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George William ( German: Georg Wilhelm; 13 November 1595 – 1 December 1640), of the Hohenzollern dynasty, was Margrave and Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia from 1619 until his death. His reign was marked by ineffective governance during the Thirty Years' War.
George William was the elector of Brandenburg (from 1619) through much of the Thirty Years’ War. Though a Calvinist, George William was persuaded by his Roman Catholic adviser Adam von Schwarzenberg to stay out of the struggle between the Holy Roman emperor and the German Protestant princes.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
In 1356, by the terms of the Golden Bull of Charles IV, the Margrave of Brandenburg was given the permanent right to participate in the election of the Holy Roman Emperor with the title of Elector (German: Kurfürst).
George William ( German: Georg Wilhelm; 13 November 1595 – 1 December 1640), of the Hohenzollern dynasty, was Margrave and Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia from 1619 until his death. His reign was marked by ineffective governance during the Thirty Years' War.
"George William (German: Georg Wilhelm; 13 November 1595 – 1 December 1640), of the Hohenzollern dynasty, was margrave and elector of Brandenburg and duke of Prussia from 1619 until his death. His reign was marked by ineffective governance during the Thirty Years´ War.
- Biography
- Foreign Diplomacy
- Military Career
- Domestic Policies
- Legacy
- Marriages
- Further Reading
Elector Frederick William was born in Berlin to George William, Elector of Brandenburg, and Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate. His inheritance consisted of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the Duchy of Cleves, the County of Mark, and the Duchy of Prussia. Owing to the disorder in Brandenburg during the Thirty Years' War, he spent part of his you...
Following the Thirty Years' War, which devastated much of the Holy Roman Empire, Frederick William focused on rebuilding his war-ravaged territories. Brandenburg-Prussia benefited from his policy of religious tolerance, and he used French subsidies to build up an army that took part in the 1655 to 1660 Second Northern War. This ended with the treat...
Frederick William was a military commander of wide renown, and his standing army would later become the model for the Prussian Army. He is notable for his joint victory with Swedish forces at the Battle of Warsaw, which, according to Hajo Holborn, marked "the beginning of Prussian military history", but the Swedes turned on him at the behest of Kin...
Since his capital Berlin had suffered greatly from the Swedish occupation during the Thirty Years' War, Friedrich Wilhelm commissioned the master engineer Johann Gregor Memhardt to plan a city fortification. Construction of the Berlin Fortress began in 1650 following the contemporary fortification model of bastion fortsin northern Italy. Large part...
In his half-century reign, 1640–1688, the Great Elector transformed the small remote state of Prussia into a great power by augmenting and integrating the Hohenzollern family possessions in northern Germany and Prussia. When he became elector (ruler) of Brandenburg in 1640, the country was in ruins from the Thirty Years' War; it had lost half its p...
On 7 December 1646 in The Hague, Frederick William entered into a marriage, proposed by 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 and his 1st cousin once removed through William the Silent. Their children were a...
Carsten, Francis L. "The Great Elector and the foundation of the Hohenzollern despotism." English Historical Review 65.255 (1950): 175–202. OnlineCarsten, Francis L. "The Great Elector" History Today(1960) 10#2 pp. 83–89.Clark, Christopher M. Iron kingdom: the rise and downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947(Harvard UP, 2006).Citino, Robert. The German Way of War. From the Thirty Years War to the Third Reich(UP Kansas, 2005).During the electorate of George William (1620–40), Brandenburg at first sought neutrality in the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48) but nevertheless suffered invasions and long occupation by the Swedes.
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