Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/22

Rh 10 PRUSSIA [HISTORY. the long dormant claims of Prussia to the Silesian duchies. Within a year of his accession he had embarked on the first Silesian War, and this was closely followed by the second, which ended in 1745, leaving Frederick in undis- puted possession of almost the whole of Silesia, with the frontier that still exists. East Friesland, the Prussian claim to which dated from the time of the Great Elector, was absorbed in 1744 on the death without issue of the last duke. The two Silesian wars completely exhausted the stores left by Frederick William, both of grenadiers and thalers, and Frederick gladly welcomed the interval of peace to amass new treasures and allow his subjects time to recover from their exertions. The measures he took were so successful that when the Seven Years' War broke out in 1756 he had an army of 150,000 men at his com- mand, representing about one-seventh of the available male population of his little kingdom. He had also a fund of eleven million thalers in his treasury, though this would have gone but a small way in defraying the expenses of the protracted struggle had he not been assisted by the subsidies of England and able to make the fertile plains of Saxony his chief basis of supply. The succession of brilliant campaigns in which Frederick maintained himself against a coalition embracing nearly the whole of Europe has been narrated in the article AUSTRIA (vol. iii. p. 127 sq.). As Macaulay points out in a somewhat highly -coloured passage, Frederick ruled over a population of less than five million souls, while his adversaries could draw their armies from a joint population of a hundred millions. The disproportion in wealth was at least as great. Nor was the small size of Frederick's land made up for by its strong patriotism and loyalty; on the contrary, the affections of his subjects had been partially alienated by the severity of his rule and the weight of taxation. Prussia had no strong natural bulwarks on its frontiers, but lay exposed to every foe. Yet Frederick's brilliant military genius was able to counteract all these dis- advantages and carry on the contest in spite of all odds. Prussia Though without gain in extent or population, Prussia under emerged from the war as an undoubted power of the first rank, and henceforth completely eclipsed Saxony, Bavaria, and Hanover, while it was plain that Austria Avould no longer stand without a rival for the hegemony of the Ger- man empire. The glorious victories over the French and Kussians also awakened a spirit of German patriotism that had hitherto been almost unknown. But the price paid for these results was enormous. Of the 850,000 soldiers who, as is estimated, perished during the war about 180,000 fell in the service of Prussia, and the gross popu- lation of the kingdom had decreased in seven years to the extent of half a million souls. The misery and poverty indirectly attendant on the war were incalculable. Numer- ous Prussian towns and villages were destroyed or made tenantless ; large tracts were left uncultivated for want of labourers ; and famine reigned to such an extent that even the seed-corn was converted into bread. The development of the country was thrown back for many years, which were almost a repetition of the period succeeding the Thirty Years' War. But, while nearly a century elapsed before the traces of that struggle disappeared, Frederick, who showed himself great in peace as in war, repaired most of the ravages of the Seven Years' War in a tenth of the time. By great dexterity in the management of his finances he had kept clear of debt, and was soon able to advance large sums to the most impoverished districts. Foreign colonists were invited to repeople the deserted villages ; taxes were in several instances remitted for a series of years ; the horses of the army were employed in farm labour; and individual effort in every department was liberally supported by the Government. By 1770 nearly Frederick II. all the ruined villages had been rebuilt ; the ground was again under cultivation ; order had been restored ; the vacant offices had been filled ; and the debased currency had been called in. Throughout the kingdom agriculture was encouraged by the drainage of marshy districts; in- dustry was extended by the introduction of new manu- factures, by bounties, and by monopolies; and commerce was fostered by a series of well-meant, if economically unsound, measures of protection. Frederick's methods of administration did not greatly differ from those of his pre- decessor, though the unrelenting severity of Frederick William was relaxed and the peculiarities of his system toned down. Frederick's industry and activity were a.s great as those of his father, his insight keener, and his views more liberal. His rule was quite as personal and absolute, and the despotism was altered only in so far as the character of the despot was different. His own personal supervision extended to every department, and his idea of his position and duties made him his own first minister in the widest and most exacting sense of the term. He endeavoured to spare his subjects as far as was compatible with the immense army he maintained, and sought to raise the necessary revenues rather by improving the resources of the country than by additional taxation. He kept the charges of the civil administration down to the lowest point consistent with efficiency, and the court establishment was very economical, though it avoided the extreme of shabbi- ness witnessed under Frederick William. His efforts to improve the administration and the bureaucracy were un- ceasing, and he succeeded in training a body of admirable public servants. One of his most sweeping reforms was in the department of law, where, with the able aid of Cocceji, he carried out a complete revolution both in procedure and personnel. The expenses of justice were greatly lightened, and no suit was allowed to drag on for more than a year. A complete divorce was effected between the departments of justice and provincial administration, a change that greatly strengthened the position of the private citizen in any contest with the officials of Government. One of the king's first acts was to abolish legal torture, and he rarely sanctioned capital punishment except in cases of murder. The application of the jirivilegium de non appellando (1746) freed Prussia from all relations with the imperial courts and paved the way for a codification of the common law of the land, Avhich was begun under Frederick but not completed till the end of the century. In matters of reli- gion Frederick not only exercised the greatest toleration, remarking that each of his subjects might go to heaven after his own fashion, but distinctly disclaimed the con- nexion of the state with any one confession. Equal liberty was granted in speaking and writing. Though his finances did not allow him to do much directly for education, his example and his patronage of men of letters exercised a most salutary effect. The old system of rigid social privi- lege was, however, still maintained, and unsurmountable barriers separated the noble from the citizen and the citizen from the peasant. The position of the last was very deplorable ; villainage still to a great extent existed, and the mental attitude of the rural population was servile in the extreme. 1 The paramount defect of Frederick's ad- ministration, as future events proved, was the neglect of any effort to encourage independence and power of self- government among the people. Every measure emanated from the king himself, and the country learned to rely on him alone for help in every emergency. Public opinion on political matters could not be said to exist ; and the provincial diets met simply to receive the instructions of the royal agents. 1 One illustration of this is afforded by the fact that the private soldiers felt no resentment at being struck by their officers.