Austria and Prussia

Charles V’s Brother

Ferdinand and the Thirty Years’ War

• “The Holy Roman Empire was either Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire” –Voltaire

• Ferdinand, the king of the HRE, had very little actual power over the princes the ruled the various territories that made up this collective area

• The North was mostly Protestant and the South remained Catholic• The Thirty Years’ War was a series of wars in which Ferdinand tried to

suppress Protestants and assert his authority over nobles– A mix of politics and religion– Mercenaries (hired soldiers) killed without mercy and destroyed the crops/houses

they encountered– About 1/3 of the German states may have died

• Peace of Westphalia (1648): treaty to end the fighting– Princes got a lot of independence and German states were divided – Netherlands and Switzerland (present-day) got independence– France gained land and power

http://phschool.com/atschool/dsp_swf.cfm?pathname=/atschool/worldhistory/audio_guided_tours/&filename=WH07A03750.swf&w=760&h=460

Austria Expands• The Hapsburgs (Ferdinand’s line) kept the title “Holy

Roman Emperor,” but expanded into different areas: Bohemia, Hungary, parts of Poland, and some of Italy

• This included a lot of different ethnic groups and cultures, which was a challenge to unity

• They never developed a centralized government like in France

• Maria Theresa, (Marie Antoinette’s mom), became empress at age 23 in the early 1700s…though many challenged the idea of a female empress (Frederick II)

Prussia• A new Protestant power in Northern Germany that developed in the

1600s• Frederick William I came to power in 1713 and gained power of nobles

(Junkers) by giving them positions in the government and army– The nobles then relied on him for a job (less independence)– Frederick then had more control

• A great emphasis was placed on military might– “Prussia is not a state which possesses an army, but an army which possesses

a state.”– Frederick tried to raise his son to be great in war, but he preferred to play the

flute and write poetry…and tried to leave the country at 18, but then daddy beheaded his friend and made him watch.

– …it worked. Frederick II stole land from Austria (Maria Theresa) and made Prussia into a great power…became known as Frederick the Great

• The great European powers by 1750: Austria, Prussia, France, Britain, and Russia

Frederick I and II