Frederick William IV of Prussia

“ He was a man of singularly handsome presence, not without mental qualities of a high order; he was devoted to the arts—Beethoven and Mozart enjoyed his patronage and his private orchestra had a European reputation. But an artistic temperament was hardly that required of a king of Prussia on the eve of the Revolution; and Frederick the Great, who had employed him in various services—notably in an abortive confidential mission to the court of Russia in 1780—openly expressed his misgivings as to the character of the prince and his surroundings. ”

“ Once committed to the Russian alliance, however, he became the faithful henchman of the emperor Alexander, whose fascinating personality exercised over him to the last a singular power, and began that influence of Russia at the court of Berlin which was to last till Frederick William IV.’s supposed Liberalism was to shatter the cordiality of the entente. That during and after the settlement of 1815 Frederick William played a very secondary part in European affairs is explicable as well by his character as by the absorbing character of the internal problems of Prussia. ”

“ His Romanticism in no way interfered with his fulfilment of his duties as a good citizen. In his capacity of Government official he was zealous, conscientious, and steady—one of the men who do their duty and are guilty of no extravagances, and whose position is consequently assured. His republicanism was short-lived, and he is only saved by his naïveté from the charge of servility. He calls Frederick William and Louisa of Prussia "ein klassisches Menschenpaar;" in the revelation of these "geniuses" he sees an omen of a better world. Frederick William is, he says, the first king of Prussia ”

“ Whatever may be thought of the manner of this refusal, or of its immediate motives, it was in itself wise, for the German empire would have lost immeasurably had it been the cause rather than the result of the inevitable struggle with Austria, and Bismarck was probably right when he said that, to weld the heterogeneous elements of Germany into a united whole, what was needed was, not speeches and resolutions, but a policy of “blood and iron.” In any case Frederick William, uneasy enough as a constitutional king, would have been impossible as a constitutional emperor. ”

“ A breach with the emperor was now inevitable, and this explains why in a last treaty (April 5, 1739) Frederick William obtained from France a guarantee of a part, at least, of Berg (excluding Düsseldorf) .
But Frederick William’s failures in foreign policy were more than compensated for by his splendid services in the internal administration of Prussia. He saw the necessity of rigid economy not only in his private life but in the whole administration of the state. During his reign Prussia obtained for the first time a centralized and uniform financial administration. ”

“ Prussia did not succeed in obtaining any concessions of territory from the alarms of the Allies, and the dismissal of Hertzberg in 1791 marked the final abandonment of the anti-Austrian tradition of Frederick the Great. For, meanwhile, the French Revolution had entered upon alarming phases, and in August 1791 Frederick William, at the meeting at Pillnitz, arranged with the emperor Leopold to join in supporting the cause of Louis XVI. But neither the king’s character, nor the confusion of the Prussian finances due to his extravagance, gave promise of any effective action. ”

“ This gave the new king much popularity with the mass of the people; while the educated classes were pleased by his removal of Frederick’s ban on the German language by the admission of German writers to the Prussian Academy, and by the active encouragement given to schools and universities. But these reforms were vitiated in their source. In 1781 Frederick William, then prince of Prussia, inclined, like many sensual natures, to mysticism, had joined the Rosicrucians, and had fallen under the influence of Johann Christof Wöllner (1732–1800) , and by him the royal policy was inspired. ”

“ FREDERICK AND PRUSSIA AFTER THE WAR The monarch who had borne the burden of seven campaigns—a burden of which his ten great battles formed but a trifling fraction—might well have been pardoned for appropriating to himself some share in the repose which his labours had won for Prussia. Even if it is difficult to couple the thought of Frederick with that of repose, it might at least be expected that after a triumph of defence hardly surpassed in human history he would delight his army by praising their achievements and his people by accepting their plaudits. ”

“ King Frederick William, who did so much for Prussia, had many personal eccentricities that highly amused Europe. Imbued with patriarchal instincts, he had his eye on everybody and everything. He treated his kingdom as a schoolroom, and, like a zealous schoolmaster, flogged his naughty subjects unmercifully. If he suspected a man of possessing adequate means, he might command him to erect a fine residence so as to improve the appearance of the capital. ”

“ THE RISE OF PRUSSIA The first task of the student of Frederick’s life-story is to rid himself of the idea that the solitary King was either wholly original or wholly free. To seize Silesia, to quarter Poland, to rival Austria, to humble France, each was no doubt a feat which no Prussian ruler before him had dared to attempt. Yet in each of these, as will presently be shown, the hand of the living was at once nerved and guided by the dead. ”

“ The story of the evolution of the Prussian parliament belongs to the history of Prussia. Here it must suffice to notice Frederick William’s personal share in the question, which was determined by his general attitude of mind. He was an idealist; but his idealism was of a type the exact reverse of that which the Revolution in arms had sought to impose upon Europe. The idea of the sovereignty of the people was to him utterly abhorrent, and even any delegation of sovereign power on his own part would have seemed a betrayal of a God-given trust. ”

“ He often combined the domestic with the political in a manner that was almost feminine. His chief political object in life was the unity of Germany under the leadership of Prussia, and secondary to this, the development of a good understanding between England and Prussia, and the spread of Constitutional monarchy all over the Continent. It was indirectly to serve all these ends that he strongly advised, on the birth of the Prince of Wales, that the King, Frederick William IV., of Prussia should be invited to England to be godfather to the young heir. ”

“ In some of the perplexing diplomatic arrangements of those days, the castle of Herstal, with its surrounding district, was transferred to Frederick William of Prussia. The peasants, who had heard of the military rigor of Prussia, where almost every able-bodied man was crowded into the army, were exceedingly troubled by this transfer, and refused to take the oath of allegiance to their new sovereign, who had thus succeeded to the ownership of themselves, their flocks, and their herds. The gleaming sabres of Frederick William’s dragoons soon, however, brought them to terms. ”

“ War would thin his regiments, soil his uniforms, destroy his materiel. He hated war. But his army caused Prussia to be respected. If needful, he could throw one hundred thousand of the best drilled and best furnished troops in Europe, like a thunderbolt, upon any point. Unprincipled monarchs would think twice before they would encroach upon a man thus armed.
There was but one short war in which Frederick William engaged during his reign of twenty-seven years. That was with Charles XII. of Sweden. It lasted but a few months, and from it the Prussian king returned victorious. ”

“ The nobles and prelates generally preferred to raise their share of the revenue by the old method of a bede, or contribution, thus weakening the remaining bond between them and the burghers.
In matters of general administration Frederick William showed himself a prudent and careful ruler, and laid the foundation of the future greatness of Prussia in almost every department. The wounds inflicted by the Thirty Years’ War were in a great measure healed, and the finances and credit of the state were established on a firm basis. ”

“ The study of profound subjects, conversation, and intimate friendships with learned men, trained his active mind to wonderful acuteness, and when he applied this to the study of history, when he read of the dignity of kings, and of what stuff greatness was made in the past—he formed his own ideals for the future. When Frederick William died in 1740 he was prepared to take the reins of government with a comprehensiveness of grasp of which his austere father was incapable, and with clearly defined plans to make Prussia great. ”

“ If Frederick feared not God, neither did he regard man. Far from being dazzled by the array of sceptres marshalled against him, he determined to strike before his foes could form.
With the first breath of spring he despatched three royal princes and the Duke of Bevern against four several points in Bohemia. “If those false attacks have so far succeeded as to cover the King of Prussia’s real intention,” writes Mitchell on April 18th, “I may venture to say that His Prussian Majesty is upon the point of executing one of the boldest and one of the greatest designs that ever was attempted by man.” ”

“ For Frederick William the position of leader of Germany now meant the employment of the military force of Prussia to crush the scattered elements of revolution that survived the collapse of the national movement. His establishment of the northern confederacy was a reversion to the traditional policy of Prussia in opposition to Austria, which, after the emperor Nicholas had crushed the insurrection in Hungary, was once more free to assert her claims to dominance in Germany. ”

“ Why did not he at the very outset of his reign hasten to employ the power of the Crown, which Frederick William had raised so high, to equip a Prussian Baltic Company, a Prussian West Africa Company, even a Prussian East India Company?
Never was the political situation more favourable to such an enterprise than when Frederick grasped the reins. No neighbour could enforce a veto upon Prussian maritime enterprise. Poland was in the last stage of impotence and decay. Russia, who might form a good customer, was not yet equipped for conquest. Austria could not afford to offend a German ally. ”

“ Nevertheless, in the War of the Polish Succession against France (1734–1735) , Frederick William remained faithful to the emperor’s cause, and sent an auxiliary force of 10,000 men. The peace of Vienna, which terminated the war, led to a reconciliation between France and Austria, and so to a further estrangement between Frederick William and the emperor. Moreover, in 1738 the western powers, together with the emperor, insisted in identical notes on the recognition of the emperor’s right to decide the question of the succession in the Lower Rhine duchies. ”

“ On the day when I read those calumnies which he contrived to have printed about me—on that day I felt a pang in my heart as if a dagger had been plunged into it! Ah, would I could die this hour, before sinking into this new humiliation! Ah, my soul is willing to bow to the great, the beautiful, the sublime—but not to him—not to that proud man who is trampling mankind in the dust; who has rendered King Frederick William so wretched, robbing him of his states and of his majesty, slandering his queen, and oppressing his people. ”

“ In general, however, Frederick was as gifted a tactician in politics as in war, and in both he knew how to profit by experience. Compared with his handling of France in his early years, his handling of Russia from 1762 to 1779 shows an advance as marked as that of his guardianship between Mollwitz and Leuthen. The circumstances of the age favoured a policy of opportunism for Prussia. Dexterity, not depth, was profitable, and Frederick therefore earned handsome rewards—Silesia, East Frisia, and West-Preussen. ”

“ When he died, in 1786, the Prussian population amounted to six millions,—the increase being chiefly due to the acquisition of Silesia, which was taken [Pg 592] from Austria, and to Frederick's share in the first partition of Poland. He left $50,000,000, and his army contained 220,000 men.
Frederick William II., a weak sovereign, reigned till 1797. He took part in the first coalition against revolutionary France, and in the second and third partitions of Poland. Frederick William III. reigned from 1797 to 1840, during which time Prussia experienced every vicissitude of fortune. ”

“ More significant than all else was the fact that he viewed his own strength with clearer eyes than his father’s. Frederick William had never been able to convince himself that Prussia was a strong State: Frederick wears no blinkers and with his accession the day of half measures is over. Two years before this he had written to Grumbkow words which express his real opinion of the old policy of his House. The affair of Berg, which he as Crown Prince earnestly hoped would enable him to win fame on the battle-field, had then entered upon a phase adverse to Prussian expectations. ”

“ The King of Prussia had an army of two hundred thousand men under perfect discipline. The Old Dessauer was dead, but many veteran generals were in command. It was manifest that war would soon burst forth. In addition to the personal pique of the Duchess of Pompadour, who really ruled France, Louis XV. was greatly exasperated by the secret alliance into which Frederick had entered with England. The brother of the Prussian king, Augustus William, the heir-apparent to the throne, disapproved of this alliance. ”