Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg
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- This article is about the elector of Brandenburg. For the King of Prussia, see Frederick William I of Prussia.
Biography
Frederick William was born in Berlin to George William of Brandenburg and Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate. His inheritance consisted of the March of Brandenburg, ravaged during the Thirty Years' War, a small wine-growing region on the French border known as Cleves, and Ducal Prussia.
Foreign Diplomacy
During the 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 meager beginnings Frederick William managed to rebuild the country. 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. At the outbreak of the Swedish-Polish War Lithuania put itself under protection by Frederick William and the Swedes. Frederick William was entitled to inherit the grand duchy, due to his direct line to the Jagiellonians. In 1655 the Lithuanians recognized Frederick William as their sovereign. Poland asked for a union with the grand duchy and offered this to Frederick William, if he converted his religion to Roman Catholicism, which he declined. John Kasimir (Jan II Kazimierz Vasa) accepted to become king, resigned in 1672 and died in 1672.
Military Career
Frederick William was a military commander of wide renown and his standing army would later become the model for the Prussian military. 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 Louis XIV and invaded Brandenburg. After marching an astounding 250 kilometers in 15 days back to Brandenberg, 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 Ducal 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 is 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 King Louis XIV of France's revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he encouraged skilled French and Walloon Huguenots to emigrate to Brandenburg-Prussia, bolstering the country's technical and industrial base. On von Blumenthal's advive 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 Ducal Prussia by connecting riverways with canals, a system that was expanded by later Kingdom of Prussian architects, such as Georg Steenke; the system is still in use today.
Marriages
On 7 December 1646 at The Hague, he entered into the marriage, proposed by Von 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), his successor Frederick (1657-1713), Amalie (1656-1664), Henry (1664-1664), and Louis (1666-1687).
On 13 June 1668 at Gröningen, he married Sophie Dorothea of Holstein-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), and Christian Louis (1677-1734).
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