Download Chapter 13 European State Consolidation in the Seventeenth and

Chapter 13
European State Consolidation in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
The Netherlands
Until the 16th century, the Low Countries – the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg – consisted of a
number of principalities and bishoprics. During the fifteenth century, most of these came under the rule of
the House of Burgundy and subsequently the House of Habsburg. In 1549 Holy Roman Emperor Charles V
issued the Pragmatic Sanction, which further consolidated the Seventeen Provinces under his rule. In the
last chapter we saw how Charles’ son Philip II was determined to make an example of the Calvinist-leaning
Dutch and turned the Duke of Alba’s terror on the land. In 1568 the Netherlands, led by William I of
Orange, revolted against because of high taxes, persecution of Calvinists, and Philip's efforts to modernize
and centralize the local governments. In 1579, a number of the northern provinces signed the Union of
Utrecht, in which they promised to support each other against the Spanish army; and this marked the formal
beginning of the Dutch Republic. Spain would recognize the Union of Utrecht in 1609 and in 1648 the
Treaty of Westphalia would give European sanction to an independent Dutch nation.
During the early seventeenth century, the Dutch fought a series of naval wars with England. Then in 1672,
Louis XIV of France and the English invaded the Netherlands. All looked lost until Prince William III of
Orange (1650-1702), (who was the grandson of William the Silent, the principal leader of the Dutch revolt
against Spain and who founded the House of Orange-Nassau) became the Stadtholder (chief executive),
and rallied the Dutch; eventually defeating the Anglo French fleet and leading an entire European coalition
against France and England. William even married the daughter of James II of England and in 1688, when
James was forced to flee England in the Glorious Revolution, became King William III of England (note he
was William III of both Orange and England) with Mary becoming Queen Mary II.
The Netherlands never had a strong sense of centralized government and preferred a governmental pattern
in which each of the provinces had considerable autonomy (self-governance). A central government, the
States-General, met in The Hague (a city in the province of South Holland) and shared authority with the
provinces. But although the Netherlands was a republic there was also a monarch (the Stadtholder) whom
the Dutch generally mistrusted except in times of military emergencies, when the monarchs (i.e., the House
of Orange) were allowed to assume leadership. This political model proved highly resilient and successful;
and allowed the Dutch to establish their republic among the other European states. After the crises passed,
the States-General would reassert its leadership, such as when William III died in 1702 and the Dutch
reverted almost completely to a republican governmental structure.
The Netherlands was predominately Calvinist and the Calvinist Reformed Church was the official church
of the nation. Nevertheless, it was not an established church; that is not endorsed or financially supported by
the state. Unlike Calvinists in many other states, Dutch Calvinists were tolerant of both Roman Catholics
and other Protestant groups. Jews also found refuge. This toleration made the Netherlands unique in
comparison to other European states whose rulers or religious majority often sought to impose a single
religion on the country. This toleration also helped the Netherlands avoid religious conflicts which created
social chaos in so many other nations.
Most astonishing to other Europeans was Dutch prosperity. During much of the seventeenth century, the
Netherlands was the wealthiest nation in Europe. The foundations of such prosperity were manifold. The
first was growing cities (or high urban concentration) and Dutch cities were more populous than any other
cities in Europe. The second was more efficient farming (transformed agriculture). Dutch farming
techniques leaped out ahead of the rest of Europe and freed farmers to move into urban areas. The Dutch
drained and reclaimed land from the sea, which they used for more extensive farming and which allowed for
highly profitable grain production along with dairy, beef, cash crops and their famous tulips.
A third foundation of Dutch prosperity was Dutch industry. Dutch fishermen dominated the Herring markets
and supplied Europe with enormous quantities of dried fish. They also had a thriving textile industry and
exported fine tapestries and other textile products to much of Europe. Dutch built an enormous shipbuilding
industry and Dutch merchants called in all European ports, buying and selling goods of all kinds; and
always for profit. Many economic historians regard the Netherlands as the first thoroughly capitalist country
in the world. Amsterdam was the wealthiest trading city in Europe and the home of Europe’s the first fulltime stock exchange in1602. Dutch economic ingenuity also led to such concepts as insurance and
retirement funds, bull and bear markets and asset inflation bubbles such as the tulip mania of 1636–1637.
The final foundation of Dutch prosperity was the Dutch Empire, which grew to become one of the major
seafaring and economic empires of the 17th century. In the Dutch Golden Age, colonies and trading posts
were established all over the world. Dutch settlement in North America began with the founding of New
Amsterdam, on the southern tip of Manhattan in 1614. In South Africa, the Dutch settled the Cape Town
in 1652. But it was in East Asia, in what came to be called the Dutch East Indies (roughly modern
Indonesia) where the Dutch built an incredibly lucrative spice trade. The vehicle for these financial
successes was the Dutch East India Company (chartered in 1602), which displaced the Portuguese in the
Southeast Asia and gave the Dutch an empire that would last until after World War II. Two amazing
statistics are that by 1650, the Dutch owned 16,000 merchant ships and that by 1800; the Dutch population
had increased from about1.5 million to almost 2 million.
The eighteenth century saw the decline in the wealth and political influence of the Provinces of the
Netherlands. After the death of William III of England/Orange in 1702, the provinces prevented the
emergence of another powerful Stadtholder. This in turn led to a lack of skilled leadership and naval
supremacy slowly passed to the British; and so the Dutch were unable to compete with Britain for trade and
colonies. Shipbuilding also declined and along with the fishing industry; and the Dutch lost their economic
leadership in inter-European trading. Domestic industries also stagnated and the United Provinces and were
furthered weakened by being forced to consistently resist the French who greedily wanted to absorb the
Dutch provinces. What saved the provinces from insignificance or French absorption was continued
dominance in the financial markets and European trade, especially the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.
Parliamentary Monarchy vs. Political Absolutism
The Republic of Venice with its Council of Ten and the Swiss cantons were republics without a strong
monarch. The Dutch were a republic sometimes guided by a Stadtholder who sometimes came close to a
monarch in power and authority. But these were the exception in seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe
as two models formed: Parliamentary Monarchy and Absolute Monarchy. England embodied the first and
France the second. Both were a result of individuals and evolution we shall now study.
England: From the Stuarts to the Hanoverians
James I: In 1603, the much beloved Queen Elizabeth I of England died and was succeeded by her cousin,
James VI of Scotland. James came to the throne because he was the next-in-line of succession because he
was the grandson of Henry VII through Margaret Tudor, the older sister of Henry VIII. He thus united the
thrones of England and Scotland peacefully but did face challenges. First was the fact the Elizabeth had
worked well with Parliament, so well in fact, the Parliament met only when she called it to session. Second,
as head of the Church of England, he was head of a bitterly divided church. James would complicate both
issues because he was determined to rule according to the Divine Right of Kings, which asserts that a
monarch is subject to no earthly authority. In Chapter 10, we met the immediate author of this theory, Jean
Bodin (1530-1596), who wrote a 1576 treatise, The Six Lives of the Republic, in which he defended the
sovereign right of a monarch in his famous quotation that The Sovereign Prince is accountable only to
God.
Thus James wished to call Parliament into session as infrequently as possible. But he needed money so he
turned to a source of income called Impositions, which were the charging of customs duties on imports
such as tobacco. Many in Parliament felt that the king was usurping their authority but did not want a
serious confrontation. So for most of James’ reign, he and Parliament squabbled and negotiated. James was
an ardent Anglican and soon came into conflict with the Puritans who wanted to replace the liturgical and
sacramental ceremonies of the Church of England along with Episcopal form of government (by bishops).
What the Puritans wanted was a Presbyterian form of Church like the Calvinist churches in Scotland, the
Netherlands and Switzerland. At the Hampton Court Conference of 1604, James rejected all of the Puritan
demands, which led to deepening distrust between Anglicans and Puritans.
Many religious dissenters began to leave England. In 1620, Puritan separatists (or Pilgrims) founded
Plymouth Colony on Cape Cod Bay in North America and were soon followed by better financed Puritans
who founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony, founding Boston in 1630. In both cases the Puritans exiles
preferred to leave England because they felt that the Reformation had not gone far enough and that only in
American could they organize a truly reformed church where they could freely worship. The Hampton
Court Conference also ordered a new translation of the Bible (published in 1611), which in England is
called the Authorized Version but in America the King James’ Bible.
James’ court also became a center of scandal and corruption. James was unduly influenced by favorites of
whom the most influential was the Duke of Buckingham, who was suspected of being the king’s lover. Be
that as it may, Buckingham controlled royal patronage (that is, choosing who got the king’s financial or
political support) and openly sold peerages (or titles) to the highest bidders – a practice that angered the old
nobility because it cheapened the nobility as a whole. Kings had always had favorites, but never had one
favorite had so much power and access to the monarch.
Most of England was Anglican but decidedly Protestant, anti-Roman Catholic and James’ foreign policy
called his Protestant loyalty into question. In 1604, for example, he concluded a peace treaty with Spain
ending a ruinously expensive conflict but casting him in a pro-Catholic image. James also tried (for unity
and toleration) to ease penal laws against Catholics and in 1618 wisely hesitated to send troops to Protestant
forces at the outbreak of the thirty years war also made him suspect. Perhaps worst of all in the eyes of the
English was his attempt to marry his son, Charles, to a Spanish princess and then, when that failed,
arranging a successful marriage between Charles to the Catholic daughter of Henry IV of France.
Charles I: In 1624, the year before James died; England and France were again at war. When Charles I
came to the throne, Parliament supported the war but would not adequately finance the war because it
distrusted the king. Unable to get the money needed, Charles, like his father, went around Parliament and its
purse strings by levying new tariffs, attempting to collect discontinued taxes and forcing English property
owners to pay a forced loan (that theoretically would be repaid). If property owners refused to make this
loan-really-a-tax, they were imprisoned. All these tactics, as well as quartering (housing) troops in private
homes angered and challenged the local political influence of the nobility and landowners.
When Parliament met in 1628, its members agreed to grant Charles much needed funds only if Charles
would assent to the Petition of Right, which forbade taxation (including forced loans) without the
permission of Parliament, forced quartering of soldiers, imprisonment without due cause, and the use of
martial law except under specific conditions. Charles was forced to give his assent to the petition but there
was considerable doubt as to whether or not he would keep his word. Nevertheless, the Petition of Right is
considered on the most important documents in English constitutional history, ranking with Magna Carta
and the Bill of Rights of 1689; and heavily influencing the American Constitution. In the following year
after quarreling with Parliament about money, Charles dissolved Parliament and ruled without calling
Parliament into session for eleven years until 1640.
In order to rule without Parliament, Charles made peace with France in 1629 and Spain in 1630, again
making anti-papal England suspicious of possible sympathy with Roman Catholic powers. Charles’ chief
advisor, Thomas Wentworth, later the Duke of Strafford (1593-1641), not only imposed strict efficiency
and governmental centralization but he also exploited every legal fund-raising device, enforcing neglected
laws and stretching existing laws into new areas. Charles might have ruled this way indefinitely were it not
for his religious policies. Unlike Elizabeth and James I, who allowed a wide variety a religious opinion and
observances, Charles wanted to enforce religious conformity on England, Scotland and Ireland.
Matters reached a crisis point in 1637, when Charles’ high church Archbishop of Canterbury, William
Laud (1573-1645), tried to force the Anglican Prayer Book and Episcopal system of church administration
on Presbyterian Scotland. The Scots rebelled and Charles, financially unequipped for war, was forced to call
Parliament. It refused to even consider the king’s financial needs until the king agreed to remedy a long list
of grievances. The king immediately dissolved Parliament; hence its name the Short Parliament (AprilMay, 1640). However a few months later, the Scots defeated Charles’ army at the Battle of Newburn and
Charles was forced to reconvene Parliament; and Parliament was in no mood to be conciliatory. This
Parliament would meet for twenty years and become known as the Long Parliament. It was dominated by
three groups all hostile to the king and his policies: the landowners, the merchant classes and the Puritans;
and these latter were the angriest of all.
Parliament impeached both Stratford and Laud; both were executed: Stafford in 1641 and Laud in 1645. The
Long Parliament also abolished the courts that enforced royal policy and prohibited the levying new taxes
without its consent. Finally, Parliament declared that not more than three years should elapse between its
meetings (known as the Triennial Act of 1641) and that the king could not dissolve Parliament with
Parliament’s consent. Parliament, however, was deeply divided along religious lines. The moderate Puritans
or Presbyterians and the radical Puritans or Independents/Dissenters wanted to abolish Episcopal
governance and the Book of Common Prayer but Anglicans were determined to preserve the Church of
England was it currently was.
These divisions intensified in late 1641, when Charles asked Parliament to raise funds for an army to
suppress the Scots rebellion. Those opposed to the king argued that he could not be trusted to command and
that Parliament should direct the armed forces. In January 1642, Charles invaded Parliament, intending to
arrest five members who had been responsible for opposing him, but they escaped. Shocked and angered, a
majority of the House of Commons passed the Militia Ordinance, which gave Parliament authority to raise
an army of its own. After his failed invasion of Parliament, Charles left London to raise his own army. The
result was an English civil war that would last from 1642 to 1646. The supporters of Parliament were known
as the Roundheads and the supporters of the king were known as the Cavaliers.
Parliamentary forces would win the civil war for two main reasons. First, Parliament made an alliance with
Scotland and committed England to a Presbyterian system of church government. The second was the
emergence of a dynamic leader, Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), who reorganized and galvanized the
Parliamentary army. Cromwell, a country squire of strong, independent religious convictions, and his
followers would only tolerate and established church, if it permitted Protestant dissenters to worship outside
of it. In 1645, Charles’ army was defeated at the Battle of Naseby and so Charles tried political
maneuvering in Parliament. He failed and members in Parliament who might have had sympathies towards
Charles were expelled. Charles was then arrested, tried for treason and executed on January 30, 1649, as a
public criminal. Parliament then swiftly abolished the monarchy, the House of Lords, and the Anglican
Church. England then became a Puritan republic with Cromwell guiding it firmly behind the scenes.
Cromwell’s army conquered Scotland and Ireland, where his soldiers was guilty of especially brutal
atrocities against Irish Catholics. At home, Cromwell was no politician and was not able to control
Parliament. When the House of Commons voted in 1653 to disband his army, he simply dissolved
Parliament and ruled England until his death in 1658 as Lord Protector.
Cromwell’s dictatorship however was no more successful than that of Charles’ kingship; and he became just
as harsh and just as hated as was Charles and Archbishop Laud. People deeply resented his Puritanical
prohibition against drunkenness, theatergoing and dancing. Political liberty vanished in the name of
religious conformity. When Cromwell died, he was succeeded by his son, Richard, as Lord Protector. But
Richard was too weak to hold power and the English regretted the murder of their king but they also were
tired of the dreary lives they were forced to lead under Puritan religious leaders; thus by 1660, they were
ready to restore both the monarchy and the Anglican Church.
Charles II: was the son of Charles I and was living in exile in France when Cromwell died. He negotiated
with the army, promised a general pardon and returned in late 1660 to great celebrations and festivities.
Charles was a man of considerable charm and he quickly set a new, happier tone after eleven years of
Puritan rigidity (He also had numerous mistresses). Under his agreement with Parliament, England was
returned once again to the status quo of 1642 with a hereditary monarch, a Parliament of Lords and
Commons (summoned when the king called it) and a restored and revived Anglican Church which again
became the state religion. Charles unlike his father, who was staunchly Anglican, had Catholic sympathies
and favored religious toleration, especially for Puritans and Catholics. Nevertheless he was thwarted in
Parliament by ultra-royalists who pushed through a series of laws known as the Clarendon Code, which
excluded Catholics, Presbyterians and Independents from the official political and religious life of England.
In 1670, Charles signed the Treaty of Dover with Louis XIV which formally made the English and French
allies against the Dutch Netherlands and set in motion the rise of William III. In a secret section of the
treaty, Charles promised to announce his conversion to Roman Catholicism as soon as conditions in
England would permit. In return for this announcement (which was never made), Louis XIV promised to
pay Charles a large amount of money. Although Charles did not convert, he still issued a Declaration of
Indulgence in 1672, which suspended all laws against Roman-Catholics and other non-Anglicans.
Protestants in Parliament then blocked funding for the war and Charles rescinded the measure. Then
Parliament passed the Test Act, which required all civil servants and military officers to swear an oath
repudiating the doctrine of Transubstantiation, which of course no Catholic could do. The real target of the
Test Act, however, was Charles’ brother of James, who was a recent and devout convert to Roman
Catholicism and who was heir to the throne since Charles was childless.
Suspicions between Catholics and Protestants were made worse in 1678 when a notorious liar, Titus Oates,
swore before a magistrate that Charles’ Catholic wife and her physician were plotting with Jesuits and
Irishmen to kill the king so James could assume the throne. Parliament unfortunately believed Oates and in
the hysteria that followed – called the Popish Plot – many innocent people were tried and executed. The
leader of the anti-Catholic forces was the Earl of Shaftesbury (1621-1683) who led the Whig Party in
Parliament and made an unsuccessful attempt to exclude James from succession. This also drove a deeper
wedge between Charles and Parliament. So Charles turned to increased customs duties and cash from Louis
XIV and was able to rule without Parliament until his death. In those years he was able to drive Shaftesbury
into exile and execute several Whig leaders. He was also able to use persuasion and intimidation to get local
corporations to send to Parliament members who would be sympathetic to the crown. And when he died, he
did leave a Parliament largely friendly to his brother, which would all be for naught.
The Glorious Revolution: When Charles II died in 1685, James I became king. He immediately
enlarged the army and demanded that Parliament repeal the Test Act. When Parliament refused, James
dissolved Parliament and then proceeded to appoint Catholics to high positions in his court and in the army.
In 1687, he issued another Declaration of Indulgence which suspended all religious barriers for public
office and permitted free worship. In 1688, James arrested William Sancroft, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, and six other bishops who had refused to allow the Declaration of Indulgence to be read from
the pulpits of their churches. All the bishops were acquitted but, needless to say, England seethed with
resentment and anger against James.
One hope the English clung to was that the detested James, who had two surviving daughters by his first
wife, Anne Hyde (d.1671) would be succeeded on the throne by his Protestant older daughter, Mary, the
wife of William III of Orange. By the time of his ascension to power however, James had married again;
and what made it worse, he married a Roman Catholic, Mary of Modena. But on June 20, 1688, Mary bore
James II as son, which meant that James would have a male heir; a Catholic-raised male heir. This was too
much for the Protestant nobility, who in June, formally invited William of Orange and Mary to come to
England with an army to preserve traditional English liberties. James refused the assistance of Louis XIV,
fearing that the English would oppose French intervention; and when William landed in early November,
many Protestant officials and nobility defected to William, as did James's second surviving daughter,
Princess Anne, who was devoutly Anglican and would become queen of England herself on William III’s
death.
William and Mary were greeted as heroes by the English people and were invited to become joint rulers in
1689, William III and Mary II. This Glorious Revolution was glorious for two reasons. First, it was
bloodless; the losing side did not suffer murderous reprisals by the winners. Secondly, it marked the
beginning of English Constitutional Government, when William and Mary recognized and endorsed the
Bill of Rights of 1689, which limited the powers of the monarchy and guaranteed the civil liberties of the
English upper classes. From this point on English monarchs were subject to the law and Parliament met
every three years. The Bill of Rights also prohibited Roman Catholics from the kingship of England and the
Toleration Act of 1689 permitted free worship by all Protestants and outlawed Roman Catholicism and free
thinkers who denied the Trinity. Nevertheless, only members of the Church of England enjoyed full political
rights.
Just before William died, Parliament passed the Act of Settlement in 1701, which provided that the English
crown would go to the Protestant House of Hanover in Germany if Anne (r. 1702-1714) died without
children. In 1707, the Act of Union, passed by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of
Scotland, formed the Kingdom of Great Britain. And so when Anne died, the Elector of Hanover became
King George I (r. 1714-1727) of Great Britain. Almost immediately, George I faced a Stuart challenge
when the Catholic son of James II, James Edward Stuart, invaded Scotland but was defeated after only
two months. George was a passive ruler, spoke no English and his reign saw the monarch’s power
diminished greatly as Britain began a period of transition to its modern system of cabinet government led by
a prime minister.
The Age of Walpole: This transition was guided by Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745), a British
statesman, generally regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of Great Britain. Walpole was
supported by the king and became the nation’s Parliamentary leader by his ability to lead the House of
Commons. Walpole maintained peace abroad and the status quo at home. Under his guidance, Britain’s
foreign trade spread from North America to India. Through Parliament, he allowed local nobles and
landowners to retain their local political influence and so they were willing to serve as government
bureaucrats, judges and military commanders. This support allowed for a strong tax base which supported
Britain’s military and particularly a strong navy. As result, Great Britain began is rise not only as a major
European power but a major world power.
Great Britain at this time also was evolving more rapidly into democracy. The power of British monarchs
had definable limits. Parliament had to consider popular opinion and pressure. Members of Parliament were
free to express independent views and even Walpole could be publically criticized. Thus free speech became
the national norm. There was no large standing army. There was significant religious toleration except for
Roman Catholics but that was relaxed (at least unofficially) as time went by. It is important to understand
that British political life, religious toleration; free-market capitalism (which we shall discuss in Chapter 15)
and personal freedoms became a model for all progressive Europeans who questioned absolutism of their
monarchs. And it would be these qualities that would allow Great Britain to become a strong and united
nation.
The Age of Louis XIV
Louis XIV was born on 5 September 1638 to Louis XIII and Anne of Austria. At the time of his birth, his
parents had been married for twenty-three years without surviving children. Leading contemporaries thus
regarded him as a divine gift, and his birth, a miracle of God. His reign was took France to the pinnacle of
its glory and yet he sowed the seeds of its destruction by his foreign wars and lavish spending. Nevertheless,
he came to be known as Louis the Great (Louis le Grand) or the Sun King (le Roi-Soleil), was King of
France and of Navarre and his reign, from 1643 to 1715, is one of the longest documented reigns of any
European monarch.
During the first half of the seventeenth century, Henry IV (r. 1589-1610) and Louis XIII (r. 1610-1643) had
faced strong challenges from well armed nobles and unhappy Calvinists; and only gradually did they firm
the authority of the monarchy. The groundwork for the absolutism that Louis XIV exercised was laid by two
powerful ministers: Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642) and Cardinal Mazarin (1602-1661). Both Richelieu
and Mazarin attempted to impose direct royal administration on France. Richelieu had also circumscribed
(i.e., constrict or limit) many of the political privileges Henry IV had granted to French Huguenots in the
Treaty of Nantes (1598). These centralizing policies eventually provoked a series of widespread rebellions
among the French nobility between 1649 and 1652 known as the Fronde, which comes from the French
word Fronde meaning sling, which Parisian mobs used to smash the windows of supporters of Cardinal
Mazarin.
Louis was a teenager-king when the Fronde exploded and although the Fronde was put down, Louis, when
he became king, became convinced the heavy handed policies could actually endanger his throne. So Louis
both concentrated unprecedented power in the monarchy but in a very subtle manner. Louis did not attack or
destroy the nobility and their social structures but worked with the nobility and made himself the head of the
social structure. Louis also reorganized French fighting forces under a stricter hierarchy whose leaders
ultimately could be made or unmade by the King. Thus the Fronde finally resulted in the disempowerment
of the territorial aristocracy and the emergence of absolute monarchy.
On the death of Cardinal Mazarin in 1661, Louis assumed personal control of the French government at the
age of twenty-three. He appointed no single chief minister so that rebellious nobles would be challenging
the king directly, a great advantage in power struggles. Louis devoted enormous personal energy to his
political agenda. he ruled through councils that controlled foreign affairs, the army, domestic administration
and economic affairs. He chose members of these councils from families who had long been in royal service
or from among people just beginning to rise in the social structure. These latter was more loyal to the king
than older noble families who had their own power bases in the provinces far away from Paris; they were
also more dependent on the king for the social standing and employment in government.
Louis also made sure that the nobility and their social groups would benefit from the growth of his
authority. As he centralized authority, he never tried to abolish the nobility. He worked with the nobility in
judicial bodies called Parlements before making rulings that would affect them and he consulted them
before making economic changes. On occasion he did clash with the Parlements, such as when in 1673 he
clashed with the Parlement of Paris over the right to register royal laws. Louis won the dispute by
requiring the Parlement of Pairs to register laws before raising any questions about them much to the delight
of more rural Parlements. But overall Louis ability to work with the old nobility brought him their support
and loyalty.
Central and Eastern Europe
Central and Eastern Europe were much less economically advanced than Western Europe. Except for the
ports along Baltic (the old members of the Hanseatic League), their economies were almost completely
agrarian. That meant that there were fewer cities and more large estates and therefore more serfs working
the land. Thus these areas became major exporters of grain to Western Europe. Moreover, these states did
not engage in overseas trade and therefore did not have overseas colonial empires. During the sixteenth and
early seventeenth centuries, these areas, mostly east of the Elbe River, were weak but during the latter half
of the seventeenth century three strong dynasties imitated French Absolutism. The first was Austrian
Empire whose Hapsburg rulers recognized their basic weakness as Holy Roman Emperors and so began to
consolidate power outside (mostly east) of the Empire. The second was Prussia, led by the Hohenzollerns,
who emerged as a major and growing power in North-east German. Finally there was Romanov Russia
which, under Peter the Great in the early eighteenth century, began to throw off its Asian roots and took
serious steps to westernize and become an industrial and military power on a par with the west.
Poland was the one major state in Eastern Europe which failed to remain competitive. Poland was a large
land and had contributed much to Europe’s defense. In 1683, King John Sobieski (r. 1674-1696) led a
Polish army to help lift the siege of Vienna by the Ottoman army. But after that spectacular battle, Poland
became a decentralized nation, dominated by the aristocracy and prey for the growing powers that
surrounded her. The Polish kings were elected and so with the exception of Sobieski, they were dominated
by the nobility. Poland had a central legislature, the Sejm (diet) which included only nobility and excluded
leaders from towns and cities. The Sejm however was crippled by a self-imposed rule, the Librum Veto,
which made any legislation impossible without 100% agreement. So any single member of the Sejm could,
as it was called, “explode the diet;” usually at the behest of unhappy nobles or foreign interference. This
Librum Veto kept Poland weak and caused Poland to disappear as an independent nation by 1795.
The Hapsburg Empire: If the retirement of Charles V in 1555 and the crown of the Holy Roman
Empire falling to the Austrian branch of the Hapsburg family under Charles’ brother Ferdinand, the close
of the Thirty Year’s War in 1648 marked an even greater turning point in Austrian history. The Spanish and
Austrian Hapsburgs, whose major power bases were Austria and Bohemia (in the empire) and Hungary
(outside the empire), had worked together in that century to bring all of Germany under their control – and
back to the Catholic Religion. They failed and - with Spanish power declining due to decreasing silver
production in the New World, unrealistic financial policies and overspending on an enormous scale – it
meant that the Austrian Hapsburgs were on their own.
More than ever after 1648, the biggest problem for the Austrian Hapsburgs was that their power base
depended not so much on their military strength as much as their ability to finesse and manipulate the
various political entities within the Empire. These included the large states of Saxony, Hanover, Bavaria and
Brandenburg as well as the large number of small German cities, bishoprics, principalities and even tiny
territories of independent knights. Thus the Hapsburgs sought to strengthen their hold on these states but
also extend their influence outside the empire. The Crown of St. Wenceslas (which encompassed Bohemia
[the modern Czech Republic], Moravia and Silesia) lay within the empire but the Crown of St. Stephen
(which included Croatia, Hungary and Transylvania) lay outside the empire. Hungary and Transylvania
would be liberated by the end of the seventeenth century.
The Hapsburg Charles II of Spain died without issue in 1700, which led to the War of the Spanish
Succession. By the Treaty of Rastatt in 1714, the French grandson of Louis XIV, Philip V, became the
King of Spain but the Spanish Netherlands were ceded to Austria along with Lombardy in Northern Italy.
Now Austrian power was based more outside the Holy Roman Empire than inside it where the Hapsburgs
ruled by a variety of titles – king, archduke, duke – and needed the cooperation of the local nobility, which
was – at best - complicated and not always forthcoming. Thus their power was often ephemeral because
they had to bargain with the nobility to maintain even the appearance of authority.
The result was not only a decentralization of their authority but also an empire that was astonishingly
geographically and ethnically diverse with many different languages, customs and religious expressions.
Even Roman Catholicism was an ineffective bonding agent, especially in Hungary where many Magyar
nobles were Calvinist and resented Catholic influence. The Hapsburgs learned to rule through various
councils that helped chart common policies for such a diverse collection of domains. But there was no
centralization of authority in that these councils dealt only with a small area of the vast Hapsburg holdings.
It is therefore somewhat astonishing that the Emperor Leopold I (r. 1658-1705) was able to rebuff the
military advances of the Ottoman Empire which culminated in the Siege of Vienna in 1683 and resist the
aggression of Louis XIV. In 1699, he forced the Ottomans to recognize his sovereignty over Hungary and
subsequently extended his authority over much of the Balkan Peninsula and Western Romania. These
successes allowed the Hapsburgs to gain an outlet to the Mediterranean Sea via the Adriatic Sea in their
conquest of Trieste and open new opportunities for trade. And these successes also compensated for much
of the political lost in Germany.
Leopold was succeeded by Joseph I (r. 1705-1711) who continued Leopold’s policies. Joseph was
succeeded by Charles VI (r. 1711-1740) also continued these policies but Charles soon came to face a new
problem. Like Henry VIII of England, he was not able to sire a male heir and he feared very much the
instability (internal and external), if his daughter, Maria Theresa, should succeed him. So he worked for
the approval of his family including the Spanish Hapsburgs, the various rulers (big and small) of his Empire
and the major foreign powers in the Pragmatic Sanction, which intended to legalize female succession.
Family members assented; other states (within the empire and without) were paid off and Maria Theresa
succeeded her father when he died in October, 1740. Nevertheless, Charles failed to leave his daughter a
strong army and one foreign ruler, Frederick II of Prussia, would invade the Hapsburg domains in
December, 1740 and seize the province of Silesia causing the War of the Austrian Succession.
The Rise of Prussia: The power vacuum that followed the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 provided the
circumstances which led to the spectacular rise of Prussia. It is the story of the Hohenzollern family which
had ruled Brandenburg since 1417. Through inheritance, the Hohenzollerns acquired Cleves, Mark,
Ravensburg and Magdeburg in 1614; East Prussia in 1618 and Pomerania in 1648. Except for Pomerania,
none of these lands shared a border with Brandenburg, but by the mid seventeenth century these acquisitions
gave Prussia a large but scattered kingdom stretching from East Prussia inside Poland to Cleves near the
Dutch border. Moreover, the Hohenzollerns faced continued challenges as these lands lacked natural
resources and many of them were still recovering from the devastation of the Thirty Year’s War.
The person who began to forge the modern Prussian state was the dynamic Elector of Brandenburg,
Frederick William (r. 1640-1688), called the Great Elector. He centralized authority by breaking the
power of the local nobles, organizing an efficient bureaucracy and laying the groundwork for one of the
finest armies (albeit still small) in all of Europe. Frederick William was Lutheran and he found competent
bureaucrats by welcoming Protestant refugees from France. Between 1655 and 1660, his lands were
threatened when Sweden and Poland fought each other crisscrossing his territories. Frederick realized he
needed money but was also denied new taxes by the Brandenburg Estates; so he simply ignored the
Estates and collected the needed revenue by force. He continued this process until he had enough money to
build an army strong enough to enforce his will, with or without the agreement of the nobility. And he lost
no time using his army to bend the nobility to his will in his other scattered domains.
Nevertheless the Great Elector knew had to finesse his nobility. In exchange for their loyalty and obedience,
Frederick allowed the noble landlords, called Junkers, more power over their serfs. He also chose for his
bureaucrats and local administrators men of noble extraction or men of the up and coming middle class who
served him loyally. Moreover, all these officials were required to swear a personal oath of loyalty to the
Elector. These relationships made Prussia a united, powerful state.
In 1688, the Great Elector died and was succeeded by his son, Frederick I (r. 1688-1713), who was a man
of many accomplishments. He was the least Prussian of most Prussian kings (i.e., noted for frugality and
hard work). He built palaces, founded Halle University (1694), patronized the arts and lived luxuriously. In
the War of the Spanish Succession, he put his army at the disposal of the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I,
who in exchange gave him the much coveted title, King of Prussia in 1701. He was succeeded by
Frederick William I (r. 1713-1740) who was one of the most eccentric, Prussian and efficient of all the
Hohenzollern rulers.
Frederick William I encouraged farming, reclaimed marshes, stored grain in good times and sold it in bad
times; organized his bureaucracy along military lines and instilled in them and his army a discipline that was
fanatical. During his reign, he doubled the size of the size of the army, making it the third or fourth largest –
and the most efficient – in Europe; an astounding feat since Prussia ranked thirteenth in population in
Europe. Frederick William had separate laws for the military and for civilians and the officer corps was the
highest social class in Prussia. The Junkers dominated the army officer corps (a tradition that lasted until the
end of World War II) and military priorities dominated the government, society and daily life as in no other
state in Europe. It was said that whereas other states possessed armies, the Prussian army possessed a state.
Frederick William amassed a huge financial surplus and used it to create the best army in Europe which,
although a symbol of Prussian power, was never used as an instrument of foreign wars or aggression. At his
death in 1740, his son, Frederick II (better known as Frederick the Great) came to the throne and quickly
use both to make Prussia a first rate European power in two astounding wars won by daring and luck: The
War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) and the Seven Years War (1756-1763).
Russia looks to the West: After Kiev fell to the Mongols, it was the Russians in the forests north of
the steppes that began to fill the power vacuum and resist the Mongols. At first they paid tribute to the
Mongol khans but , Ivan III or Ivan the Great (r.1462-1505) took a daring gamble; he stopped paying
tribute to the Mongol Khan. This defiance of a Khan too weak to enforce obedience marked the beginning
of a phenomenon called the Gathering of the Russian Land. Ivan continued this policy and molded
Moscow into a strong, centralized state. His most important acquisition was in 1471 when he absorbed that
important trading city of Novgorod (a hub for the fur trade and a member of the Hanseatic League, a
trading network which stretched from Novgorod across the Baltic to London). Ivan too his inspiration from
the Byzantine Empire and considered himself their heir and Moscow, his capital, to be the Third Rome.
Ivan III’s grandson, the enigmatic Ivan IV took the title Tsar (or Caesar) but he had a troubled reign. When
Ivan died in 1584, he left no capable heir. (He had personally killed his oldest son, Ivan, in a fit of anger)
Another son Feodor became tsar, but was incompetent and turned over daily rule to his brother-in-law Boris
Godunov, who, after Feydor’s death in 1598, was made tsar. At first Gudonov was popular and ruled well.
He anticipated Peter’s the Great’s desire to catch up with the west and was the first tsar to import foreign
teachers. But his paranoia led to persecutions of the Boyars and political instability. Then Russia fell into a
terrible civil war, which helped bring a terrible famine. Poland and Sweden took advantage and invaded
Russian territory. This so-called “Time of Troubles” lasted fifteen awful years from 1598 to 1613. An
uprising led by two pretenders, both claiming to be the dead Tsar’s murdered son, added to the disorder. In
1610, when Polish and Swedish armies invaded Russia, volunteer armies rallied to expel the invaders.
An assembly of Boyars then selected Mikhail Romanov, a young relative of Ivan IV’s first wife, as the new
Tsar who ruled from 1613 to 1645. He defeated Sweden and Poland, restored a shattered and dilapidated
Moscow and reestablished centralized authority. One of his greatest accomplishments was to replace corrupt
Boyars who held governmental posts with competent administrators. Mikhail’s successor son, Alexis
Romanov (1645 – 1676), continued to strengthen the Tsar’s authority. Alexis abolished the assemblies of
the Boyars and managed to acquire Kiev and the Ukraine. The Romanov dynasty would sometimes be ruled
by weak or incompetent Tsars but – over time – this dynasty would be quite successful and rule Russia until
it was overthrown in 1917.
The establishment of the Romanovs brought the problem of succession to an end but did not bring political
stability. The biggest problem facing Russia was the question of westernization and technology. The Tsars
were more and more aware that Western European countries were seeped in the Enlightenment and were
continuing to develop economies, technologies and political organizations that far outstripped their own.
But awareness and action are always two different realities. Opposition would come from the Boyars, who
were the landed nobility, along with merchants and many church officials who all opposed westernization.
So the question became: how to transform Russia from an agricultural, multicultural and decentralized
country into an industrialized, centralized and modernized Empire that looked to forward not backward. The
solution – such as it was – would come from Peter the Great and Catherine the Great.
In 1682 the grandson of Mikhail Romanov, Peter I, or Peter the Great, became czar and reigned till 1725.
His remarkable reign can be summarized in one sentence: He carried out a policy of modernization and
expansion that transformed Russia from a decentralized, agricultural state into a three billion acre Russian
Empire and a major European power. At first he reigned with Ivan, a sickly, older half-brother with his
older, half sister Sophia as regent. In 1689, just as Peter came of age, Sophia tried to launch a coup against
him, but Peter pushed her aside (confining her to a convent) and took full power. Ivan “conveniently” died
in 1695.
As a boy Peter spent much time in a place in Moscow called Germantown. Germantown was home to
thousands of Germans living in Moscow. Among these Germans Peter became fascinated with their
advanced knowledge of technology, especially military tactics, siege craft and shipbuilding. He grasped the
importance of science and western learning and what it could do for Russia. He knew that if Russia were to
compete with Europe, it would have to catch up and come out of its medieval lethargy and cultural
insularity. After taking the throne, Peter instituted a policy of forced and rapid modernization. He sent
Russians abroad to learn in European countries and he himself went (in disguise) on his own tour of
Germany, the Netherlands, and England to learn about Western industrial and military technology. Peter set
out to reform Russia in three major areas:
1. The Military: Peter reformed the army by offering better pay and drafting peasants to serve for life as
professional soldiers. He provided his soldiers with better training and modern European weapons. He
demanded his officers (aristocracy) study geometry so as to use artillery effectively. By his death he had
built the largest army in Europe which proved its worth by defeating Sweden in the Great Northern War,
which lasted 22 years. Peter was also determined to build a modern navy, which could dominate the
Baltic Sea. Moreover he knew how important it was to build a modern merchant fleet and not rely on
other nations to engage Russia in global trade.
2. Governmentally: Peter overhauled the government bureaucracy to make it more efficient in tax
collecting and directing industrial output. Because Russia had few major cities and was an agrarian land,
he required the nobles to serve as government officials. He established the Table of Ranks, in which
officials advanced through 14 levels of bureaucracy according to merit, not hereditary privilege. He
underscored the duty of citizens to serve the state and (like Frederick the Great would do in Prussia) set
the example of himself as an energetic servant, not a privileged parasite, thus making an abstract
political concept a political reality.
3. Socially: Peter intended to bring Russia out of its dark ages and westernize Russia. He abolished the
Terem (harem), which kept upper class women secluded from men outside their own families. Peter
demanded social mixing of the sexes, especially in cities and towns. He also required Boyar men to
shave their beards and wear Western clothing. The conservative nobility resisted Peter’s reforms and
Peter got into their faces, so to speak, and personally shaved men’s beards. By sheer force of will and
offering to let men pay a tax to keep their beards, he either got his way or made money.
Peter also simplified the Russian alphabet, established technical schools and reformed the calendar. Peter
reformed the Russian Orthodox Church, taking away much power from the patriarch and forbidding men to
become monks before the age of fifty (so they could be useful servants of the state). Soon after the Great
Northern War he was titled the Great, Father of His Country, Emperor of All the Russias.
But his greatest westernizing policy was the city of St. Petersburg, his “Window to the West” and new
capital, which he began to build in 1702 on the Baltic Sea. The city rose near the site of a Swedish fort
captured during the Great Northern War and named after his patron saint. It cost thousands of serf’s lives to
build and so was later called “the city built on bones.” Yet the city provided a haven for Russia’s new navy
and offered access to western European lands through the Baltic Sea. Peter made St. Petersburg the center of
an efficient government. He literally moved the government into new buildings, in a city designed by Italian
architects. After Peter, Russia had two capitals: Moscow in the Russian heartland and the new
administrative and home of the czar on the Baltic.
Peter the Great and his son Aleksey had a difficult and torturous relationship and Peter disapproved of his
son because Aleksey never demonstrated the intellect or ambition Peter considered essential for his heir. By
1716, Peter was convinced that his son was the focus of treasonous elements against him. Then the next
year, Aleksey traveled to Vienna where he appears to have entered into a conspiracy against his father with
Charles VI of Austria. When Aleksey returned home he was “investigated” by Peter who became convinced
his son was a source of danger to him and when Peter did uncover evidence of an Aleksey-Charles VI plot,
Aleksey was arrested, condemned to death but died under mysterious circumstances before the execution.
Thus Peter was succeeded by his wife, Catherine I, the first woman to reign as Tsarina of Russia. She
continued the westernization of her husband, worked well with government ministers and reduced much of
the burdens on the peasants, earning her a reputation among the peasants as just and fair. She died in 1727
and was succeeded by Peter II, the son of Peter the Great’s son Aleksey. Peter II died of smallpox in 1730
and was succeeded by Anna, a niece of Peter the Great. She died in 1740 and was succeeded by Ivan IV, an
infant and her grand nephew. He was replaced that same year by Elizabeth, (1741–1762), the daughter of
Peter the Great who vigorously led her country into the War of Austrian Succession and the Seven Years'
War. Elizabeth was succeeded by her nephew, Peter III, who was an admirer of the Prussian military. He
immediately withdrew Russia’s support from the war and allowed Frederick the Great to win the war. A few
weeks later he was assassinated and succeed by the most able of Peter the Great’s successors, Catherine II,
better known to history as Catherine the Great.
The Ottoman Empire: As the Byzantine Empire began to crumble in Asia Minor after their terrible
defeat at the Battle of Manzikert 1071, large numbers of nomadic Turks migrated from Central Asia to
Southwest Asia. The leader of one of these groups was a Turk named Osman, who in the late 1200s and
early 1300s, carved out a small state in Northwestern Anatolia – at Byzantine expense. His goal was to
become a Ghazi, or Muslim religious warrior. After every successful campaign he attracted more followers,
who came to be known as Osmanlis or Ottomans.
In 1326 came the first great Ottoman success with the capture of Bursa, which became the capital of the
Ottoman State in Anatolia. During the 1350s, the Ottomans gained a foothold across the Dardanelles on the
Balkan Peninsula. Because of political fragmentation, exploitation of the peasants and ineffective
government, the Byzantines lost strength and by the 1380s the Ottoman Turks were the most powerful
nation in both the Balkans and Anatolia. They soon made Edirne (the old Greco/Roman city of
Adrianople, in modern Bulgaria) their second capital. But what they really wanted was the big prize:
Constantinople!
The Ottomans created a formidable military machine. Ghazi recruits were originally divided into light
cavalry and volunteer infantry. As the Ottoman state grew, professional cavalry equipped with heavy armor
was also added. But their strongest military force came from an unusual source. In conquered territories,
especially in Europe, the Turks created the Devshirme, which required Christians to contribute young boys
to become slaves of the sultan. The boys received special training, learned Turkish and were converted to
fanatical Islam. The brighter ones entered Ottoman civil administration, but most became famous as
Janissaries (Turkish yeni cheri or new troops). The Janissaries quickly became the elite warrior troops of
the Ottoman armies, noted for their esprit de corps (inspiring enthusiasm and loyalty to the group), loyalty
to the sultan, and their ability to employ new military technologies (especially gunpowder weapons) with
devastating military effectiveness.
Thus by 1400, the Ottoman Turks were closing on Constantinople, but were blunted in 1402 when the
Mongol adventurer, Tamerlane, smashed their army and set their efforts back for a generation. But by the
1440s the Ottomans had recovered and began again to press what was left of Byzantium and encircle capital
at Constantinople. In 1451 the new sultan, Mehmed II or Mehmed the Conqueror, came to power and
immediately attacked the city, which fell in 1453. Mehmed appreciated the city’s location and history and
made it his capital, naming it Istanbul. Under his successors the Ottoman Empire continued to expand.
His son Bayezid II (the Just) (1481 – 1512) attacked the last Venetian outposts in Greece. He was patron of
both western and eastern culture and worked hard to ensure a smooth running of domestic politics. His son,
Selim the Grim (1512 – 1520) (Grim in the sense of brave), defeated the Safavid Persians in 1514 at
Chaldrin, and then captured Syria, Mamluke Egypt, Mecca, Medina and Yemen. The Ottomans reached
their high point under Suleyman the Magnificent (1520-1566). In 1521, he attacked Austria-Hungary and
captured Belgrade. In 1526, he defeated and killed the king of Hungary at the Battle of Mohács. In 1529, he
(aided by Francis I of France) laid siege to Vienna, but failed to take it. In 1534, he turned east and captured
Baghdad.
The Ottomans built an effective Navy and added the Mamluke (Egyptian) fleet to their own. A Turkish
corsair (pirate), Khayr al-Din Barbarossa Pasha, became Suleiyman’s leading admiral and challenged
Christian vessels throughout the entire Mediterranean. Ottoman naval forces seized the island of Rhodes in
1522, besieged and almost took Malta in 1565, captured Aden and even tried to attack a Portuguese fleet at
Diu in India.
The head of the Ottoman State was the Sultan (ruler) who ruled with the help of Wazirs (viziers),
provincial governors called Beys and local administrators called Pashas. Up to the time of Suleyman, the
Sultans energetically centralized their empire and personally controlled the affairs of state, but after
Suleyman, sultans became more and more interested in personal pleasure and the harem than in matters of
state.
In the Ottoman Empire, conquered peoples or Dhimmi, were usually protected and could maintain their
religious autonomy in special communities. So long as the Dhimmi gave loyalty and paid the Jizya (or head
tax charged to all non Muslims) to the sultan, they retained their personal freedom, kept their property, and
were able to practice their own religion and handle their own legal affairs. In the Ottoman Empire this was
called the Millet System.
When the Ottomans were strong, the Millet System was an easy way to loosely administer conquered
peoples, but when they began to decline, the Millet System meant that the ethnic Christians already had the
beginnings of a governmental system. In the 19th century and the rise of Nationalism, each millet became
increasingly independent and began to establish their own schools, churches, hospitals and other facilities
which effectively undermined Ottoman authority.
The eighteenth century saw the authority of the Ottomans rapidly decline and they became known as the
“Sick Man of Europe.” The causes were many, convoluted and complicated. But four explanations
summarize the impending which would befall the Ottomans:
1. First, the Sultan and his bureaucracy became lazy, incompetent and corrupt.
2. Revenues declined due to inflation (remember that Spanish New World Silver) and the Europeans were
bypassing the old Silk Road trading routes with their ocean trading routes.
3. Beys and Pashas began to carve out their own fiefdoms, withholding income and inciting peasants to
numerous, destructive rebellions.
4. The Janissaries became strong and influential while the regular military forces – free peasants – were
frozen out of the army, thus creating an almost mercenary army, which cost more and became more and
more inefficient.
Even with mounting problems the Ottomans made one last major offensive against Europe. In 1683 they
besieged Vienna, which was saved at the last desperate minute by allied forces, especially those of King
Jon Sobieski of Poland. This failure marked a turning point in world history because now the Austrians and
Russians began to take more and more European territory back from Ottoman control. In 1699 by the
Treaty of Carlowitz, the Ottomans were forced to surrender most of Hungary to the Hapsburgs. Following
Carlowitz, the Russians would encroach steadily on Ottoman territory around the Black Sea.