Jodhvir Grewal 11/11/10

Day 3 Pg. 425-432

Absolutism in Central, Eastern, and Northern Europe

I. During the 17thc Prussia, Austria, and Russia appeared as
growing powers in Eastern Europe
The German States
I. The Peace of Westphalia, which ended the 30 Years’ War in
1648, left each of the states in the HRE virtually autonomous and
sovereign. There was no longer a German Empire but 300 little
Germanies.
The Rise of Brandenburg-Prussia
I. The evolution of Brandenburg into a powerful state was largely
the work of Hohenzollern dynasty, which in 1415 had come to
rule the principality in northeastern Germany.
A. In 1609, the H inherited some lands in the Rhine valley
in western Germany, 9 years later they received the duchy
of Prussia.
B. By the 17thc, the dominions of the house of H, now
called B-P, consisted of 3 disconnected masses in western,
central, and eastern Germany; only the H ruler connected
them
II. The foundation for the P state was laid by Frederick William
the Great Elector, who came to power in the midst of the 30YW.
Realizing that B-P was small, open territory with no natural
defense, FW built a standing army.
A. By 1678, he possessed a force of 40thou men that took
over 50% of the state’s revenues.
B. To sustain the army and his own power, FW established
the General War Commissariat to levy taxes for the army
and oversea its growth and training. The GWC evolved into
an agency for civil government as well.
C. Directly responsible to the elector, the new bureaucratic
machine became his chief instrument for governing the
state. Many of its officials were members of the Prussian
landed aristocracy, the Junkers, who also served as officers
in the army
III. The nobles’ support of FW’s policies derived from the tacit
agreement that he made with them to eliminate their power in
their Estates-General.
A. In return for a free hand in running the government, he
gave the nobles almost unlimited power over their
peasants, exempted nobles from taxation, and awarded
them the highest ranks in the army and the GWC w/the
 understanding that they would not challenge his political
control.
B. The nobles were allowed to appropriate their land and
bind them to the soil as serfs. Serfdom was not new in B-P,
but FW reinforced it through his concessions to the nobles.
IV. To Build B-P economy, FW followed mercantilist policies using
high tariffs, subsidies, and monopolies for manufacturers to
stimulate domestic industry and the construction of roads and
canals. At the same time however, he continued to favor the
interests of the nobility at the expense of the commercial and
industrial middle class in towns.
V. FW laid the groundwork for the P state; his son Frederick III
made one further contribution: in return for aiding the HRE in the
War of the Spanish Succession, he was officially granted the title
of king-in-Prussia.
A. Thus was Elector FIII transformed into King FI
The Emergence of Austria
I. The Austrian Habsburgs had long played a significant role in E
politics as HR Emperors, but by the end of the 30YW, the Hab
hopes of creating an empire in Germany had been dashed.
II. In the 17thc, the house of Austria had made an important
transition; the G empire was lost, but a new empire was created
in east and southeast E
III. The nucleus of the new A empire remained the traditional A
hereditary possessions: Lower and Upper A, Cartinthia, Carniola,
Styria, and Tyrol.
A. To these had been added the kingdom of Bohemia and
parts of northwest Hungary in the 16thc
IV. In the 17thc, Leopold I encouraged the eastward movement
of the A Empire, but he was sorely challenged by the revival of
the Ottoman Empire in the 17thc.
A. Having moved into Transylvania, the O eventually
pushed westward and laid siege to Vienna in 1683.
B. A E army, led by the A, counterattacked and decisively
defeated the O in 1687.
C. By the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, A took control of
Hungary, Transylvania, Croatia, and Slovenia, thus
establishing an AE in southeastern E.
V. At the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, A gained
possession of the Spanish Netherlands and received formal
recognition of its occupation of the S possessions in Italy (Milan,
Mantua, Sardinia, Naples)
A. By the beginning of the 18thc, the house of A had
acquired an empire of considerable size
VI. The A monarchy, never became a highly centralized state,
primarily b/c it included so many national groups.
 A. The AE remained a collection of territories held together
by a personal union.
B. The H emperor was archduke of A, king of Bohemia, and
king of Hungary. Each of these areas had their own laws,
Estates-General, and political life.
C. The landed aristocrats throughout the empire were
connected by a common bond of service to the house of H,
as military officers or government bureaucrats, but no
other common sentiment tied the regions together.
Italy: From Spanish to Austrian Rule
I. By 1530, Emperor Charles V had managed to defeat the French
armies in Italy and become the arbiter of Italy.
A. Initially, he was content to establish close ties w/many
native Italian rulers and allow them to rule, provided that
they recognize his dominant role.
B. In 1540, he gave the duchy of Milan to his son Philip II
and transferred all imperial rights over Italy to the S
monarchy
II. From the beginning of PII reign in 1559 until 1713, the S
presence was felt everywhere in Italy.
A. Only Florence, the Papal States, and Venice managed to
maintain relatively independent policies.
B. At the same time, the influence of the papacy became
oppressive in Italy as the machinery of the Catholic
Counter-Reformation—the Inquisition, the Index, and
Jesuits—was used to stifle all resistance to the Catholic
orthodoxy created by the Council of Trent
III. At the beginning of the 18thc, Italy suffered further from the
struggles b/w France and Spain.
A. It was A, not France, that benefited most from the
WOFTSS. By gaining Milan, Mantua, Sardinia, and Naples, A
supplanted S as the dominate power in Italy
Russia: From Fledgling Principality to Major Power
I. A new Russian state had emerged in the 15thc under the
leadership of the principality of Moscow and its grand dukes. In
the 16thc, Ivan IV the Terrible expanded the territories of R
eastward after finding westward expansion blocked by Swedish
and Polish states.
A. Ivan also extended the autocracy of the tsar by crushing
the power of the R nobility, known as the boyars
B. Ivan’s dynasty came to an end in 1598 and was followed
by a resurgence of aristocratic power in a period of
anarchy known as the Time of Troubles. It did not end until
the Zemsky Sobor, or national assembly, chose Michael
Romanov as the new tsar, beginning a dynasty that would
last until 1917.
 II. In the 17thc, Muscovite society was high stratified. At the top
was the tsar, who claimed to be divinely ordained autocratic
ruler.
A. R society was dominated by an upper class of landed
aristocrats who, in the course of the 17thc, managed to
bind their peasants to the land. An abundance of land and
a shortage of peasants made serfdom desirable to the
landowners. Townspeople were also controlled.
B. Many merchants were not allowed to move from their
cities w/o government permission or to sell their
businesses to anyone outside their class.
C. In the 17thc, merchant and peasant revolts as well as a
schism in the R Orthodox church created very unsettled
conditions.
D. In the midst of these political and religious upheavals,
17thc Moscow was experiencing more frequent contacts
w/the west, and western ideas were beginning to penetrate
a few R circles.
The Reign of Peter the Great (1689-1725)
I. Peter gained a firsthand account of the west when he made a
trip there in 1697-1698 and returned to R w/a firm determination
to westernize.
A. Peter’s policy of Europeanization was largely technical.
He admired E technology and desired to transplant it to R.
Only this kind of modernization could give him the army
and navy he needed to make R a great power.
II. One of his 1st priorities was the reorganization of the army and
creating a navy.
A. He conscripted peasants for 25-year stints of service to
build a standing army of 210,000 men. He created the 1st R
navy.
III. Peter reorganized the central government, partly along
western lines.
A. In 1711, he created the Senate to supervise the
administrative machinery of the state while he was away
on military campaigns. The Senate became a ruling
council, but its ineffectiveness caused Peter to borrow the
western institution of boards of administrators entrusted
w/specific functions, such as foreign affairs, war, and
justice.
B. To impose the rule of the central government more
effectively throughout the land, Peter divided R into 8
provinces and later, in 1719, into 50.
C. Although he hoped to create a well-ordered community
governed in accordance w/law, few of his bureaucrats
shared his concept of honest service and duty to the state.
 Peter hoped for a sense of civic duty, but his own forceful
personality created an atmosphere that prevented it.
IV. To further his administrative aims, Peter demanded that all
members of the landholding class serve in either military or civil
offices.
V. In 1722, Peter instituted the Table of Ranks to create
opportunities for nonnobles to serve the state and join the
nobility.
A. All noble offices were according to 14 levels; a parallel
list of 14 grades were also created for military offices.
Every official was then required to begin at level 1 and
work his way up his way up the ranks. When a nonnoble
reached level 8, he attained noble status.
B. This attempt by Peter to create a new nobility based on
merit was not carried on by his successors.
VI. In order to pay for army and navy, Peter adopted mercantilist
policies to stimulate economic growth. He tried to increase
exports and develop new industries while exploiting domestic
resources like the iron mines in the Urals.
A. But his military spending was so high that he reverted
back to the old way of raising taxes, imposing additional
burdens on the peasants, who were becoming increasingly
oppressed.
VII. Peter also tried to gain control of the R Orthodox Church.
A. In 1721, he abolished the position of patriarch and
created a body called the Holy Synod to make decisions for
the church. At its head stood a procurator, a layman who
represented the interests of the tsar and assured Peter of
effective domination of the church
VIII. One group of people benefited from Peter’s cultural reforms
—women. Peter shattered the seclusion of upper-class R women
and demanded that they remove the traditional veils that
covered their faces.
A. He decreed that social gatherings be held 3 times/week
where men and women could mix for conversation, card
games, and dancing. He also insisted that women could
marry of their own free will.
Russia as a Military Power
I. The object of Peter’s domestic reforms was to make R into a
great state and military power. He wanted to create a port to the
rest of E. This could only be achieved through the Baltic, which
was controlled by Sweden at the time.
A. W/the support of Poland and Denmark, Peter attacked
Sweden in 1700 believing that the king, Charles XII, could
be defeated.
 B. Charles defeated the Danes and Poles, and routed the R
army of 40,000 at the Battle of Narva. The Great Northern
War soon began.
C. Peter reorganized his army along western lines at the
Battle of Poltava in 1709 and defeated Charles’s army.
D. The Peace of Nystadt in 1721 gave formal recognition to
what Peter had already achieved, the acquisition of
Estonia, Livonia, and Karelina.
E. Sweden became a 2nd rate power, and R was now the
great E state that Peter wanted
II. Early in the war, in the northern marshlands along the Baltic,
Peter began to construct a new city, Saint Petersburg.
A. Its construction cost the lives of thousands of peasants,
but it was completed in Peter’s lifetime.
B. It remained the R capital until 1917
III. Peter modernized and westernized R to the extent that it
became a great military power, and by the time of his death, an
important member of the E state system. But his policies were
also detrimental to R.
A. Westernization only reached the upper classes, and the
real object of the reforms, the creation of a strong military,
only added more burdens to the R people.
B. The forceful way Peter imposed western civilization on
his people led them to accept westernization but distrust it.
The Great Northern States
I. The Baltic Sea bestowed special importance on the lands
surrounding it.
II. In the 16thc, Sweden had broken its ties w/Denmark and
emerged as an independent state.
III. Despite their common religion, D and S territorial ambitions
in northern E kept them in almost constant rivalry in the 17thc
Denmark
I. Under Christian IV, D seemed a likely candidate for expansion,
but it met w/little success.
A. The system of electing monarchs forced the kings to
share power w/nobility, who exercised strict control over
the peasants who worked their lands.
B. D ambitions for ruling the B were curtailed by the loses
sustained in the 30YW and the later Northern War
w/Sweden
C. Military loses led to a constitutional crisis in which a
meeting of D Estates brought to pass a bloodless
revolution in 1660.
D. The power of the nobility was curtailed, a hereditary
monarchy was established, and a new absolutist
constitution was proclaimed in 1665.
 II. Under Christian V, a centralized administration was instituted
w/nobility as the chief officeholders.
Sweden
I. S economy was weak, and the monarchy was still locked in
conflict w/powerful nobles.
II. During the reign of Gustavus Adolphus, his chief minister, Axel
Oxenstierna, persuaded him to adopt a new policy in which the
nobility formed a “First Estate” occupying the bureaucratic
positions of an expanded central government.
A. This created a stable monarchy and freed the king to
raise an army and participate in the 30YW
III. S entered a period of political crisis after the death of GA. His
daughter’s tendency to favor the interests of the nobility led the
other estates of the Riksdag, S parliament—the burghers, clergy,
and peasants—to protest.
A. In 1654, tired of ruling and wishing to become Cath,
Christina abdicated and gave the throne to her cousin, King
Charles X. His accession to the throne defused a peasant
revolt against the nobility.
IV. Charles X reestablished domestic order, but it was Charles XI
who build the S monarchy along the lines of absolute monarchy.
A. By resuming control of the crown lands and the
revenues attached to them from the nobility, Charles
managed to weaken the independent power of the nobility.
B. He built up bureaucracy, subdued both the Riksdag and
the church, improved the army and the navy, and left his
son, Charles XII, a well-organized S state that dominated
northern E.
V. Charles XII was primarily interested in military affairs.
A. By the time he died in 1718, S had lost much of its
empire to northern R
The Ottoman Empire
I. From 1480 to 1520, internal problems and the need to
consolidate their eastern frontiers kept the OE from invading E
II. The reign of Sultan Suleiman I the Magnificent brought the
Turk’s back to E attention. Advancing up the Danube, they seized
Belgrade in 1521 and Hungary in 1526. At the same time, they
extended their power over the Med.
III. By the beginning of the 17thc, the OE was treated just like
any other E power.
A. It possessed a highly effective governmental system
B. Ottoman politics periodically degenerated into bloody
intrigues as factions fought each other for influence and
the throne. Despite the periodic bouts of civil chaos, a well-
trained bureaucracy of civil servants continued to
administer state affairs efficiently.
 C. A well-organized military system also added to the
strength of the OE. Especially outstanding were the
Janissaries, composed of Christian boys who had been
taken from their parents, converted to Islam, and
subjected to military discipline to form an elite core of
troops personally loyal to the sultan.
IV. By 1683, the OE had marched through the Hungarian plain
and laid siege to Vienna, they retreated and were pushed out of
Hungary by a new European coalition. They would never again
be a threat to E
The Limits of Absolutism
I. There power was far from absolute, and they didn’t control the
lives of their subjects. In 1700, government for most people still
meant the local institutions that affected their lives: local courts,
local tax collectors, and local organizers of armed forces.
A. Kings and ministers might determine policies and issue
guidelines, but they still had to function through local
agents and had no guarantee that their wishes would be
carried out. Many groups limited what they could achieve.
B. The most successful rulers were not those who tried to
destroy the old system but rather those like Louis XIV, who
used the old system to their advantage.
C. The landed aristocracy played an important role in the E
monarchical system.