1M1 



FREDERICK WILLIAM II. 



FREDERICK WILLIAM lit 



1022 



father had taken no part, the Russians and Saxons, after the capitula- 

 tion of the Swedish general, Steenbook, in Tonningen, resolved to 

 occupy Swedish Pomerania. The king wished to restore tranquillity 

 in the north by big mediation; but Charles XII., who had returned 

 from Turkey to Stralsund, rejected his proposals, and required Prussia 

 to give back Stettin, but refused to repay the 400,000 dollars which 

 Frederick had advanced to indemnify the Russians and Saxona for 

 the expenses of the war. This induced Frederick William in 1715 to 

 declare war against Sweden, and to make an alliance with Russia, 

 Saxony, and Denmark. In this war the island of Riigen and Stralsund 

 were taken, but no other event of importance occurred, and after the 

 death of Charles XII. peace was restored; Prussia retaining Hither 

 Pomerania, Stettin, and the islands of Usedom and Wollin, and paying 

 to Sweden 2,000,000 of dollars. Count Seekendorf, the Austrian 

 ambassador, induced the king to withdraw from the alliance which 

 had been concluded at Hanover, between England, Holland, and 

 Prussia, after George II. had ascended the throne of England, and to 

 agree in the treaty of Wusterhausen, in October 1726, to recognise 

 the Pragmatic Sanction, and, if necessary, to support it with 19,000 

 men. On the breaking out of the war in Poland iu 1733, he caused 

 King Stanislaus, the opponent of Augustus II., to be honourably 

 received at Kb'nigsberg, when he fled from Poland, by which conduct 

 he displeased the courts of Vienna and St. Petersburg, the allies of 

 Saxony. However, when France declared war against Austria, he 

 assisted Austria with a corps of 10,000 men upon the Rhine. The 

 king and the crown-prince were for some time with this corps ; but 

 nothing of importance was effected, and peace was concluded at 

 Vienna in 1735. About this time Frederick William fell into a weak 

 state of health, which increased the natural violence of his dispo- 

 sition. He was for a time supposed to be in great danger, but 

 recovered and lived for some years, on the whole upon pretty good 

 terms with his son, in whose arms he expired on the 3 1st of May 

 1740. He left to his successor 9,000,000 of dollars in his treasury, 

 a disciplined army of 70,000 men, and a kingdom of the extent of 2190 

 German square miles, with a population of 2,240,000 inhabitants. 



FREDERICK WILLIAM II., King of Prussia, was born in 1744. 

 His father was Augustus William, second son of Frederick William I., 

 upon whose death in 1758, his uncle, Frederick the Great, declared 

 him Crown Prince of Prussia. The young prince soon indulged in a 

 mode of life which was highly displeasing to his uncle, and alienated 

 them from each other for many years. Frederick II. however expressed 

 his satisfaction to the crown-prince, on his giving proofs of personal 

 bravery in the war of the Bavarian succession, 1778. Frederick 

 William's first wife was Elizabeth Christina Ulrica, princess of 

 Brunswick, from whom he was separated in 1769. He afterwards 

 married the Princess Louisa of Hesse Darmstadt. His accession iu 

 1786 was under favourable circumstances. Prussia was engaged in no 

 contest with foreign enemies, and the policy of Frederick II. had made 

 him, iu the latter part of his life, in some measure an arbitrator in the 

 affair* of Europe. Political errors soon lessened Frederick William's 

 credit with foreign cabinets, and the treasure left by his uncle was 

 watted in useless wars, and by the extravagance of his favourites. His 

 first interference in foreign affairs was in. 1787, when he sent an army, 

 under Duke Charles William Ferdinand of Brunswick, to Holland, 

 where the patriots refused to recognise the right of the stadtliolder, 

 and insulted his wife, Frederick William's sister, on her way to the 

 Hague, for which however satisfaction had been given. The Prussians 

 advanced without opposition to Amsterdam, and the old order of 

 things was soon restored, upon which a defensive alliance between 

 England, Prussia, and Holland was concluded at the Hague in April 

 1788. In the war between Sweden and Russia in the same year, 

 Frederick William, in conjunction with England, prevented any 

 further .^attack upon Sweden by Denmark. Being jealous of the 

 success of Russia and Austria in the Turkish war, he concluded an 

 alliance with the Porte in 1790, and guaranteed its possessions. This 

 measure having given offence to Austria, a Prussian army was 

 assembled in Silesia, on the Bohemian frontier, and an Austrian army 

 in Bohemia. The Emperor Leopold II. did not wish for war with 

 Prussia, and in the convention concluded at Reichenbach on the '27tli 

 July, 1790, between Austria and Prussia, with the mediation of 

 England and Holland, he promised to restore to the Turks all his 

 conquests, except the district of Aluta, on which conditions peace was 

 ma'le between Austria and the Porte at Szistowe. Some differences 

 respecting this convention were arranged by Leopold II. and Frederick 

 WiilUui at their meeting at Pillnitz, in August, 1794, when they 

 entered into a closer union with respect to the affairs of France. 



A part of the 1'olinh nation, with king Stanislaus Poniatowsky at 

 its head, proposed to establish a new constitution for the kingdom, 

 and to make the royal dignity hereditary in the house of Saxony. In 

 ord>T to secure foreign aid, an alliance was concluded between Poland 

 and Prussia, by which the latter recognised the integrity of Poland, 

 and promised to assist it with 40,000 infantry and 4000 cavalry, in case 

 any foreign power should interfere in its internal affairs. After making 

 peace with the Porte, Catharine II., who, without taking any share in 

 the war then carrying on by Prussia and Austria against France, had 

 calculated on their efforts, contrived to reduce Frederick William to 

 the alternative either of defending Poland against Russia by virtue of 

 bis alliance with that state, or of making a second partition of it, in 



conjunction with Russia. Frederick William chose the latter, and 

 in January 1793 sent troops under General Mollendorf into Great 

 Poland, which occupied a tract of country of the extent of 1100 

 German square miles, with a population, including Danzig and Thorn, 

 of 1,200,000 inhabitants. Though the diet at Grodno was obliged to 

 agree to this accession, as well as to a similar cession of territory to 

 Russia, the Poles rose in 1794, under Kosciuszko and Madalinsky, to 

 recover their independence, in which insurrection the Russians and 

 Prussians were several times defeated, till Kosciuszko was taken 

 prisoner on the 10th October, by the Russian General Fersen, and 

 Praga was stormed by Suwaroff on the 4th November. Hereupon the 

 third partition of Poland followed. All that remained, after the 

 preceding partitions, was divided between Austria, Russia, and 

 Prussia, by which the latter acquired a large addition of territory, and 

 the independence of Poland was annihilated. 



In the war against France, Prussia sent 50,000 men to the Rhine in 

 1792, under the Duke of Brunswick, and the king soou followed, 

 accompanied by the princes. The Duke of Brunswick failed in his 

 plan of marching to Paris, and was obliged to retreat. On the 5th 

 April 1795, Prussia made peace with the Republic, and left all its 

 territories beyond the Rhine in the possession of the French. To 

 preserve the neutrality of the north of Germany, a convention was 

 made between Prussia and several princes, whose territories were 

 included in what was called the line of demarcation. During this 

 reign the margrave of Anspach and Baireuth, who was the last princa 

 of that line of the house of Brandenburg, ceded those principalities, 

 for an annuity of 500,000 florins, to Frederick William, who on that 

 occasion revived the order of the Red Eagle. In the internal adminis- 

 tration, the system of indirect taxes introduced by Frederick II. was 

 abolished. Many judicious arrangements were introduced, and a new 

 code of laws for the whole kingdom published ; but the toleration 

 promoted by Frederick II. was much restricted by means of the 

 religious edict of 1788 aud other measures. Frederick William died 

 on the 16th of November 1797, aud was succeeded by his eldest son, 

 Frederick William III. 



FREDERICK WILLIAM III., King of Prussia, was the eldest son 

 of King Frederick William II., by his second wife, Friederike Louise, 

 princess of Hessu-Darmstadt : he was bora on the 3rd of August 1770. 

 Frederick William was the grand-nephew of King Frederick II., or the 

 Great, under whose superintendence he was prepared for the important 

 functions which he was destined to discharge on the throne of Prussia. 

 The chief tutor of Prince Frederick William was Benish, one of the 

 king's privy councillors ; General von Backhoff instructed him iu the 

 military sciences : both are said to have been honest men, but unfit 

 for training the mind of a youth ; and well-informed writers of that 

 period assert that the education of the prince was bad. Frederick 

 William was sixteen when, through the death of Frederick II. iu 1786, 

 he became Crown-Prince, his father, Frederick William II., having 

 succeeded King Frederick. During the reign of Frederick William II. 

 Prussia lost much in general opinion. 



Frederick William III. succeeded his father on the 16th of November 

 1797. He had already distinguished himself at Landau aud 1'iruiaseus 

 against the French a* commander of part of the Prussian avant-garde, 

 and he had married in 1794 the accomplished Louise Augusts 

 Wilhelinine Amalie, princess of Meckleuburg-Strelitz. At that time 

 the Prussian monarchy contained about 124,000 English square miles, 

 with a population of above ten millions an area and a population 

 three times greater than those which constituted the kingdom when 

 the great Frederick came to the throne. But one-third of this country 

 was formed of the provinces acquired by Prussia in the partitions of 

 Poland, and the Polish capital, Warsaw, was theu a provincial town of 

 Prussia ; from this portion of the monarchy the king derived more 

 nominal than actual strength, and among its inhabitants there was not 

 one in ten thousand whom he could call a loyal subject. The treasures 

 left by the great Frederick had been squandered away by Frederick 

 William II. in his campaigns in Holland, France, and Poland ; and a 

 considerable debt, contracted by the same king, now added to the 

 difficulties in which the state was placed through his unwise policy. 

 Under these circumstances, Frederick William III. turned his attention 

 to the re-orgauisation of the financial department, and the introduction 

 of a better system of administration. The changes which he effected 

 were however far from being radical, nor were they calculated to 

 extricate Prussia from the dangers of her political position. From the 

 moment that King Frederick William II. had signed the peace of Basel, 

 Prussia was caught in a net ; and the favourable moment to disentangle 

 herself by again joining Austria in her struggle against France had 

 been neglected. Frederick William III. directed all his efforts towards 

 upholding his neutrality in the great European struggle, aud the 

 French press was active in persuading him of the advantages of his 

 policy. The first consequence of this policy was distrust on the part 

 of Austria, Russia, and Great Britain towards Prussia, and still more 

 on the part of the petty German priuces, who hitherto had looked 

 upon Prussia as their protector against the ambition of tho house of 

 Austria. But it soon became manifest that the king intended, with 

 tho aid of France, to aggrandise his dominions at their expense. He 

 made his first acquisition by the peace of Luueville, when he received 

 the bishoprics of Hildesheiui, Paderborn, part of that of Miiuster, 

 and some other territories, with an area of about 5130 English square 



