Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/18

Rh PRUSSIA [HISTORY. first century of the Christian era we find authentic accounts ' of the importation by the Romans of amber from the Baltic coast, but the first mention of the Pruzi by name occurs in a document of the 9th century. Their first appearance in German history is connected with the attempt made in 997 by Adalbert, bishop of Prague, to convert them to Christianity. But his efforts, as well as those of his successor Bruno, met with little success, and each of these pious missionaries found a martyr's grave on the shore of the Baltic. The obstinate adherence of the natives to their paganism was strengthened by their natural suspicion of a political aim under covet of missionary enterprise, and they felt that they were fighting for their land as well as for their religion. The next serious attempt at their conversion was made two hundred years later by a Cistercian monk named Christian, who at the outset had some success and was appointed first bishop of Prussia. The Prussians, however, soon expelled Christian and his supporters, and even invaded Polish territory, plundering and exacting tribute. In this extremity Christian and Conrad, duke of Teutonic Masovia, applied for aid to the knights of the TEUTONIC Order. ORDER (q.v.), who gladly embarked on this new crusade. The Prussians made a desperate resistance ; but the military discipline and strength of the Teutonic knights were not in the long run to be withstood, reinforced, as they were, by crowds of crusaders and adventurers anxious to share in the pious work, and assisted on two occasions by the troops of Ottocar of Bohemia. The knights entered Prussia in 1230, and after half a century of hard fighting found them- selves masters of the entire country. They had previously taken care to procure from the emperor and the pope a grant of all the lands they should conquer, as well as of those offered to them by Conrad of Masovia. At first the government of the Order, though arbitrary, was not un- favourable to the welfare of the land. The few native nobles who adopted Christianity were allowed to retain their privileged position, and the ranks of the noblesse were recruited by grants to German knights. Numerous towns and villages were built ; the place of the greatly thinned Prussians was taken by industrious German colonists ; agriculture and commerce were carried on with energy and success ; and all aggression from without was vigorously repelled. The general plan of colonization was similar to that in Brandenburg, except that the place of the margrave was taken by a class of privileged nobles, who divided the power of government among them. In 1309 Pomerelia, to the west of the Vistula, was subdued, and the headquarters of the Order were removed from Venice to the fortress of Marienburg on the Vistula ; and before the end of the century the " Ordensland " of Prussia is said to have contained about fifty walled towns, still more numerous castles, and several hundred villages and hamlets, while it extended from Pomerania to the western frontier of Lithuania. The active trade which now flourished was carried on mainly with England and the Hanseatic towns. As time went on, however, the knights allowed their vows of temperance and chastity to sink into abeyance and became enervated by luxury and excess. Their old military skill declined, and they had sunk to such a state of weakness that the single battle of Tannenberg (1410), in which they were defeated by the Poles, shook their power to its foundations. Their arbitrary and exclusive rule now began to reap its reward : the Prussians took advantage of the weakness of the Order to claim a larger share in the government, and, as their burdens continued to grow more oppressive, finally formed an alliance with its arch-enemy Poland. Attacked from Russia seems unfounded, and the form Borussia or Porussia, which has been adopted as the Latin appellation of the country, is used for the first time by a chronicler of the fifteenth century. without and weakened by dissension within, the Order was at length compelled to succumb ; and a war begun in 1454 ended thirteen years later with the cession of West Prussia to Poland and an acknowledgment of the latter's feudal superiority over the remaining territories of the Order. The knights turned to Germany for help, and endeavoured to persuade powerful German princes to undertake the office of grand master. In 1511 their choice fell on Albert, a member of the Franconian branch of the Hohenzollerns, who undertook the task of reorganization with vigour and attempted to dispense with the oath of fealty to Poland. But, failing to receive any adequate support from the emperor, he at length, acting on the advice of Luther, determined to embrace Protestantism and convert the Ordensland into a secular and hereditary duchy. This momentous transformation was carried out in 1525 with- out interference from either the empire or Poland, and Albert continued to be a vassal of the latter state as duke of Prussia. The people of Prussia, many of whom had already gone over to the new faith, hailed the reform with great satisfaction, and most of the knights contentedly changed their life-rents for feudal holdings, married, and became hereditary nobles. When it passed into the hands of the elector of Brandenburg, Prussia thus consisted of a compact secular duchy, owing fealty to Poland, and pos- sessing the two well-defined estates of nobles and burghers, the first of which held the reins of power. John Sigismund died in 1619, a year after his acquisi- George tion of Prussia, and left his territories to his son George William. William (1619-1640). This unfortunate prince may per- haps be described as the first utterly incompetent ruler of his line, though due allowance must be made for the extreme difficulty of his position. Succeeding to power at the outbreak of the great struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism, he neglected the opportunity of joining with Saxony in the formation of a strong league of German Protestant princes, and by his temporizing policy converted his electorate into the common battle-ground. In the language of Carlyle, "where the Titans were bowling rocks at each other, George William hoped by dexterous skipping to escape share of the game." His own irresolu- tion was aided by the fact that his chancellor and chief adviser, Schwarzenberg, was a Roman Catholic and of strong imperialist sympathies, while the great bulk of his subjects dreaded an increase of the power of Calvinism almost more than that of Roman Catholicism. Branden- burg was overrun in turn by Mansfeld, Tilly, and Wallen- stein, and suffered as much as if it had taken an active part in the war. The Restitution Edict of 1628, however, gave the elector serious cause of alarm, and the appearance of Gustavus Adolphus before Berlin in 1631 confirmed his faltering decision and made him for a time throw in his lot with the Protestant cause. After the death of Gustavus, Brandenburg followed the example of Saxony in negotiating a separate peace with the emperor (1635). But this apostasy brought little relief, as the emperor gave no aid in expelling the Swedes from Brandenburg and Pomerania, which they continued to -occupy for several years. In 1639 the elector removed his court to Konigs- berg in Prussia, the only part of his realms in which he was sure of comparative tranquillity, and there he died in 1 640, leaving a land devastated in great part by fire and sword and at the lowest ebb of dignity and power. Frederick William (1640-1688), whom both his con- Great temporaries and after ages have agreed to dignify with Elector, the title of the " Great Elector," was only twenty years old when he succeeded to the throne, but he at once began to manifest a decided and vigorous character very different from that of his father. He emancipated himself without delay from the guidance of Schwarzenberg, and, in spite of