Download Central Europe-Austria and Prussia

Central Europe
Austria and Prussia
The Thirty Years’ War
The Beginning

Habsburg Ferdinand II ruled Bohemia as king. He was also the Holy Roman emperor,
chosen by electors. He had little power

Protestants in Bohemia did not trust Ferdinand:
- foreigner
- Catholic

1618: Defenestration of Prague
- Protestant nobles tossed 2 Catholic officials out of a
window
- Ferdinand closed Protestant churches
- Protestants rebelled and Ferdinand sent army into Bohemia to suppress it
Thirty Years’ War
1618-1648
 The Thirty Years’ War was a local conflict which began
in Bohemia but soon grew into a European war.
 It was a conflict over religion, territory, and power
among Europe’s ruling families.
 The Thirty Years’ War had 2 major phases:
- Habsburg triumphs
- Habsburg defeats
Habsburg Triumphs
 For 12 years Habsburg armies from Austria and Spain
crushed the troops of the Protestant princes.
 They also put down a Czech uprising.
 Ferdinand II paid his army of 125,000 by allowing them
to plunder German villages, destroying everything.
Habsburg Defeats

Protestant Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and his 13,000 men shifted the tide of the war in 1630.
- drove Habsburg armies out of northern Germany
- Gustavus was killed in battle in 1632

Cardinal Richelieu and Cardinal Mazarin of France dominated the remaining years of the war.
- they were Catholic – but they feared the Habsburgs
more than they Protestants
- they didn’t want any European power to surpass France
- 1635: Richelieu sent French troops to join German and Swedish Protestants
against the Habsburg armies
Consequences of the War
 About 1/3 of the German population died – Germany
suffered severe depopulation as their population dropped
from 20 million to 16 million as a result of the war.
 Germany’s trade and agriculture were disrupted and
Germany’s economy was in ruin.
 Because Germany had a long, difficult recovery – it did
not become a unified state until the 1800s.
Peace of Westphalia
1648
 Weakened Habsburg states of Spain and Austria
 Strengthened France by giving it German territory
 Made German princes independent of the Holy Roman
emperor
 Ended religious wars in Europe
 Introduced a new method of peace negotiation – all
participants meet to settle the problems of war and decide the
terms of peace
 Marked beginning of the modern state system
Beginning of Modern
States
 The Treaty of Westphalia had abandoned the idea of a
Catholic empire that would rule most of Europe.
 Europe was now a group of independent states that
would negotiate for themselves.
 This marked the beginning of the modern state system.
This was the most important result of the Thirty Years’
War.
Central Europe Differs
 Formation of strong states happened more slowly in
central Europe.
 Major powers: kingdom of Poland, the Holy Roman
Empire, and the Ottoman Empire - - none of them wellorganized in the mid-1600s.
Economic Contrasts
Western Europe
 In late Middle Ages – serfs in Western Europe slowly
won their freedom and moved to the cities.
 In towns, they joined with middle class townspeople
who gained economic power because of the commercial
revolution and capitalism.
 Western European monarchs taxed the towns to:
- raise armies
- reduce the influence of the nobility
Economic Contrasts
Central Europe
 Landowning aristocracy passed laws to restrict the ability
of serfs to gain freedom and move to cities.
 This kept serfs on the land to produce large harvests.
Nobles then sold surplus crops to Western Europe at a
great profit.
 By 1700, Polish landowners demanded their serfs work 6
days a week. The serf only had 1 day a week to grow
their own food.
Several Weak Empire

Nobles blocked the development of strong kings.

Polish nobility elected the Polish king and limited his power:
- little income, no law courts, no standing army

Two empires of central Europe also weak – left a power vacuum:
- Ottoman Empire: threatened Austria in 1529, weak
after that
- Holy Roman Empire: weakened by Thirty Years’ War; could no longer
command the obedience of the German states because it had no real power
In the late 1600s, two German speaking families decided to fill the vacuum of power and become absolute
rulers.
Austria Grows Stronger
The Habsburgs
 Austria remained the most important state inside the Holy
Roman Empire after the Thirty Years’ War.
 It took steps to adopt absolutism:
- reconquered Bohemia during Thirty Years’ War
- wiped out Protestantism there; created a new Czech
nobility in Bohemia
- centralized government; created a standing army
- retook Hungary from Ottomans
Map of Austria
 1711: Charles VI became Habsburg ruler
- difficult empire to rule – diverse peoples: Czechs,
Hungarians, Italians, Croations, Germans
- only thing that kept empire together was that the
Austrian, Hungarian, and Bohemian crowns were
with the Habsburg ruler
The Pragmatic Sanction
 Charles did not have a son to succeed him.
 He had a daughter, Maria Theresa, but no woman had ever led the
Habsburg Empire.
 To provide for her acceptance, Charles went to the European leaders
and had them sign the Pragmatic Sanction recognizing her authority
to rule after his death.
 This agreement sought to produce a peaceful reign – instead Austria
and Maria Theresa faced years of war with their main enemy,
Prussia, a new state north of Austria.
The Rise of Prussia

The Hohenzollerns built a state from small land holdings – like the small states
of Brandenburg and Prussia.

In 1640, Frederick William inherited the title of the elector of Brandenburg.

Because he ruled a small area, he believed that a strong army was the only way
to ensure the safety of his people.

He moved toward absolute monarchy.
- He created a standing army, the best in Europe,
80,000 men.
- Taxation paid for the army.
- He weakened representative assemblies in his territories.
 The Junkers, the Prussian landholding nobility, resisted
the ruler’s power.
 In the early 1700s, King Frederick William I bought their
cooperation and gave them the exclusive right to be
officers in the strong army.
 Prussia became a rigidly controlled military society.
Frederick II
 Frederick William’s son, Frederick II was
seen as being weak.
 He loved music and poetry.
 He was caught trying to run away with a friend. His
father forced him to watch his friend’s execution.
 When he came to power, Frederick II followed his
father’s military policies, but softened some of his
father’s laws.
War of the Austrian
Succession
 1740: Maria Theresa succeeded her father five months after
Frederick II became king of Prussia.
 Frederick wanted Silesia which belonged to Austria:
- it bordered Prussia
- it was rich in resources
 Frederick believed Maria Theresa would not be much of an
adversary so he sent an army into Austria to take Silesia in
1740. This began the War of the Austrian Succession.
 Maria Theresa, having just given birth, traveled to
Hungary to ask the nobles for aid. They pledged an
army even though they resented Habsburg rule.
 Britain joined Austria in the struggle against Prussia and
its ally France.
 Maria Theresa stopped Prussian aggression in Austria
but she lost Silesia according to the Treaty of Aix-laChapelle in 1748.
The Seven Years’ War
 Maria Theresa made an alliance with France.
 This led to a diplomatic revolution:
- Frederick signed a treaty with Britain
- Austria, France, Russia, and others now allied
against Britain and Prussia
 1756: Frederick attacked Saxony, an Austrian ally.
Europe was not involved in war.
 The war took place on four continents: Asia, Africa,
Europe, and North America.
 The war did not change the territorial situation in
Europe.
 But in N. America and India, the French and British had
colonies. After the war, Britain became the real victor.
France lost its colonies and Britain gained economic
domination of India.