Everything about Frederick William Elector Of Brandenburg totally explained
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This article is about the Elector of Brandenburg. For the King of Prussia, see Frederick William I of Prussia.
Frederick William (;
February 16 1620 –
April 29 1688) was the
Elector of
Brandenburg and the
Duke of
Prussia from 1640 until his death. He was of the
House of Hohenzollern and is popularly known as the
Great Elector (
Großer Kurfürst) because of his military and political skill. Frederick William was also a staunch pillar of the
Calvinist faith, associated with the rising commercial class. He saw the importance of trade and promoted it vigorously. The Great Elector's shrewd domestic reforms gave Prussia a strong position in the
post-Westphalia political order of north-central Europe, setting Prussia up for elevation from
duchy to kingdom, achieved under his
successor.
Biography
Frederick William was born in
Berlin to
George William, Elector of Brandenburg, and
Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate. His inheritance consisted of the
Margraviate of Brandenburg, the
Duchy of Cleves, the
County of Mark, and the
Duchy of Prussia.
Foreign diplomacy
During
Thirty Years' War, George William had striven to maintain with a minimal army a delicate balance between the
Protestant and
Catholic forces fighting throughout the
Holy Roman Empire. Out of these meagre beginnings Frederick William managed to rebuild his war-ravaged territories. In contrast to the religious disputes in other European states, the elector supported religious tolerance. With the help of
French subsidies, he built up an army to defend the country. Through the treaties of
Wehlau,
Labiau, and
Oliva, Frederick William succeeded in revoking
Polish sovereignty over the Duchy of Prussia, leaving the
Holy Roman Emperor as his only
liege.
Military career
Frederick William was a military commander of wide renown; his standing army would later become the model for the
Prussian Army. He is notable for his joint victory with Swedish forces at the
Battle of Warsaw (1656), but the Swedes turned on him at the behest of King
Louis XIV of France and invaded Brandenburg. After marching 250 kilometers in 15 days back to Brandenburg, he caught the Swedes by surprise and managed to defeat them on the field at the
Battle of Fehrbellin, destroying the myth of Swedish military invincibility. He later destroyed another Swedish army that invaded the Duchy of Prussia during the
Great Sleigh Drive in 1678. He is noted for his use of broad directives and delegation of decision-making to his commanders, which would later become the basis for the German doctrine of
Auftragstaktik, and he's noted for using rapid mobility to defeat his foes.
Domestic policies
Frederick William is notable for raising an army of 40,000 soldiers by 1678, through the
General War Commissariat presided over by
Joachim Friedrich von Blumenthal. He was an advocate of
mercantilism, monopolies, subsidies, tariffs, and
internal improvements. Following Louis XIV's revocation of the
Edict of Nantes, Frederick William encouraged skilled
French and
Walloon Huguenots to emigrate to
Brandenburg-Prussia with the
Edict of Potsdam, bolstering the country's technical and industrial base. On Blumenthal's advice he agreed to exempt the nobility from taxes and in return they agreed to dissolve the
Estates-General. He also simplified travel in Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia by connecting riverways with canals, a system that was expanded by later
Prussian architects, such as
Georg Steenke; the system is still in use today.
Ancestry
Marriages
On
7 December 1646 at
The Hague, Frederick William entered into marriage, proposed by Blumenthal as a partial solution to the Jülich-Berg question, with
Luise Henriette of Nassau (1627-1667), daughter of
Frederick Henry of Orange-Nassau and
Amalia of Solms-Braunfels. Their children were
- William Henry (1648-1649),
- Charles (1655-1674),
- Frederick (1657-1713), his successor,
- Amalie (1656-1664),
- Henry (1664-1664),
- Louis (1666-1687).
On
13 June 1668 at
Gröningen, Frederick William married Sophie Dorothea of
Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, daughter of Philipp of
Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and Sophie Hedwig of
Saxe-Lauenburg.
Their children were
Philip William (1669-1711),
Marie Amalie (1670-1739),
Albert Frederick (1672-1731),
Charles (1673-1695),
Elisabeth Sofie (1674-1748),
Dorothea (1675-1676),
Christian Ludwig (1677-1734), recipient of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos.Further Information
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