immediately restored England to the normalcy of 1642 with a hereditary monarch, a Parliament of Lords and Commons that met only when summoned by the king, and the Anglican Church.
Charles advocated religious toleration but Parliament passed the Clarendon Code between 1661 and 1665 that excluded Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, and the Independents from the official political and religious life of the nation.
The Treaty of Dover (1670)

England and France formally entered an alliance against the Dutch, their chief commercial competitor.
In a secret part of the treaty, Charles II promised to announce his conversion to Catholicism as soon as conditions in England allowed for it.
Louis XIV—the king of France—promised to pay Charles II a substantial subsidy for his conversion to Catholicism.

Test Act

Parliament passed this measure to exclude Roman Catholics from public service and, more importantly, to prevent the ascension of James, duke of York and brother of Charles II, to the throne.

Popish Plot

In 1678, Titus Oates claimed that Charles’s Catholic wife was plotting with Jesuits and Irishmen to kill the king so James could assume the throne.
Parliament believed Oates and anti-Catholic sentiment in Parliament, a group that became known as the Whigs who were led by the earl of Shaftesbury, made an unsuccessful effort to exclude James from succession to the throne.

Charles II grew suspicious of Parliament and was able to rule from 1681 to 1685 without calling it into session.

He drove Shaftesbury into exile, executed several Whig leaders, and bullied local corporations into electing members of Parliament who would be submissive to the royal will.
When Charles II died in 1685—after a deathbed conversion to Catholicism—he left James the prospect of a Parliament filled with royal friends.

The Glorious Revolution

King James II works to gain rights for Catholics in England

He immediately demanded the repeal of the Test Act.
James II issued the Declaration of Indulgence

permitted free worship in England

He imprisoned seven Anglican bishops who refused to publicize his suspension of laws against Catholics.
These actions attacked the local authority of nobles, landowners, the church, and other corporate bodies whose members believed they possessed particular legal privileges.

People of England hoped that James II would be succeeded by Mary, his Protestant and eldest daughter.

Mary was the wife of William III of Orange, the leader of European opposition to Louis XIV.
James II’s Catholic second wife gave birth to a son and there was now a Catholic male heir to the throne.
Those opposed to James II—and Catholicism—in Parliament invited William to invade England to preserve its “traditional liberties” of Anglicanism and parliamentary government.

Glorious Revolution

William of Orange arrived with his army in November 1688 and was received by the English people without significant opposition.
James fled to France and in 1689 Parliament named William III and Mary II the new monarchs, thus completing the bloodless “Glorious Revolution.”
William and Mary agreed to recognize the Bill of Rights that limited the powers of the monarchy and guaranteed the civil liberties of the English privileged classes.

English monarchs would now be subject to the law and would be ruled by the consent of Parliament which would be called into session every three years.
The Bill of Rights prohibited Roman Catholics from occupying the throne.
The Toleration Act of 1689 permitted worship by all Protestants and outlawed only Roman Catholics and those who denied the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

Act of Settlement

This law sanctioned that the English crown be passed to the Protestant House of Hanover in Germany if Anne, the second daughter of James II and heir to the childless William III, died without issue.
At Anne’s death in 1714, the Elector of Hanover became King George I of Great Britain since England and Scotland had been combined in the Act of Union in 1707.

The Age of Walpole

George I confronted an immediate challenge to his title when James Edward Stuart, the Catholic son of James II, landed in Scotland in December 1715 but met defeat in less than two months.
This conflict put the legitimacy of the Hanover monarchy in flux until Sir Robert Walpole took over the helm of government.
Walpole was supported by George I and experienced great success from 1721 to 1742 due to his ability to handle the House of Commons and his control of government patronage.
Walpole maintained peace abroad and expanded Great Britain’s commercial interest from New England to India.
Walpole’s policies encouraged nobles and other landowners to serve as local government administrators, judges, military commanders, and to collect and pay taxes to support a strong navy that would protect Great Britain’s world empire.
Free speech and religious toleration flourished during this period and British political life became the model for all progressive Europeans who questioned absolutism.

Section Four--Rise of Absolute Monarchy in France: The World of Louis XIV

Section Overview

The French monarchy, which had faced numerous challenges from strong, well armed nobles and discontented Protestants during the first half of the seventeenth century, gradually gained firm authority by the eighteenth century.
Two powerful chief ministers, Cardinal Richelieu and Cardinal Mazarin, laid the groundwork for political absolutism in France.
Richelieu revoked many of the privileges that had been granted to French Protestants through the Edict of Nantes.
A series of widespread rebellions among the French nobles between 1649 and 1652 known as the Fronde was push back against the centralizing efforts of the monarchy.

Years of Personal Rule

When Mazarin died in 1661, Louis XIV took personal control of France at the age of twenty-three and ruled until 1715.
Louis devoted tremendous personal energy to his political tasks.
Louis ruled through councils that controlled foreign affairs, the army, domestic administration, and economic regulations.

Louis appointed members of families who had long histories of royal service and people just beginning to rise in the social structure as they did not have the power base in the provinces—and present a potential threat—like the ancient nobles.

Louis managed the nobility well by conferring with regional judicial bodies, called parlements, and consulting opinions before making rulings that would affect them.

Louis clashed with the Parlement of Paris in 1673 and required that it register laws before raising questions about them.

Versailles

Louis and his advisors became masters of propaganda and political image creation.

he dominated the nobility by proving he could outspend them on social displays

Louis used the palace of Versailles to exert political control.
Versailles, built between 1676 and 1708 on the outskirts of Paris, was designed and decorated to proclaim the glory of the Sun King, as Louis was known.
The palace housed thousands of the more important nobles, royal officers, and servants; the nobles, in theory, grew dependent upon the king.
Ritual and etiquette were very important at Versailles and moments near the king were important to most court nobles who were excluded from the real business of government.

King By Divine Right

Louis was tutored as a child by the political theorist Bishop Jacques-Benigne Bossuet who defended the notion of the “divine right of kings.”

Medieval popes argued that only God could judge a pope and Bossuet argued that only God could judge a king.

Louis allegedly once declared, “L’etat, c’est moi (“I am the state.”)
Louis’ absolutism applied to national interests like the making of war or peace, the regulation of religion, and the oversight of economic activity. Local institutions retained their administrative authority.
Unlike the Stuart monarchs of England, Louis firmly prevented the intervention of nobles and legislative bodies from interfering with his authority on the national level.

Louis’s Early Wars

Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Economic minister to Louis XIV
His financial programs made it possible for Louis to raise and maintain a large and powerful army.

Louis’s goal was to secure international boundaries for France.

Early wars with the Netherlands and Spain

War of Devolution—this war was fought by Louis in order to support his first wife—Marie Therese—to inherit the Spanish Netherlands.

Louis’s armies invaded Flanders and the Franche-Comte and faced stiff opposition from an alliance of England, Sweden, and the United Provinces of the Netherlands.
By the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Louis gained control of certain towns bordering the Spanish Netherlands.

Louis invaded the Netherlands again in 1672 in which he faced a coalition of Netherlands, the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, Lorraine, and Brandenburg.

The war ended inconclusively with the Peace of Nijmwegen, signed with different parties in successive years; France gained more territory by the provisions of this treaty including the Franche-Comte.

Louis’s Repressive Religious Policies

Section Overview

Louis believed that political unity and stability required religious conformity.

Suppression of the Jansenists

Traditionally, the French Roman Catholic Church enjoyed “Gallican Liberties” from papal authority in Rome but after the conversion of King Henry IV to Catholicism, the Jesuits in France—who were fiercely loyal to the Catholic Church—monopolized the education of French upper-class men.

Jesuits served as confessors to Henry IV, Louis XIII, and Louis XIV.

A Roman Catholic religious movement known as Jansenism arose in the 1630s in opposition to the political influence of the Jesuits.

Jansenists followed the teachings of Saint Augustine which had also influenced many Protestant doctrines.

They believed—like Augustine—that human beings had been so corrupted by original sin and could do nothing good nor contribute anything to their own salvation.
Jansenists, although devoutly Roman Catholic, lived austere and pious lives quite like the Puritans in England, and like the Puritans they became associated with opposition to royal authority.

Jansenists families were associated with the Fronde.

Cornelius Jansen was the founder of the movement and published Augustinius

which condemned Jesuit teaching on grace and salvation as morally lax.

On May 31, 1653, Pope Innocent X declared certain Jansenists teachings heretical and banned Jansen’s Augustinius.

Louis permitted the papal bull banning Jansenists and therefore turned his back on the traditional Gallican Liberties of the French Church which fostered opposition to royal authority within the French Church.

During the 18th century—after the death of Louis XIV—the Parlement of Paris and other judicial bodies in France reasserted their authority in opposition to the monarchy.

Revocation of the Edict of Nantes

Tension between the Catholic majority (90%) and Protestants in France remained high in the years following the issuance of the Edict of Nantes in 1598.

There were approximately 1.75 million Huguenots out of a total population of 18 million
The French Catholic Church encouraged the persecution of Huguenots claiming it was a patriotic duty.

Madame de Maintenon, mistress and eventually second wife of Louis XIV, was a devout Catholic and expected the same from Louis.
Louis started a systematic eradication of Huguenots from public life by banning them from government office and excluded them from certain professions like printing and medicine; furthermore, he burdened them by quartering troops in their towns.
In October 1685, Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes and significantly limited the rights of Protestants in France.

Protestant churches and schools were closed.
Protestant ministers were exiled.
Non-converting laity were condemned to be galley slaves.
Protestant children were baptized by Catholic priests.

Louis oppression of Protestants in France signified that he was a fanatic and France became a symbol of repression in contrast to England’s moderate –if not complete—religious toleration.

Louis’s Later Wars

The League of Augsburg and the Nine Years’ War

Louis attempted to expand the national boundaries of France and in 1681 sent his forces to occupy the free city of Strasbourg on the Rhine River.
The League of Augsburg formed to stop French aggression and was comprised of a coalition of English, Spanish, Swedish, German, and Dutch troops who fought a series of battles against France between 1689 and 1697 in what was known as the Nine Years’ War.
The Peace of Ryswick ended the war and it secured Holland’s borders and prevented Louis’s expansion into Germany.

War of Spanish Succession

Background

On November 1, 1700, the last Habsburg king of Spain, Charles II, died without direct heirs but before he died, however, he left his entire inheritance to Louis’s grandson Philip of Anjou, who became Philip V of Spain.
Philip was the grandson of Charles’ sister Maria Theresa and Louis XIV and it looked as though Spain had fallen into French hands.
In 1701, England, Holland, and the Holy Roman Empire assembled the Grand Alliance to preserve the balance of power in Europe.

War of Spanish Succession

France entered this war poorly equipped and without adequate finances or skilled generals.
England, conversely, had advanced weapons (flintlock rifles, paper cartridges, and ring bayonets) and superior tactics (thin, maneuverable troop columns rather than traditional deep ones)
John Churchill, the English duke of Marlborough, defeated Louis’s soldiers at every major battle.
France made peace with England at Utrecht in July 1713.

Philip V remained king of Spain but renounced his place in the line to the throne in France which prevented the union of the two major powers.
England was given control of Gibraltar and the island of Minorca.
Louis recognized the right of the House of Hanover to the English throne.

France After Louis XIV

Section Overview

Despite its loss in the War of Spanish Succession, France remained a great power.
Louis XIV was succeeded by his five-year-old great grandson Louis V whose uncle, the duke of Orleans, became regent and remained so until his death in 1720.
The regency of the duke of Orleans was marked by moral and financial scandals which decreased the prestige of the French monarchy.

John Law and the Mississippi Bubble

John Law’s Economic Reforms

The duke of Orleans was a gambler and for a time he turned over the financial management of France to John Law, a Scottish mathematician and fellow gambler.
John set up a national bank in Paris and printed money in order to increase the amount in circulation and stimulate the economy.
Law also organized a monopoly called the Mississippi Company on trading privileges with the French colony of Louisiana.
The Mississippi Company took over the management of France’s debt and issued shares of its own stock in exchange for government bonds which had fallen sharply in value.
The stocks soared in value and investors sold them for paper money which they wanted to exchange for gold but the French bank lacked the gold to pay out.
Law was forced to flee France and this affair became known as the Mississippi Bubble.

Renewed Authority of the Parlements

Orleans weakened the monarchy in France by drawing the nobility back into the decision-making processes of the government.

He set up a system of councils on which nobles served but the experiment proved to be a failure since the nobility seemed to lack the talent and desire to govern.
Despite their inadequacies, the nobility continued to assert their ancient privileges and local influence over the monarchy.

Orleans reversed the policy of Louis XIV and reinstituted the full power of the Parlement.

Parlement became a vehicle for resistance to the monarchy in France and the general public became increasingly interested in curbing royal authority.
Cardinal Fleury became a leader in Parlement and worked to preserve the authority of the monarchy while also preserving the local interest of the French nobility.

Fleury is often compared to Walpole in England because he pursued economic prosperity at home and tried to avoid war abroad.

Section Five: Central and Eastern Europe

Section Overview

Central and eastern Europe were economically much less advanced than western Europe; except for the Baltic ports, the economy was agrarian and rulers possessed large estates with a peasant workforce.
Political authorities east of the Elbe River were weak and constantly warring and shifting allegiances between princes and aristocracies and refused to subordinate themselves to a central monarchical authority.
During the last half of the seventeenth century, three dynasties emerged in this area—the Hohenzollerns in Prussia, Russia under the Romanov family, and the Habsburgs in Austria—and would dominate central and eastern Europe until the end of World War I in 1919.

Poland: Absence of Strong Central Authority

In 1683, King John III Sobieski led a Polish army to rescue Vienna from a Turkish siege but following this event Poland became a symbol for the dangers of aristocratic independence.
The Polish monarchy was elective but distrust among themselves usually led to the election of an outside power to the throne.
The Polish central legislative body was known as the Sejm, or diet, and included only nobles and specifically excluded representatives from corporate bodies like towns.

The Sejm followed a practice known as liberum veto in which one member who staunchly opposed a piece of legislation could prevent it from passing; this created a major block to effective governing.

The price of noble liberty and the absence of a strong central government led to the disappearance of Poland from the map of Europe in the late eighteenth century.

The Habsburg Empire and the Pragmatic Sanction

The end of the Thirty Years’ War marked a turning point in the history of the Austrian Habsburgs who had previously been aligned with the Spanish Habsburgs—their cousins.

The Austrian Habsburgs hoped to bring all of the German states under their control and back to the Catholic fold in which they failed and could no longer rely on the Spanish Habsburgs for support since Spain’s power dropped significantly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Austrian Habsburg’s land and power

Retained hold of the title Holy Roman Emperor due to their network of connections and skill in diplomacy.
Began to consolidate their power outside the Holy Roman Empire which included the kingdom of Bohemia and the duchies of Moravia and Silesia; and the crown of Saint Stephen which ruled Hungary, Croatia, and the Transylvania.
The Treaty of Rastatt (which was part of the Treaty of Utrecht) gave the Austrian Habsburgs control of part of the Netherlands and Lombardy in northern Italy.

Habsburg lands were so diverse and included people of so many different cultures and language that it was difficult to establish any sort of unity.
Despite the disunity, Leopold I—the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia—was able to defend Habsburg lands against Turkish aggression and defeated the Turks when they laid siege on Vienna.

Following this victory, the Habsburgs took control of much of the Balkan Peninsula and made gains in Romania at the expense of the Ottoman Empire.

The Habsburgs developed the port of Trieste on the northern coast of the Adriatic Sea and turned it in to a profitable port for trade.
The grandson of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, feared for the dynastic survival of the Habsburg power because he did not have a son, and therefore worked to pass legislation to ensure that local nobles did not swallow up Habsburg lands when he died.

Pragmatic Sanction

This was Charles VI’s plan to have his daughter, Maria Theresa, inherit his land and title.
Charles worked vigorously throughout his life to get his family, other European monarchs, and nobles to recognize Maria Theresa as his rightful heir.

Despite the Pragmatic Solution, less than two months after the death of Charles VI, Frederick II of Prussia invaded the Habsburg province of Silesia in eastern Germany.

Prussia and the Hohenzollerns

Section Overview

The Hohenzollern family had ruled the principality of Brandenburg since 1415 and in the seventeenth century added the duchy of Cleves, and the counties of Mark and Ravensburg, East Prussia, and Pomerania.

By the end of the seventeenth century, only the Habsburgs possessed more territory than the Hohenzollerns within the Holy Roman Empire.

Frederick William—who became known as the Great Elector—established himself as the central unifying power in central Europe by breaking down local noble estates, establishing an efficient bureaucracy, and building a strong army.
Frederick’s relationship with the nobility

Frederick William demanded obedience from the Junkers—as the German landlords were known—but in exchange allowed them to demand obedience from serfs.
He appointed nobles to positions in which they administered the collection of taxes and thereby co-opted potential rivals into his service.
Junkers were also appointed to leadership positions in the military and were required to pledge an oath of loyalty directly to Frederick.

Frederick I was the son of Frederick William who was known for being the least “Prussian” of the Hohenzollerns because he built palaces, founded Halle University, patronized arts, and lived luxuriously.

Frederick I sent his army to assist the Habsburgs during the War of Spanish Succession and was rewarded by Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I who allowed Frederick I to take the title “King in Prussia.”

Frederick William I—successor to Frederick I—worked tirelessly to build the Prussian military which grew from about 39,000 in 1713 to over 80,000 in 1740, making it the third or fourth largest army in Europe.

The officer corps became the highest social class in the Prussian state.
Military priorities and values dominated Prussian society, government, and daily life.
Frederick William I used his powerful army to symbolize the power of Prussia but rarely put it to use.

Frederick II—the son of Frederick William I—took control of Prussia and immediately upset the Pragmatic Sanction by invading Silesia which fostered the Austrian-Prussian rivalry for control of Germany that would dominate central European affairs for more than a century.

Section Six: Russian Enters the European Political Arena

Section Overview

Russia did not emerge as a power in Europe until the late seventeenth century.
Politically and geographically, it lay on the periphery and never emerged as a major commercial power because it lacked consistent access to warm-water ports.

The Romanov Dynasty

Background

Ivan IV (1533-1584)—later known as Ivan the terrible—underwent a personality change that transformed him from a sensible political leader into a tyrant who ruled through violence and oppression.
A period known as the “Time of Troubles” followed the death of Ivan.

Romanov Dynasty

Michael Romanov

In an effort to end the “Time of Troubles”, in 1613 a group of Russian nobles elected as tsar a seventeen-year-old boy named Michael Romanov whose dynasty would rule Russia until 1917.
Michael Romanov and his two successors—Aleksei and Theodore—brought some centralization to Russia but the boyars, the old nobility, still retained a lot of bureaucratic power and the streltsy, or guards of the Moscow garrison remained a threat to mutiny against the tsar.

Peter the Great

Problems with succession

He and his half brother, Ivan V, were appointed co-rulers of Russia and there rise to leadership was supported by the streltsy who expected to be rewarded for their support.
Violence and bloodshed surrounded their succession.
Sophia, sister of Ivan and Peter, was named regent temporarily as Peter’s followers overthrew her power.

Peter took personal control of Russia in 1689 and established two goals.

First, to rid the tsar of the threat of the jealousy of the boyars and the greed of the streltsy.
Second, increase Russian military power.

Peter traveled to northwestern Europe in 1697.

He inspected shipyards, docks, and warehouses where weapons were produced.

Peter returned to Russia to find that the streltsy had rebelled.

Peter surpressed the rebellion by murdering and torturing an estimated one thousand conspirators.

Building a powerful military

He drafted about 130,000 men into the Russian army during the first half of the eighteenth century and nearly 300,000 by the end of his reign.

Peter tames the boyars by personally shaving of their long beards and the long sleeves of their shirts and coats which made them the target of jokes throughout the royal courts of western Europe.

Peter developed a navy starting in the 1690s

The purpose of a navy was to defend Russia’s interests in the Black Sea against the Ottoman Empire.

Russia and the Ottoman Empire went to war in 1695 and Peter’s navy captured the Ottoman port of Azov on the Black Sea.

The navy was also used to fight against Sweden in the Baltic Sea that went on for many years.

Russian Expansion in the Baltic Sea: The Great Northern War

Following the Thirty Years’ War, Sweden consolidated its power in the Black Sea which prevented Russia from having a port on it and also only allowed Germany and Poland access to it on Swedish terms.
The Great Northern War tool place between 1700 and 1721 between Sweden—led by King Charles XII—and Russia.
Sweden won many of the early battles including the Battle of Narva in 1700.
By 1709, momentum had shifted to Russia as Peter’s military defeated Sweden at the Battle of Poltava in Ukraine after which Russia dominated the war.
The Peace of Nystad ended the war in 1721 which confirmed that Russia’s conquest of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania which secured it access to warm water ports.

Founding St. Petersburg

Peter constructed St. Petersburg—a new capital city of Russia—on the Gulf of Finland where he built structures for government affairs and encouraged the boyars to construct townhouses.
St. Petersburg symbolized a new western orientation for Russia and Peter’s determination to hold his possession of the Baltic coast.

The Case of Peter’s Son Aleksei

Aleksei had been born to Peter’s first wife whom he divorced in 1698.
In 1716, Aleksei traveled to Vienna where he met with Habsburg emperor Charles VI and discussed a plot to overthrow Peter.
Peter’s informants learned of the planned conspiracy and Peter personally carried out the interrogation of his son in 1718.
Aleksei died under mysterious circumstances on June 26, 1718.

Reforms of Peter the Great’s Final Years

Due to fears that emerged as a result of Aleksei’s failed conspiracy, Peter worked to bring the nobility and the Russian Orthodox Church more closely under the authority of persons loyal to the tsar.

Administrative Colleges

Peter copied the Swedish system of administrative colleges which were bureaus of several persons operating according to written instructions rather than departments headed by a single minister.
He created eight colleges to oversee matters such as the collection of taxes, foreign relations, war, and economic affairs.

Table of Ranks

This system equated a person’s social position and privileges with rank in the bureaucracy or military, rather than with his lineage among the traditional landed nobility.

Achieving Secular Control of the Church

After some bishops had sympathized with Peter’s son, in 1721 Peter simply abolished the Patriarch, the bishop who had been the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Peter established a government department called the Holy Synod which consisted of several bishops headed by a layman, called the procurator general.
The Holy Synod was expected to rule the church in accordance with the tsar’s secular requirements.

Peter died without a successor which caused soldiers and nobles to determine who ruled Russia for the next thirty years after his death.

Section Seven: Religious Toleration and the Ottoman Government

Section Overview

The Ottoman Empire dominated politics in the Muslim world as it controlled much of the Middle East including the important cities of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem.
The Ottoman Empire granted subjects like Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Jews much religious toleration.
The government was ruled through units called millets of officially recognized religious communities.
Dhimmis were non-Islamic people who were tolerated by law could practice their religion and manage their internal communities through their own religious officials but they were considered second class citizens and were generally unable to rise in the service of the empire.

Dhimmis paid a special poll tax, could not serve in the military, and were prohibited from wearing certain clothes.
Many dhimmis achieved economic prosperity through commerce but the Ottomans never developed skills required to nurture a growing commercial economy because the government discouraged interaction among the different groups within the empire.

The practice of devshirme called for Ottoman sultans to rely on people who would be loyal directly to them in order to serve as elite troops in the military. Therefore, sultans systematically recruited many young men and boy Christians from the Balkans.

There young men were raised as Muslims and were organized into elite military infantry units; the most famous of these units were called Janissaries.

In contrast to Europe, few people from the socially leading families gained military, administrative, or political experience in the central institutions of the empire.

The Role of the Ulama

Islamic religious authorities played a significant role in the political, legal, and administrative life of the empire.
The dynasty saw itself as a defender of Shari’a, or Islamic law, and the Sunni traditions of Islam.
Ulama and the Ottoman state administration worked together to create policies and make decisions that were in accord with Islamic law.
The Ulama encouraged the Ottoman sultans to conform to traditional like even as the empire was confronted by a rapidly changing and modernizing Europe.

The End of Ottoman Expansion

From the fifteenth century onward, the Ottoman Empire had tried to push westward into Europe.
The Ottoman army launched its most aggressive assault on Europe in 1683 when it unsuccessfully laid siege to Vienna.
Gradually squabbles between the vizier—second in charge to the sultan—and sultans created a lot political instability throughout the Muslim world.
Local political elites started to assert their own authority over their regions which the Ottoman Empire allowed in Transylvania, Wallachia, Moldavia, Egypt, Algeria, and Tunisia, but they were required to pay tribute to the central government.
European merchants no longer used the Ottomans as middlemen in trade with Asia which caused major economic recession by the late seventeenth century.
The Ottomans battled a coalition of Austria, Venice, Malta, Poland, and Russia to whom the loss a series of battles.

Treaty of Carlowitz: ended the wars between the Ottomans and European powers that required the Ottomans to surrender most of Hungary to the Habsburgs.

European intellectuals began to view the once feared Ottoman Empire as a declining power and Islam as a backward-looking religion.

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