Versailles Century Country: Prussia

A Vanished Kingdom of the Period 1682-1789

The map of Europe looked very different in the Versailles Century. For one thing, Germany and Italy were regions rather than countries and they both consisted of numerous states that no longer exist. If you look for Prussia on a map of Europe today, for example, you won’t find it. It’s gone. In the 18th century, however, it was very much there, and growing. It grew so much that it took its place among the great powers alongside Austria, France, Great Britain, and Russia. What follows is an edited and updated version of a piece I originally published on the old Versailles Century website. I intend to make ‘Versailles Century Country’ a series dedicated to the memory of lost kingdoms. Read on to learn about the vanished kingdom remembered in history as Prussia although the double-barrelled moniker Brandenburg-Prussia is more accurately descriptive, for reasons about to be explained.

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Origins of the Kingdom of Prussia

This map illustrates Prussia’s expansion during the Versailles Century (1682-1789):

Credit — By E. Berner - G. Droysens Historischer Handatlas. Von Nikephoros am 17. Juli 2006 in die deutschsprachige Wikipedia geladen., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4425094

At the beginning of the 17th century, two different branches of the House of Hohenzollern ruled Brandenburg (orange, labeled ‘Kurmark’) and Prussia (orange, labeled ‘Ost Preussen’). The Margrave of Brandenburg was one of the prince-electors empowered to select the Holy Roman Emperor. He was generally called the Elector (German: Kurfürst) of Brandenburg, and Berlin was his capital. Prussia up to the mid-17th century was a vassal duchy of Poland. Its capital was Königsberg, nowadays known as Kaliningrad. In 1618, the Elector of Brandenburg married his last surviving Prussian cousin, the Duchess Anna, and henceforward the two states were in personal union. In other words, the same man was both Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia, but the two states were administered separately. A similar situation existed in contemporary Britain, with the personal union of England and Scotland after the death of Elizabeth I and the accession of James VII of Scotland as James I of England.

The first remarkable ruler of Brandenburg-Prussia in the Versailles Century was the Elector Frederick William, called the Great Elector, who reigned from 1640 to 1688. Among his accomplishments was freeing the Duchy of Prussia from its vassalage. From the end of the Second Northern War (1654-1660), Prussia was recognized by treaty as a sovereign state. It was also outside the borders of the Holy Roman Empire, a circumstance which became significant in the next generation. The Great Elector, himself a Calvinist, enthusiastically welcomed Huguenots (French Calvinists) fleeing from persecution in France in the wake of Louis XIV’s revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which had guaranteed religious tolerance for Protestants. Around 20,000 Huguenots settled in Brandenburg, many of them in Berlin, bringing their skills, work ethic, and entrepreneurial skills with them, much to their new home’s benefit.

Frederick William’s successor was his son Frederick III (r. 1688-1713). He itched to take his place among the kings of Europe, especially after his neighbour, the Elector Augustus of Saxony, got himself elected King of Poland in 1697. On the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession, which pitted the Austrian Habsburgs against the French Bourbons for the crown of Spain, Frederick saw his chance. He offered to lend troops to the Emperor Leopold in exchange for recognition as King of Prussia. Leopold gritted his teeth and granted the recognition, but stipulated that Frederick would only be known as King in Prussia in order to underline that Brandenburg was still part of the Empire and that Frederick was not sovereign there. This was more or less a fiction, of course, but it would save the Emperor’s face. Frederick accepted and organized a lavish coronation for himself in Königsberg in 1701.

We also have Prussia’s first king, now known as Frederick I, to thank for the establishment of Potsdam, outside Berlin, as the summer residence of the Prussian kings. He commissioned the Potsdam City Palace. It was knocked down by the East German authorities after WWII, but it has now been re-built to house the Brandenburg legislature. His successors added many other gardens and buildings to the Potsdam area.

Pictured: The re-constructed Potsdam City Palace. It now houses the legislature of the German land of Brandenburg. Credit — By A.Savin - Own work, FAL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63986120

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Consolidation and Expansion

Frederick’s successor, Frederick William I (r. 1713-1740), was nicknamed the Soldier King. He greatly increased the size and strength of the Prussian army. A frugal, even miserly ruler, he left a full treasury to his successor, another Frederick, called Fritz by his father, whom he never got along with. Frederick William was convinced that Fritz would make a complete mess of ruling. Never has a father been more wrong. In addition to a replete treasury, he left behind a crack army, which his son would make use of to the fullest extent.

Fritz has passed into legend as Frederick the Great (r. 1740-1786), the most legendary of all the Prussian rulers. His reputation was tarnished in the 20th century by the hero-worship of him by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, by whom the great king himself would have been horrified. He earned his epithet ‘the Great’ by vastly extending Prussia’s territory. As the map at top shows, Frederick conquered the large and rich province of Silesia (green, labeled ‘Nieder Schlesingen) from the Austrian Habsburgs. He fought one war, the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748), to get it, and another one, the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), to keep it. He later also added West Prussia (green, labeled ‘West Preussen’) to his dominions by participating with Austria and Russia in the partition of Poland.

This great general was also a writer, composer, musician, and indefatigable administrator. He was all for freedom of expression and freedom of religion, and demonstrated his principles by encouraging immigration by different religious groups and allowing the press to print whatever it wanted. His great architectural monument is the Sans Souci Palace and Park in Potsdam. As readers of my recently posted micro-memoir know, I have a special fondness for Frederick (II) the Great. I treasure the memory of my only visit to Potsdam, with my parents in 1983, when the old royal city was still part of the GDR.

Pictured: Frederick the Great’s own sketch for the design of the small palace of Sans Souci in Potsdam, from which the architect Knobelsdorf worked to build it. Public domain.

Childless himself, Frederick was succeeded by his eldest nephew, Frederick William II, in 1786. This royal nonentity benefited from the further partitions of Poland. The final partition of 1795 wiped Poland from the map of Europe. It didn’t reappear until after WWI. Poland got its revenge in 1945, however, when the Allies assigned Silesia, West Prussia, and some of East Prussia to it after the end of WWII. The USSR got most of East Prussia (i.e. the old duchy of Prussia), which the Russian Federation still holds today. Prussia has even disappeared within Germany, as the very name was extinguished in a re-drawing of provincial borders by both the former West and East Germany.

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I hope this profile of Prussia in the Versailles Century has been informative. If you have any questions or corrections, please do comment below. Next week, the first instalment of the new Saturday serialization, The Chevalier de Ravanne, will appear. It will be free to read, but all the subsequent instalments will be for paid subscribers only. Speaking of paid subscriptions, they will start on 1 May. For more information about the serialization and about the paid subscriptions, please read my recent Letter to Subscribers. An incentive: if you purchase a monthly or annual subscription by 31 May, 2025, you will lock in your rate for life! Take action now by clicking below to pledge a subscription. Your card will be charged on 1 May.

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