Kingdom of Prussia
Bismarck's new empire was one of the most powerful entities in continental Europe. Prussia's dominance over the new empire was almost as absolute as it was with the North German Confederation. It included three-fifths of the empire's territory and two-thirds of its population. The imperial crown was a hereditary office of the House of Hohenzollern.
However, the seeds for future problems lay in a gross disparity between the imperial and Prussian systems. The empire had a system of universal and equal suffrage for all men over 25. However, Prussia retained its restrictive three-class voting system, in which the well-to-do had 17.5 times the voting power of the rest of the population. Since the imperial chancellor was, except for two periods (January-November 1873 and 1892-94) also prime minister of Prussia, this meant that for most of the empire's existence, the king/emperor and prime minister/chancellor had to seek majorities from legislatures elected by two completely different franchises.
At the time of the empire's creation, both Prussia and Germany were roughly two-thirds rural. However, within 20 years, the situation was reversed; the cities and towns accounted for two-thirds of the population. However, in both the kingdom and the empire, the constituencies were never redrawn to reflect the growing population and influence of the cities and towns. This meant that rural areas were grossly overrepresented from the 1890s onward.
Bismarck realized that the rest of Europe was somewhat skeptical of his powerful new Reich, and turned his attention to preserving peace with such acts as the Congress of Berlin. The new German Empire improved its already-strong relations with Britain. The ties between London and Berlin had already been sealed with a golden braid in 1858, when Crown Prince Frederick William of Germany married Princess Victoria of Britain.
William I died in 1888, and the Crown Prince succeeded to the throne as Frederick III. The new emperor, a decided Anglophile, planned to institute extensive liberal reforms. Unfortunately, he died after only 99 days on the throne and was succeeded by his 29-year old son, William II. As a boy, William had rebelled against his parents' efforts to mold him as a liberal, and had become thoroughly Prussianized under Bismarck's tutelage. The new Kaiser rapidly soured relations with the British and Russian royal families (despite being closely related to them), becoming their rival and ultimately their enemy.
William II ousted Bismarck from office in 1890 and began a campaign of militarisation and adventurism in foreign policy that eventually led Germany into isolation. A gross misjudgment of the Austro-Hungarian conflict with Serbia by the Kaiser, who left for holidays, and hasty mobilisation plans of several nations led to the disaster of World War I (1914–1918). As the price of their withdrawal from the war, the Bolsheviks conceded large regions of the western Russian Empire, some of which bordered Prussia, to German control in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918). German control of these territories only lasted for a few months, however, because of the defeat of German military forces and the German Revolution – which led to the Kaiser’s abdication and exile.
The post-war Treaty of Versailles, which held Germany solely responsible for the war, was signed in Versailles' Hall of Mirrors, where the German Empire had been created. With the abdication of Wilhelm II in 1918, the Kingdom of Prussia was dissolved and replaced with the Free State of Prussia.
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Politics
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The Kingdom of Prussia was an autocratic monarchy until the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states, after which Prussia became a constitutional monarchy and Adolf Heinrich von Arnim-Boitzenburg was elected as Prussia's first prime minister. Following Prussia's first constitution, a two-house parliament was formed. The lower house, or Landtag was elected by all taxpayers, who were divided into three classes according to the amount of taxes paid. This allowed just over one-third of the voters to choose 85% of the legislature, all but assuring dominance by the more well-to-do elements of the population. The upper house, which was later renamed the Prussian House of Lords, was appointed by the king. He retained full executive authority and ministers were responsible only to him. As a result, the grip of the landowning classes, the Junkers, remained unbroken, especially in the eastern provinces. Prussian Secret Police, formed in response to the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states, aided the conservative government.
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Subdivisions of Prussia
The original core regions of the Kingdom of Prussia were the Margraviate of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia which together formed Brandenburg-Prussia. Further Pomerania had been held by Prussia since 1648. Combined with nearby gains from Sweden in 1720, this region would later become the Province of Pomerania. Prussian gains in the Silesian Wars led to the formation of the Province of Silesia in 1740.
After the First Partition of Poland in 1772, the newly-annexed Royal Prussia and Warmia became the Province of West Prussia, while the Duchy of Prussia (along with part of Warmia) became the Province of East Prussia. Other annexations along the Noteć (Netze) River became the Netze District. Following the second and third partitions (1793-1795), the new Prussian annexations became the Provinces of New Silesia, South Prussia, and New East Prussia, with the Netze District redivided between West and South Prussia. These three provinces were ultimately lost to Congress Poland after the Congress of Vienna in 1815, except for the western part of South Prussia, which would form part of the Grand Duchy of Posen.
Following the major western gains made by Prussia after the Vienna Congress, a total of ten provinces were established, each one subdivided further into smaller administrative regions known as Regierungsbezirke. The provinces were:
- Brandenburg
- East Prussia
- Jülich-Cleves-Berg
- Lower Rhine
- Pomerania
- Grand Duchy of Posen (authonomus, outside of German Confederation)
- Saxony
- Silesia
- West Prussia
- Westphalia
In 1822, the provinces of Jülich-Cleves-Berg and the Lower Rhine were merged to form the Rhine Province. In 1829, the Provinces of East and West Prussia merged to form the Province of Prussia, but the separate provinces were reformed in 1878. The principalities of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen and Hohenzollern-Hechingen were annexed in 1850 to form the Province of Hohenzollern.
After Prussia's victory in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War, territories annexed by Prussia were reorganised into three new provinces: Hanover, Hesse-Nassau and Schleswig-Holstein.
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See also
- List of Kings of Prussia
- Prussian Army
- Free State of Prussia
- Prussian Crown Jewels
- History of Germany
- Kreis in Prussia
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References
- ^ a b Königreich Preußen (1701-1918) (German). Retrieved on 2007-05-02.
- ^ German Empire: administrative subdivision and municipalities, 1900 to 1910 (German). Retrieved on 2007-05-02.
- ^ Prussia allies in the Austro-Prussian War were: Anhalt, Bremen, Brunswick, Lauenburg, Lippe-Detmold, Lübeck, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Oldenburg, Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, Waldeck-Pyrmont
- ^ Austrian allies in the Austro-Prussian War were: Baden, Bavaria, Hanover, Hesse-Darmstadt, Hesse-Kassel, Nassau, Reuss-Greiz, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxony, Schaumburg-Lippe, Württemberg
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