1653 – Convinced Junkers to grant him the money to build an army In exchange Junkers maintained privileges – allowed to keep control of the peasantry.

1653 – Convinced Junkers to grant him the money to build an army

In exchange Junkers maintained privileges – allowed to keep control of the peasantry

Controlled Nobility

Established Military

Created a permanent standing army

Junkers = Officers

Peasants = Soldiers

This was the 1st modern civil service

Other PoliciesIncreased taxes to the equivalent of France (had to pay for military)

Religious Toleration – welcomed 20,000 Huguenots, Polish Jews and other refugees

Took the title of King of Prussia

Establishing the power of the Hohenzollern family in Europe

Modeled himself after Louis XIV

Continued policies of his Grandfather – centralization

Turned Royal Gardens into a military training ground

Increased army from 39,000 – 80,000

All young men HAD TO register for military service

Created the 1st Military reserves

Eccentricities of the “Sergeant King”

He had a strange preference for Tall men, and would send recruiting agents out throughout Europe to find them. He even gave bonuses to parents who surrendered their tallest sons to him. At one point he instituted a breeding program that ultimately turned out to be too slow a process. Many of the giants resorted to desertion or suicide, despite the great pay. He doted on his Giants and didn’t waste them in battle, rather he liked to paint portraits of them. When he was depressed he would have a few 100 of them march through his bedroom to cheer him up.

“What distinguishes the Prussians from other people is that theirs is not a country with an army. They have an army and a country that serves it.”

ROAD TO POWER Youngest son of Tsar Alexis –he was a

child from Alexis’ second wife

Alexis had 3 children with his 1st wife

1. Feodor – an invalid

2. Sophia

3. Ivan – a semi imbecile

1676 – Alexis died and Feodor became Tsar

1682 – sickly Feodor died and Peter’s mother campaigns to have him made Tsar over Ivan

Peter is made Tsar at 10 years old

Ivan’s Family instigates a coup d’etat Peter watched as his supporters and family

were thrown form the Red Stairs of the Faceted Palace in Moscow onto raised pikes

Coup is successful and Peter is forced to share Tsarship with Ivan

Sophia acts as the regent

EARLY TROUBLES

Miserable Peter leaves Moscow and becomes interested in war games

He becomes acquainted with Western strategies and tactics

He establishes a military support base

Sophia tries another coup, this time loosing to Peter

Peter exiles Sophia to a convent

6 years later Ivan dies and Peter is left to rule alone

1st Tsar in 100 years to make contact with the West in peacetime

Met with Western Monarchs such as William III of England to establish a mutually beneficial trading relationship

Conducted diplomacy

In England he stayed at a house in Deptford belonging to writer John Evelyn. During his stay he and his companions caused a great deal of damage. He had a party full of “nasty people” wrecked the house and garden, carpets were left filthy with grease and ink. Paintings looked like they were used as shooting targets. Locks and windows were broken. Every one of the 50 chairs in the house vanished – probably burned in fires.

Traveled incognito (in Holland he worked as a ship’s carpenter)

His trip created a desire to Modernize Russian state and to Westernize its society

1698 – Forced to return home when he hears of another rebellion by Sophia

Responds with force – ordering a mass execution of the surviving rebels

Next day he stared his program to recreate Russia in the image of the West

Another Coup

Peter hung the bodies of the rebels outside of Sophia’s convent window, and Sophia apparently went mad.

Translation:

Right Corner:

“The barber went to cut off an Old Believer’s beard”

Left Corner:

“The Old Believer says:”

“Listen, barber, I neither want to cut my beard nor shave watch out, or I will call the guards to teach you to behave.”

WESTERNIZATION

Military Conscription

Technical schools

Replaced church patriarchy with himself

Simplified the alphabet

WESTERNIZATION

Changed Calendar to fit the West

Changed his title from Tsar to Emperor

Moved capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg (a new “modernized” city)

Peter used forced peasant labor to build his

palace.

Conservative Clergy

Nobility

His son Alexis

Sentenced to death by Peter

Died while being tortured

Alexis renounced his right to succession and fled to Austria. Peter thought he fled to get foreign backing and had him arrested and tried for treason. He was sentenced to death. Died from the torture wich occurred before the execution could ever take place.

Peter died in 1725In November 1724 – he leapt into freezing water and worked throughout the night to assist in the rescue of 20 sailors whose ship had been grounded. The resulting fever helped lead to his death in early 1925

The Holy Roman Empire

300+ German States

Austria

Bohemia

Hungary

•Major Obstacles in the way of an Absolute Monarchy

•Not a nation-state – included too many languages, traditions and nationalities.

•Germans

•Czechs

•Magyars

•Slovaks

•Croatians

•Slovenes

•Rumanians

•Italians

•Poles

•Successfully resisted both Ottoman Empire and King XIV of France

•Acquired virtually all of Hungary and imposed his authority over the Magyar aristocracy

•Most Magyar nobles had become Protestant during the Reformation. Hapsburg persecution of Hungarian Protestants sparked an insurrection in 1679

•1684 – Leopold led a “Holy League” against the Turks

•Victory forced the Hungarian Estates to declare that the Hungarian throne would be a hereditary possession of the Hapsburgs – recognizing the sovereignty of the Hapsburg dynasty

•Magyar Nobles would continue to be tax exempt

•War of Spanish Succession

•Won Battle of Blenheim over the French

•Confirmed Austria’s position as one of the great powers of Europe

•Took throne after Joseph I 1705 – 1711

•War of Spanish Succession – awarded the Spanish Netherlands and Spain’s holdings in Italy

•The Pragmatic Sanction – allowed the throne to be passed down to his daughter Maria Theresa

•War of Austrian Succession 1740-1748 – she successfully defended her right to inherit the Austrian Hapsburg domains

•Created a centralized bureaucracy to control local affairs

•Established the state’s control over the administration of the Roman Catholic Church

•Husband had the title Holy Roman Emperor

Schoenbrunn Palace

Versailles

Schoenbrunn Versailles

Schoenbrunn

Versailles