two silesian wars, episodes in the eight years of general turmoil produced by the austrian succession question, had now been brought by frederick to a fortunate end. the hapsburgs once more possessed the imperial crown, but the hohenzollerns were masters of silesia and their days of vassalage were over.
the course of history has shown that by gaining silesia prussia enabled herself to become in time the principal german state. from this time onward, the teutonic elements in the hapsburg realm became more and more outweighed by the rest, until in 1866 austria, as a power whose political centre was buda-pest, was finally expelled from germany. in 1745, it is true, the full significance of the transfer of silesia was felt rather than understood. but it was felt strongly enough to prevent frederick from deluding himself with the vain belief that austria would be easily reconciled to her loss, or that she regarded the peace of dresden as more sacred than the peace of berlin. the queen, it was said, could not behold a silesian without tears. her156 spirit was so high that she is believed to have thought seriously of becoming her own commander-in-chief, and her resources grew greater with every year of peace.
frederick’s task of holding what he had so lightly seized in 1740 therefore grew no less difficult as time went on. he had good reason for remaining constant to the principle which he professed at dresden: “i would not henceforth attack a cat, except to defend myself.” his policy, as he wrote in his testament of 1752, was to maintain peace as long as might be possible without lowering the dignity of prussia. “we have drawn upon ourselves the envy of europe by the acquisition of silesia,” he confessed. “it has put all our neighbours on the alert; there is none who does not distrust us.” the ink of the treaty of dresden was hardly dry ere new plans were mooted to blot it out. the attitude of russia towards the victor was menacing, that of poland defiant, and it was easy to see that austria and saxony had an understanding with the northern powers which boded him no good.
frederick was, however, no longer a novice in diplomacy and he knew his own mind. evading all efforts to tempt him back into the whirlpool of war, he watched its successive phases till the peace of 1748. he saw the queen turn her energies to italy, while the sea powers, who could not maintain themselves in the netherlands without her aid, hired troops in the only market open to them and brought 35,000 russians to the rhine. but the value of this new factor in the politics of western157 europe had not been tested when the peace of aix-la-chapelle was patched up. then the exhausted combatants entered upon the task of reconstruction, in which frederick had more than two years’ start of them. to him the peace brought a guarantee by all europe of the treaty by which he held silesia.
imperfect as it was, for it settled no great question, the peace of aix-la-chapelle gave pause to the armed strife of europe for eight years. prussia therefore enjoyed a full decade of rest before 1756, when the third and greatest of her struggles for silesia began. she dared not put off her harness, but she stood at ease. after the peace her army still numbered 135,000 men. but the crowned commander-in-chief had now a leisure unattainable in time of war. his excuse for deserting his ally at dresden was that he wished to enjoy life and to labour for the good of his subjects. now his opportunity had come. it would be strange if a reign of less than six years had destroyed the ideal which frederick championed in his early treatise on kingcraft. prussia and europe might well expect that he would be, like the great-grandfather of whom he wrote the words, “as great in peace as in the bosom of victory,” and that he would apply his untrammelled power to remedy whatever defects his enlightened insight might still discover in the prussian state. frederick the warrior had cleared the way for frederick the reformer. ought not prussian history in the fifties to be a story of regeneration?
the king himself, however, practically omits the record of this decade from his history of the reign.158 he assigns as the reason that “political intrigues which lead to nothing deserve no more notice than teasing in society, and the particulars of the internal administration do not afford sufficient material for history.” his great english admirer holds that this routine work in itself was eminent, that “one day these things will deserve to be studied to the bottom; and to be set forth, by writing hands that are competent, for the instruction and example of workers,” but that “of frederick’s success in his law-reforms, in his husbandries, commerces and furtherances, conspicuously great as it was, there is no possibility of making careless readers cognisant at this day.” carlyle then explains that the visit of voltaire to frederick and their quarrel is one of the few things perfectly knowable in this period and the only thing which the populations care to hear.
the following chapter of this book is written in the belief that readers of the story of frederick may well demand, above all else, whether he is justly termed “the great,” and if so, in virtue of what achievements? unless we are willing to answer that the title is his of right because he seized silesia and held it against great odds, these questions compel us to enquire into his home administration. we know well that the ruler is strong only because he wields the collective strength of his nation, and that his chief task is to render the nation stronger and to improve the machinery by which its strength is collected and exerted. a great ruler is one who, when the difficulties which he had to contend with are taken into account, is perceived to have accomplished159 much more in the performance of this task than could be expected from an ordinary man. if we find that frederick improved the lot of his subjects in a remarkable degree, or that he invented beneficial institutions, or devised a system by which the future of government in prussia was assured and progress made easy, then we shall have to concede to him a right to the title of great other than that which conquest may confer.
it is of high importance to ascertain at the outset of the enquiry how far frederick was free to act as he pleased and to what extent he was fettered by constitutional or social ties. his whole manner of life, indeed, was such as to suggest the most complete freedom. from the moment of his father’s death he was master of his people and of his policy as few european potentates have ever been. autocracy as well as diligence is stamped upon even the externals of his everyday existence. though his stature was not quite five feet seven inches, his ablutions, when performed at all, slight and few, and his dress of the shabbiest, no one ever suggested that his presence lacked kingliness. he usually wore an old grey hat of soft felt, a faded blue uniform smeared with the snuff in which he indulged immoderately, and boots which through neglect were of a reddish colour. but his bearing, stern and caressing by turns, his clarion voice, and his glance which, as a contemporary owned, nothing could resist, made him the cynosure of whatever company he was in. the absence of the customary trappings of royalty rendered the king of prussia less formidable to the160 poor, whom he patronised, while it marked his contempt for the official and middle classes, whom he sometimes allowed to kiss the skirts of his dirty coat.
frederick, it need hardly be said, was fully conscious of his own superiority to his subjects in birth, address, and talent. during his incognito visit to strasburg in 1740, marshal broglie remarked the contrast between frederick and algarotti on the one hand and the awkward germans of the party on the other. the vivacity of the king’s circle was almost all imported from abroad. many years later the french philosopher d’alembert stated that frederick himself was the only man in prussia with whom it was possible to hold conversation as the word was understood in france. the man who by right of birth was absolute ruler of prussia had some reason to believe that he was also the greatest poet, historian, philosopher, critic, administrator, legislator, statesman, captain, and general in his dominions.
sans-souci. carytid front.
there is perhaps no more conclusive proof of his wisdom than that his consciousness of this unique endowment did not cause his home policy to become tyrannical and his foreign policy grandiose. from the second fault he was saved by his keen eye for realities, which taught him that, as he confessed, prussia was playing a part among the great powers without being in fact the equal of the rest. that he never became a tyrant, was probably due in part to natural humanity and in part to the philosophy which was his pride. he was often harsh towards his subjects, but he proclaimed that his duty was to make them happy and he never shed their blood.161 his threats to execute his ministers were mere insults. but philosophy did not check one evil to which he was inclined by nature and impelled by situation. nothing short of human sympathy could have mitigated his contempt for the populace, which gathered strength with years. “my dear sulzer,” he replied to an educational theorist who urged that men were naturally inclined to good, “you do not know that curséd race as i do.” “it is more probable,” he held, “that we sprang from evil spirits, if such things could exist, than from a being whose nature is good.” as he rode through the streets of his capital on one famous occasion, he came upon a group of the discontented staring at a seditious cartoon. “hang it lower down,” was his scornful order, “so that they need not strain their necks to see it.”
to the service of those whom he termed the rabble, none the less, frederick devoted a great share of a life of incessant labour. every day, sunday and week-day alike, was parcelled out so as to contain the greatest possible amount of work. “it is not necessary that i should live,” wrote the king, “but it is necessary that i should act.” he toiled for the state and for himself, and, with the exception of regular visits to his mother and madame de camas, he admitted few social claims upon his time. his queen never even saw his favourite home, sans souci, which he built in the park at potsdam in 1747. she knew so little of his affairs that she gave a party at sch?nhausen while he was lying in extremis. the consideration which he denied to her162 he did not give to others whose title to it was less strong. as he grew older, he curtailed even the short time that he had been wont to spend in his capital, and divided the bulk of the year between seclusion at potsdam and the inspection of his provinces.
his habit was to rise at dawn or earlier. the first three or four hours of the morning were allotted to toilet, correspondence, a desultory breakfast of strong coffee and fruit, preceded by a deep draught of cold water flavoured with fennel leaves, and flute-playing as an accompaniment to meditation on business. then came one or two hours of rapid work with his secretaries, followed by parade, audiences, and perhaps a little exercise. punctually at noon frederick sat down to dinner, which was always the chief social event of the day and in later life became his only solid meal. he supervised his kitchen like a department of state. he considered and often amended the bill of fare, which contained the names of the cooks responsible for every dish. after dinner he marked with a cross the courses which had merited his approval. he inspected his household accounts with minute care and proved himself a master of domestic economy. the result was a dinner that voltaire considered fairly good for a country in which there was no game, no decent meat, and no spring chickens.
two hours, sometimes even four, were spent at table. occasionally the time was devoted to the discussion of important business with high officials, but in general frederick used it to refresh himself163 after his six or seven hours of toil. he ate freely, preferring highly spiced dishes, drank claret mixed with water, and talked incessantly. he was a skilful and agreeable host, putting his guests instantly at their ease, and, by voltaire’s account, calling forth wit in others. after dismissing the company he returned to his flute, and then put the final touches to the morning’s business. after this he drank coffee and passed some two hours in seclusion. during this period he nerved himself for fresh grappling with affairs by plunging into literature. in the year 1749 he produced no less than forty works. about six o’clock he was ready to receive his lector or to converse with artists and learned men. at seven began a small concert, in which frederick himself used often to perform. supper followed, but was brief, unless the conversation was of unusual interest. otherwise the king went to bed at about nine o’clock and slept five or six hours. in later life he gave up suppers, but continued to invite a few friends for conversation. he then allowed himself rather more sleep. in his last years he lost the power to play his flute and with it, apparently, the desire to hear music.
the sketch which has been given of frederick’s daily life suggests that whatever his power might be, it was not subjected to the interference of others. at potsdam there was no place for the ordinary influences which were brought to bear upon kings. frederick would not endure the presence of any woman, and, strictly speaking, he164 had no courtiers. his intimates were not politicians, but wits and men of letters, for the most part of foreign birth. even those who accused him of hideous vices admitted that he never suffered his accomplices to have the smallest influence over him. eichel and the two other secretaries who worked with the king every day were slaves rather than counsellors. they lived in such seclusion that, according to the french ambassador, eichel was never seen by any human being. during frederick’s last illness, he forced their successors to attend him at four o’clock in the morning, so that the few weeks that might yet remain to him should be serviceable to the state. one of them fell to the ground in a fit, but the king merely summoned another, and went on with the business. through their hands passed frederick’s correspondence with his ministers, whom he rarely saw. “in his orders of two lines,” grumbled a subordinate, “he announced no reasons.” he was of course obliged to listen to the ambassadors of foreign powers. as though to avenge himself for this, he tolerated no suggestions from his own. he desired spies rather than advisers, and often chose men of inferior intelligence to fill high diplomatic posts. on every hand we find tokens that frederick looked to his own breast alone for inspiration in the exercise of his power.
to realise how unfettered was the authority that frederick wielded we must consider the peculiar structure of the society over which he ruled and of the machinery by which he ruled it. frederick’s165 prussia was a state which just a century of strong monarchical rule had manufactured out of a number of hohenzollern fiefs. its basis still remained feudal. there were few social classes, and strong barriers separated class from class. the career open to a prussian was strictly limited by his birth. between town and country the law reared a dividing wall, unseen but impassable. townsmen alone were allowed to become manufacturers, merchants, and civil servants. they paid a special tax, the “excise,” levied on the articles which they consumed. they had magistrates of their own choosing, a relic of the municipal independence which the great elector had broken down.
to the countryfolk, on the other hand, the king looked for his army. they were divided into two great classes; the nobles, who alone might become officers, and the peasants, who were still serfs tied to the estates of their lords. the nobles enjoyed exemption from ordinary taxes and paid only a small feudal rent to the crown. upon the shoulders of the peasants fell the heavy burden of the “contribution,” a direct payment in money. neither they nor the nobles might become craftsmen or engage in commerce. the barrier which separated the two classes of countryfolk was as firm as that which separated both from the dwellers in towns. new patents of nobility were rarely granted by the king, but all the children of a noble were nobles. even the soil was divided into noble-lands and peasant-lands, and neither class might acquire the portion of the other.
166 it is easy to see that this system of rigid class division was unlikely to ensure to every prussian the career for which he was best fitted. in frederick’s eyes, however, it possessed two supreme merits, and for the sake of these he was willing to make it eternal. it provided a gigantic army and it contained no germ of opposition to the crown.
prussia under frederick was practically one vast camp. every social class had a military function to perform. the king was commander-in-chief and paymaster-general. the nobles formed the corps of officers. some of the peasants were called on to bear arms while the rest laboured in the fields to produce the necessary supplies of food. the burghers, who have been styled the commissariat department of the army, armed and clothed the troops, and helped to provide funds with which to hire the foreigners of whom half the army was composed.
it was possible to entrust to foreigners so great a share in prussian wars because the framework of the army was of iron. the native half of each regiment was drawn from a particular locality. it consisted of peasants led by the lords whom they had been accustomed from infancy to obey. the regiment was ruled in a fashion almost patriarchal by a commander who gave it his own name. under this system esprit de corps became a passion, and none knew better than frederick how to turn it to good account. to the army “prussia” was a name which within the memory of their fathers had been arbitrarily assigned to the dominions of the elder branch of the house of hohenzollern. where national167 patriotism was in its infancy, local patriotism was all the more intense, and it was by playing upon this that frederick, the father of all his lands, called forth many marvellous feats of arms.
but the king, though he fostered profitable sentiment, was far too wary to trust to it over much. he had other expedients for attracting nobles to the colours and for keeping the ranks full. he withdrew his royal favour from those of noble birth who were so unpatriotic as either to avoid his service or to leave it in a few years. the social arrangements which have been outlined above were yet more powerful in securing a supply of officers. the nobles were numerous, poor, and brave. they must find some career, and what other lay open to them? when frederick’s father began to impress cadets, many parents even tried to prove that they were not of noble birth. but with them, as with many other classes of the discontented, firm government in the long run brought cheerful obedience. “the king’s bread is the best,” became their maxim. frederick marked his appreciation of their worth by rarely giving commissions to men of lower rank. it was not the least of his gains that he thus acquired military authority over the most influential class in his dominions.
he made sure of the common man by stern discipline. although the prussian members of each regiment were bound together by social and local bonds, by no means all of them were willing to fight for the king. they were conscripts, not volunteers, and they were released only when they became unfit168 to serve. not a few deserted to the enemy under stress of war. the foreigners who were their comrades under arms were a varied host. some were mercenaries, some deserters from the enemy, some keen fighting men who were glad to serve in the finest army in the world. many had been kidnapped or pressed or tempted into the prussian service by false promises or admitted when their own countries were too hot to hold them. frederick’s directions to prussian commanders for the march are based on the assumption that many of the men will desire to run away. when in time of war some of the peasants volunteered, the astonished king asked what finer deed the romans of old had performed.
his standing remedy against disintegration was “to make the discipline so stern and the punishments so severe that the men would learn to fear their own superiors more than the enemy.”
“the punishments were barbarous,” writes professor martin philippson. “thrashing was customary. imprisonment, sharpened by all kinds of chastisement and torment, was not rare. the most terrible of all was running the gauntlet, in which the offender was stripped to the waist and forced to run from twenty to thirty times through a living lane of hundreds of soldiers armed with rods, while the officers looked to it that every man laid on lustily. hundreds of wretched men gave up the ghost under these tortures.”
yet of the rank and file it may be said with more confidence than of any other section of frederick’s subjects that they loved the king.
169 enough, perhaps, has been said to suggest that where classes were so sharply divided there was little likelihood of any national resistance to the crown and that the prussian military system gave frederick a peculiar authority over two great sections of his people. a further source of power consisted in his enormous wealth. in every province the crown possessed vast domains amounting in all to nearly one-third of the soil of prussia. the result was that frederick was lord of innumerable peasants and by far the greatest capitalist in his dominions. to him the nobles looked for help in time of dearth, while the townsmen expected him to bear the initial loss of new industrial enterprises. his domestic policy was directed towards the maintenance of this position. for him the notion of taxes fructifying in the pockets of the people had no charm. his ideal was that of subjects paying the greatest possible amount of taxes to be administered by the head of the state. under his father’s rule the limit of profitable taxation had already been reached, but frederick was able to make the collectors stricter than before. though no spot in the mark or pomerania or magdeburg was more than twenty miles from a border, the frontiers of his straggling dominions were watched with a vigilance which became proverbial. an italian priest, whom he begged to smuggle him through the gate of heaven under his cassock, professed that he would be charmed to do so, provided that the search for contraband were not so keen as in prussia. liberty of commerce and remission of taxes were not among the ideals of a170 king who claimed to direct all the economic activities of his people.
the prussian clergy had less power than the moneyed interest, and less desire than the landed interest, to oppose or influence the will of the king. his absolutism was favoured by the fact that in his dominions several jealous churches existed side by side, and that he alone could be the umpire in their disputes. his own point of view was perfectly clear. he valued pastors because they taught their people to obey their superiors and not to rob and murder, as, in the king’s opinion, they would do if unrestrained. if the pastors accomplished this duty with reasonable success they might, without fear of his displeasure use any ritual or proclaim any doctrine of which their congregations approved.
frederick regarded the protestant teaching as far more useful than the romanist, but was determined to protect each in the enjoyment of its rights and privileges. he professed himself willing to build mosques for turks and heathen if they would people the land. he was the official head of the lutheran church, whose clergy then, as always, preached the divine right of kings. the king for his part usually jeered at their faith only in private. at times, however, he allowed his contempt for their observances to appear. when several congregations appealed to him to condemn a new hymn-book he despatched a refusal, and added with his own hand, “everyone is free to sing ‘now all the woods are resting’ and more of such stupid nonsense.” in the same spirit he answered the clergy171 of potsdam who begged him not to block out the light from their church, “blessed are they which have not seen and yet have believed.”
frederick’s relations with his many papist subjects ran all the smoother because the contemporary popes were as a rule too much engrossed by troubles within their own flock to engage in unnecessary aggressions. his treatment of the papists in his hereditary dominions was always carried out in the spirit of his answer to the monks of cleves. though hardly meritorious in the eyes of the holy father, it was too upright to give reasonable cause of offence. near the royal palace in berlin rose the hedwigs-kirche, a temple modelled on the pantheon at rome and built by the heretic king for the use of romanists.
in the conquered provinces, however, a more difficult problem confronted him. the romanists, who formed the bulk of the population of upper silesia and were powerful even in breslau, could not be expected to accept with pleasure the head of an alien church as their supreme lord. the prussian confiscation of one-half the net revenues of the conventual houses and at a later date the disgrace of cardinal schaffgotsch were measures dictated by needs of state, but not on that account less unwelcome to the church. the papists of silesia, particularly the clergy and the jesuits, long continued to hope for the restoration of hapsburg rule.
even in silesia, however, frederick’s policy of impartial firmness disarmed his religious opponents in the end. while his neighbours were expelling the172 jesuits from their dominions and confiscating the estates of the church, his doors stood open to the fugitives and the original settlement of the relations between church and state remained unvaried. it must not be forgotten, too, that the king of prussia was the patron and paymaster of a vast number of ecclesiastics of all creeds. this fact finds illustration in one of the practical jokes which he played upon his needy friend p?llnitz. although he had already changed his religion in hope of a lucrative marriage, frederick tempted him by hinting that a rich canonry in silesia was vacant. next day, as he expected, p?llnitz came to tell him that he had again recanted and was now eligible for the post. the king replied that the appointment was already made, but that he had still a place of rabbi to dispose of—“turn jew and you shall have it.” with the same cynicism he exhorted and often compelled the clergy to practise apostolic poverty. “we free them from the cares of this world,” he wrote to voltaire after a sweeping measure of confiscation, “so that they may labour without distraction to win the heavenly jerusalem which is their true home.” it is not surprising if carlyle is justified in stating that under frederick “the reverend men feel themselves to be a body of spiritual sergeants, corporals and captains, to whom obedience is the rule and discontent a thing not to be indulged in by any means.”
if, then, it is vain to look either to any class of society or to the military or ecclesiastical organisations for a possible check upon frederick’s absolutism, the remainder of our quest must be confined within two173 fields—the judiciary and the executive. it is idle to imagine parliaments in frederick’s prussia. his ancestors had freed themselves from the privileged assemblies which grew up in the several provinces under the feudal system. to this day his successors upon the prussian throne reject the claims of their subjects to what william ii. stigmatised as “the freedom to govern themselves badly according to their own desires.” nor was the absence of parliament atoned for by the influence of public opinion. society at berlin occasionally ventured to mark its disapproval of the king’s action. it was, however, a narrow caste, which lacked even the wit to temper despotism by epigram. the king, though he endowed his capital with many handsome buildings, took little pains to conciliate its inhabitants by living in their midst, and on occasion did not scruple to play upon their stupidity. “in 1767, the king found the public at berlin inclined to tattle on the chance of another war. to turn their attention he immediately composed and sent to the newspapers a full account of a wonderful hail-storm stated, though without the smallest foundation in fact, to have taken place in potsdam on the 27th of february in that year. not only did this imaginary narrative engross for some time, as he desired, the public conversation, but it gave rise to some grave philosophical treatises on the supposed phenomenon.” (mahon.)
many despotisms have, however, been tempered by the judicial system of the nation or by the established machinery of administration. we, therefore,174 turn finally to the judges and civil officers of prussia for some check upon frederick’s power. but we find that in the department of law he was as absolute as in any other. his subjects were no longer entitled to carry their suits to the imperial courts, and the king at once supplied the deficiency, and kept his judges under by making himself in person an accessible and swift tribunal of final appeal (1744).
in this connexion the case of miller arnold is of world-wide celebrity. a miller living near the polish border was condemned by his lord to be evicted for persistent non-payment of rent. he appealed to the chief court of the province for restitution, alleging that another noble, who afterwards bought the mill, had deprived him of water by restoring a fish-pond higher up the stream. when the court decided against him, he availed himself of the privilege of petition which frederick accorded to all his subjects. the king deputed one of his colonels to investigate the matter in company with a member of the provincial court. the colonel reported in favour of arnold, but his colleague upheld the previous decision. the king, convinced that his colonel was in the right and that a poor man was being robbed of his livelihood by a legal quibble, ordered the provincial court to make a fresh enquiry. this second investigation only served to confirm their previous view of the case, though an expert in drainage was of opinion that the fish-pond really restricted the flow of water to the mill. they declined to alter their verdict and frederick ordered the judges at berlin to revise it.
175 the judges obeyed and revised the depositions with great care. once more sentence was pronounced against arnold. thereupon the king determined to make an example of those who in his name oppressed the poor under form of law. he summoned before him the chancellor and the three judges at whose door he supposed the guilt to lie. to the chancellor he addressed six words only: “march, thy place is filled already.” the three judges were first rated like malefactors and then flung into the common gaol.
it would be tedious to recite all the items of the king’s vengeance. his hand fell as heavily upon the provincial court as upon the judges at berlin. when the minister of justice refused to pronounce sentence against them, frederick himself condemned them to loss of office, a year’s imprisonment, and the payment of all that arnold had lost. thus the miller triumphed, though he had in truth suffered no loss of water power. not till the succeeding reign was his knavery exposed and the royal decree reversed.
these proceedings, which took place in the later years of the reign, serve to show that frederick was strong enough to trample the law and its ministers underfoot. in general, however, he proved himself practical, impartial, and firm in all that pertained to the judicial system. the story that a miller of potsdam refused to sell his wind-mill to the king and answered his threats with a reference to the courts, has been destroyed by modern criticism. “the laws must speak and the sovereign be silent,” was, however,176 one of his maxims. the distrust of lawyers which caused him to prefer the verdict of one colonel to that of many judges did much to inspire the sweeping changes for which the years following the peace of dresden are illustrious.
frederick’s law-reforms were in great part achieved by the aged jurist cocceji, who, with the king’s support, triumphed over all the interested opposition of lawyers and of his rivals. in the course of the years 1747 and 1748, he abolished superfluous courts, raised the fees for litigation, quickened the procedure, established satisfactory tests for judges and advocates, reduced the numbers of these functionaries, and did away at one stroke with the whole class of solicitors. the violence of these reforms is a fresh proof of the king’s omnipotence. he might by a stroke of the pen have given binding force to the codex fridericianus, a famous code of law which cocceji drew up on principles of his own choosing.
it is evident that in prussia the judges were forced to be “lions under the throne.” the civil service gave less proof of courage and was equally impotent to oppose the will of the king. its structure might have been designed for the very purpose of preventing any official save the king from enjoying any substantial power or prominence. the lower agents, who could not be dangerous, had no colleagues, but all the higher functions were performed by boards. the villages were governed by the bailiffs of their lords, and thus a vast number of petty local officers were directly responsible to the representative of the crown. above the bailiffs stood the sheriff (landrat),177 who was nominated by the local nobles, but appointed by the king and acted as his factotum. one young landrat strove to convince frederick that there were locusts in his country by sending him some live specimens in a box. they escaped in the palace, and the angry king straightway altered the conditions of the office, decreeing that in future no one should be eligible who was under thirty-five years of age.
in the towns royal commissioners were charged with the collection of the “excise” and with duties of general supervision. but at the next stage collegiate administration begins. landrat and commissioner alike were responsible to the provincial chamber for war and domains—a body such as that on which frederick had served while a prisoner at cüstrin. the individual members of the chamber served the crown as inspectors in their province and as special commissioners to carry out the public works which the king constantly initiated. the chamber as a whole reviewed the work of the lower officials and reported to the general directory, a clumsy corporation of ministers, which in its turn reported to the king. it is hardly necessary to observe that frederick conceded to no person or body in this hierarchy the right to stand between himself and any business with which he chose to interfere. he, like his father, often preferred the evidence of his own eyes and of his soldiers to the statements of his civil servants.
the general directory had been created by frederick william in 1723.
178
“we wish,” he frankly stated, “that any odium, however undeserved, should fall not on us ... but on the general-ober-finanz-kriegs-und-dom?nen-directorium [general supreme financial war and domains directory] or on one or other of the members of the same, unless it shall prove possible to make the public change its bad opinion.”
the members were instructed to give such a turn to the business that this aim might be realised, “because,” as the king expressed it, “we wish to be frugal as regards the love and affection of our subjects and of the friendship of our neighbours.”
the new body, as its name implies, was primarily concerned with finance, which lay at the root of all prussian government. it was called into being at the moment when frederick william amalgamated two machines for collecting and expending revenue. it presided over the administration of the old feudal revenue which came from the domains and over that of the new national revenue which came from the contribution and excise,—taxes imposed for the support of the apparatus of war. foreign affairs and justice, each of which formed the charge of two or three other ministers, lay outside the sphere of the general directory.
this consisted of four departments, each of which supervised the general administration on one great section of the soil of prussia. the north-east, the centre, the west, and the districts lying between the centre and the west formed four distinct spheres of government, each of which was the special charge of a chief minister and several assistants. to these179 sectional departments, however, were assigned various minor charges extending over the whole kingdom. thus the second department, which governed the electoral mark and magdeburg, at one time also fulfilled the functions of commissary-general for all prussia. it had in addition oversight over questions of salt, millstones, cards, and stamps, in whatever locality they might arise. if the chief of the department had four or five assistants a certain specialisation was possible, but he was obliged to reckon with the contingency that one or more of them might be commissioned to spend part of their time in another department.
the general directory, as frederick found it, contained four departments, but five chief ministers. the fifth, whose functions were the general supervision of justice and of finance, was in frederick william’s conception a royal spy upon his colleagues. if they were idle, deceitful, or inharmonious, it was his duty to report the facts to the king, “that his majesty may get no short measure anywhere and may not be tricked.”
it is easy to see that this machine of government, however cumbrous, was admirably designed to serve a despotic king. an army of clerks and inspectors was always at his disposal. if he desired to know what was passing in the furthest corner of his dominions, a curt note of enquiry to the general directory sufficed to set the machine in motion. the directory met five times a week, with no vacations. at its bidding, commissioners were appointed by the provincial chamber to ascertain the facts. in due180 course the chamber received, digested, and annotated their report, and supplied the necessary information to the directory. there, in the department which presided over the province in question, the papers were again sifted and abstracted.
the directory could not often be hoodwinked by its subordinates, for frederick william had furnished it with an army of local spies. check after check was applied. when the member of the department before whom the affair was brought had satisfied himself, he procured the assent of his colleagues. the department procured the assent of the directory as a whole. the directory then reported to the confidential servants of the king. eventually the most concise and accurate information obtainable, together with a table of arguments for and against a given course of action, was laid before the king by eichel and his colleagues in the cabinet. frederick had only to glance at the paper and scrawl a few words upon it in the morning and in the afternoon to sign a royal order embodying his decision. then general directory, provincial chamber, sheriff, and bailiff set to work in turn to procure the execution of his commands.
it was objected that little prussia had thirteen or fourteen ministers when france required no more than five. but the multiplication of high officials had this advantage—that it prevented them from leaving the real conduct of affairs in the hands of obscure subordinates. not only must every state paper be signed by one or more ministers, but every signature implied actual knowledge of its contents.181 the system, too, prevented the rise of any single man or board that could challenge comparison with the king by reason of its ascendancy in any great function of government. even cocceji appeared to the people merely as a royal commissioner appointed to accomplish a definite mission.
corruption on any great scale was impossible. the public accounts passed under so many eyes that the king of prussia could never, like charles vi., be deprived of three-fourths of his revenue before it reached the exchequer. it was useless to bribe frederick’s ministers to betray him, for they had not the power. they were there to give him information and to obey his behests. he seldom asked them for advice. “good counsel does not come from a great number,” was his maxim. newton, he maintained, could not have discovered the law of gravitation if he had been collaborating with leibnitz and descartes. as minerva sprang armed from the head of jupiter, so must a policy spring from the head of the prince.
frederick, therefore, admitted no man or body of men as his colleague, in the work of government. the officers of the directory, justice, and foreign affairs were not allowed to form a conclave which might meddle with questions of general welfare. as a body they were wont to appear before the king only once a year. as individuals they seldom communicated with him save in writing. the ministers of foreign affairs had not even the privilege of writing about all of the important matters which fell within the scope of their department. their master kept the conduct of weighty182 negotiations within his own cabinet and corresponded with his ambassadors direct. eichel was his sole familiar. secrecy, which the king termed the soul of public business, was thus preserved inviolable. “to pry into my secrets,” he boasted, “they must first corrupt me.”
this is not the place to marshal the disadvantages to the state which the prussian system of administration involved. at this stage it is sufficient to note that it placed absolute power in frederick’s hands and that he regarded it as a monument of the highest wisdom. “if you depart from the principles and the system that our father has introduced,” ran his warning to his brother and heir, “you will be the first to suffer by it.”
the ten years of peace were therefore not devoted to structural reform. in the first year of his reign frederick had created a fifth department of the general directory. to it he entrusted first the trade and manufactures of the whole kingdom and later the posts and the settlement of immigrants from other lands. in 1746 he established in like manner a sixth department, that of military affairs. these changes merely developed the system of frederick william a little further. by a new departure, however, the government of silesia was made independent of the general directory. for reasons which the king never stated, münchow became the only minister for the province, and he was responsible to frederick alone. with this addition the whole framework of government was stereotyped by an ordinance of 1748.
183 the years 1746–1756 are notable for frederick’s use of his machine rather than for the changes which he made in it. he now displayed in action the principles of domestic policy which were the fruit of his early training and the guide of his later years. his ideal is as simple to understand as it was difficult to realise in practice. he allowed his subjects to think as they pleased on condition that they acted as he pleased. neither in home nor in foreign policy did the king recognise any bounds to the assistance that he might demand from the dwellers within his dominions.
the main object of his foreign policy was to extend the borders of prussia to the utmost limit consistent with the safety of the state. his home policy was to bring within those borders the greatest possible number of men, to prevent them from falling below a certain moderate level of righteousness, comfort, and knowledge, to organise a huge army, to collect a vast revenue, and to enable prussia as far as possible to supply all the needs of every one of her people. other states were useful to her because they supplied recruits to her army, teachers for her artisans, and gold and silver in exchange for her surplus manufactures. the gold and silver were drawn into the treasury by taxation and used to build villages, to establish new manufactures, to hire more soldiers, and to fill frederick’s war-chest. then, by war or a display of force which made war superfluous, a new province would be joined to prussia and the routine of development, taxation, armament, and acquisition could begin anew.
184 it does not appear that frederick regarded any single part of this programme as weightier than the rest. in spite of all his economies and accumulations he was no miser, cherishing money for its own sake. he hoarded treasure so that his army might be sure of pay in time of war and his subjects sure of help in case of devastating calamity. on the same principle he maintained and added to the huge government granaries, which bought in years of plenty and sold, at high but not exorbitant prices, in years of dearth. frederick did not refuse to make some profit from the institution, but his main object was to confer upon the state the inestimable boon of freedom from famine. the establishment of public warehouses for wool, silk, and cotton was similarly designed to guard against glut and shortage. it was merely a new adaptation of the policy of the staple, which england had discarded at the end of the middle ages. but it secured a market to the prussian producer and an unfailing source of supply to the prussian manufacturer and placed the whole traffic in raw materials under the supervision and control of the state.
frederick is as little open to the charge of megalomania as to that of avarice. he was singularly free from foibles. he frankly admits that the adventure of 1740 was partly inspired by the desire to make himself a name. but before the peace of dresden his lust of mere conquest seems to have been extinguished. thenceforward his armaments and acquisitions were strictly regulated by reasons of state, and in his conception of statecraft domestic policy185 stood on a par with foreign. he likened the finances, foreign policy, and the army to three steeds harnessed abreast to the car of state, and himself to the charioteer who directed them and urged them on.
frederick’s most striking innovations in the department of home affairs were made during his later years. it will therefore be necessary in a subsequent chapter to give further illustrations of the working of his principles and to calculate the results which he accomplished. all through his reign, however, the process of internal improvement and interference was carried on in conformity with these ideas. agriculture, as the basis of all, had the first claim upon the king’s attention, and he made unceasing efforts to render every acre of the land productive and to provide it with a cultivator. if in the course of his innumerable journeys he observed a waste place that seemed capable of improvement he would commend it to the provincial chamber as a site for a certain number of new villages of a given size. if the suggestion proved feasible it was carried out at the expense of the state, which reaped its profit in course of time from the new taxpayers, producers, and recruits, who were thus included in the commonwealth.
the most signal of these victories in time of peace was the reclaiming of huge swamps lying along the oder below frankfurt, in july, 1747, the king appointed commissioners, including the famous mathematician euler, and placed troops at their disposal. the task demanded not only dams and drainage works, but also in parts excavation of a new186 bed for the great river. it was urged forward by frederick with all speed. he often inspected the works and exacted a report of their progress week by week. boats were commandeered by force from the reluctant villagers. some of those whose fishing rights were done away conjured the king, “falling at his feet,” so ran their petition, “most submissively in deepest woe and dejection as a most terrified band fearing the fatal stroke,” that he would lay to heart the ruin which his measures would inevitably bring upon them. the king drily answered that they might let him know when they had suffered any actual harm and compensated them with reclaimed land.
early in 1753 frederick was able to make arrangements to people the new province which he had thus conquered from the domain of chaos. the landowners, who had shared in the general opposition to the enterprise, were compelled to resign to the state their claim to a large percentage of the reclaimed land and to provide a prescribed number of peasants for the remainder. born prussians were as a rule declared ineligible, for here was an opportunity of tempting valuable fresh blood into the state. freedom from military service to the third generation, exemption from taxes for some years, and at first actual assistance were the terms offered to many immigrants. the result was that frederick secured an influx of new subjects from far and wide. the rhineland, würtemburg, mecklenburg, swedish pomerania, saxony, bohemia, poland, and the mountains of austria—all sent contingents. he laid187 out more than 500,000 thalers in all and secured a rental of 20,000. more than 250 villages were created. thanks in great part to this policy of internal colonisation, the numbers of the people steadily rose. at his accession frederick had ruled over rather more than 2,200,000 people. thirteen years later the number in the old provinces had become more than one-sixth greater, while east frisia added 90,000 souls and silesia some 1,200,000 more. in 1756 the total exceeded 4,000,000.
the decade which followed the peace of dresden, though uneventful in comparison with the periods of seven years which it divides, was thus by no means barren. for frederick it was indeed a period of manifold activity. it was signalised by the establishment of sans souci and by the memorable visit of voltaire. for three years (1750–1753) the king enjoyed the constant exchange of homage with the cynosure of the world of letters, who described his new home, potsdam, as “sparta and athens joined in one, nothing but reviewing and poetry day by day.” each of the two friends revered the genius and despised the character of the other. the sequel was a desperate quarrel, and the flight and arrest of voltaire. when he was suffered to pass beyond the reach of frederick’s sceptre he strove to avenge himself with the pen which had lavished exquisite flattery upon the king for many years and which was often to resume the old style in the future.
literary effort and witty company were, however, only the king’s solace in a life of labour. day by188 day he scanned the political horizon, resolved to take no action which would not serve the state, and to shrink from nothing if prussian interests were threatened. day by day, too, he urged forward the labours of peace and the preparations for war. while silesia was being gradually assimilated and the old prussia developed, frederick was making use of his new possession, east frisia, in a tardy and only moderately successful endeavour to further commerce overseas. commerce in frederick’s opinion ranked far below agriculture and manufactures in value to a state with ideals such as those which he had chosen for prussia. he therefore devoted far more of his energy to the task of forwarding prussian industry, which he argued gave employment to a thousand times as many men, brought more gold and silver into the country, and remained more amenable to state control. at the same time he was steadily accumulating treasure and perfecting his military force. in the fateful year 1756 he had upwards of 14,000,000 thalers stored up for war. the standing army then numbered more than 150,000 men.
