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The General Directorate (German : General-Ober-Finanz-Kriegs-und Domainen-Direktorium), was an administrative body of the Kingdom of Prussia for internal and financial administration that existed between 1723 and 1808. It was founded by King Frederick William I as a "registry". This led to the development of the Privy Ministerial Archives, which were merged with the Privy State Archives in 1874.
The General Directorate was set up by King Frederick William I on December 20, 1722, to consolidate the departments established during his reign to replace the corrupt Cabinet of Three Counts and reorganize the finances that had been shattered by his father, King Frederick I. [1] The Directorate connected the General Finance Directorate , founded in 1713, and the General War Commissariat , which had existed since 1660, [lower-alpha 1] to form the General-Ober-Finanz-Kriegs-und Domainen-Direktorium. The new central authority was initially divided into four "departments", each of which was responsible for several territories of the entire state. The Directorate was responsible for financial, economic and domestic policy (with the exception of the judiciary and church). [2] The war and domain chambers formed in the provinces and most of the special administrations were also subordinate to him. [3]
Beginning with the reign of King Frederick II in 1740 onwards, a number of new departments were created which were divided into subject areas, namely for trade and manufacturing (in 1740), for military economics (in 1746), for excise and customs (in 1766), for mines and smelters (in 1768) and for forests (in 1770). Since the provincial departments remained in place, a complex juxtaposition of responsibilities emerged. At the head of each department was a "Directing Minister". It was also notable that Frederick did not place the "Sovereign Duchy" of Silesia, which he defeated in 1741/63 (annexed under the Treaty of Berlin in 1742 and the Treaty of Hubertusburg in 1763), under the jurisdiction of the General Directorate, but rather to a provincial minister who reported directly to him. [2]
Under Frederick's successors, the shortcomings of this organization were recognized, but only partially corrected. It was only in the course of the Stein-Hardenberg Reforms that the General Directorate was abolished in 1808 and its tasks were transferred to the modern State Ministry, in which the distribution of departments was divided solely according to subject areas. [2]
East Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and again from 1878 ; following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's Free State of Prussia, until 1945. Its capital city was Königsberg. East Prussia was the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast.
Brandenburg-Prussia is the historiographic denomination for the early modern realm of the Brandenburgian Hohenzollerns between 1618 and 1701. Based in the Electorate of Brandenburg, the main branch of the Hohenzollern intermarried with the branch ruling the Duchy of Prussia, and secured succession upon the latter's extinction in the male line in 1618. Another consequence of intermarriage was the incorporation of the lower Rhenish principalities of Cleves, Mark and Ravensberg after the Treaty of Xanten in 1614.
The Kingdom of Prussia constituted the German state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918. It was the driving force behind the unification of Germany in 1866 and was the leading state of the German Empire until its dissolution in 1918. Although it took its name from the region called Prussia, it was based in the Margraviate of Brandenburg. Its capital was Berlin.
Prussia was a German state located on most of the North European Plain, also occupying southern and eastern regions. It formed the German Empire when it united the German states in 1871. It was de facto dissolved by an emergency decree transferring powers of the Prussian government to German Chancellor Franz von Papen in 1932 and de jure by an Allied decree in 1947. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, expanding its size with the Prussian Army. Prussia, with its capital at Königsberg and then, when it became the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701, Berlin, decisively shaped the history of Germany.
South Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1793 to 1807.
The Treaties of Tilsit, also collectively known as the Peace of Tilsit, were two peace treaties signed by French Emperor Napoleon in the town of Tilsit in July 1807 in the aftermath of his victory at Friedland, at the end of the War of the Fourth Coalition. The first was signed on 7 July, between Napoleon and Russian Emperor Alexander I, when they met on a raft in the middle of the Neman river. The second was signed with Prussia on 9 July. The treaties were made at the expense of King Frederick William III of Prussia, who had already agreed to a truce on 25 June after the Grande Armée had captured Berlin and pursued him to the easternmost frontier of his realm.
Following the defeats Prussia suffered in the 30 Years' War, Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, set up the General War Commissariat (General-Kriegs-Kommissariat) to oversee the army, as well as to levy taxes necessary to support the army. It soon became a bureaucratic machine for civil government as well. Frederick William used it to govern the state. Many members were landed aristocracy known as Junkers, who served in the army as well. The commissariats helped to centralize power. It later was merged into General Directory of War and Finance in 1723. Joachim Friedrich von Blumenthal was its first head since 1646. During the reign of Frederick William I, Friedrich Wilhelm von Grumbkow became its head.
Hans Karl von Winterfeldt, a Prussian general, served in the War of the Polish Succession, the War of Austrian Succession, Frederick the Great's Silesian wars and the Seven Years' War. One of Frederick's trusted confidantes and advisors, he attracted enmity from other courtiers. Frederick entrusted him with considerable autonomy on the general staff, and Winterfeldt developed the first "modern" program of military intelligence gathering. He negotiated the Convention of Westminster and, for his efforts on Frederick's behalf, received the Order of the Black Eagle and the Order Pour le Mérite. He died from wounds received at Battle of Moys. His name is included on the Equestrian statue of Frederick the Great.
Prince Augustus William of Prussia was the son of King Frederick William I of Prussia and a younger brother and general of Frederick the Great.
The Royal Prussian Army served as the army of the Kingdom of Prussia. It became vital to the development of Prussia as a European power.
The First Silesian War was a war between Prussia and Austria that lasted from 1740 to 1742 and resulted in Prussia's seizing most of the region of Silesia from Austria. The war was fought mainly in Silesia, Moravia and Bohemia and formed one theatre of the wider War of the Austrian Succession. It was the first of three Silesian Wars fought between Frederick the Great's Prussia and Maria Theresa's Austria in the mid-18th century, all three of which ended in Prussian control of Silesia.
The Canton System or Canton Regulation was a system of recruitment used by the Prussian army between 1733 and 1813. The country was divided into recruiting districts called cantons, and each canton was the responsibility of a regiment. The system was distinctly Prussian. Every male was from the youngest possible age enrolled in the army, and by 1740 the Prussian army, with a strength of 3.6% of the total population, was proportionately the largest in Europe. The new system replaced coercive recruiting, which in turn replaced the hiring of undependable and expensive mercenary forces. It allowed the army to double from 38,000 to 76,000, making it the fourth largest in Europe, and it linked the local population more closely to the royal government.
Friedrich Wilhelm von Grumbkow was a Prussian Generalfeldmarschall and statesman.
The Royal Prussian Army was the principal armed force of the Kingdom of Prussia during its participation in the Napoleonic Wars.
From the 1680s to 1789, Germany comprised many small territories which were parts of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Prussia finally emerged as dominant. Meanwhile, the states developed a classical culture that found its greatest expression in the Enlightenment, with world class leaders such as philosophers Leibniz and Kant, writers such as Goethe and Schiller, and musicians Bach and Beethoven.
The Province of Pomerania was a province of Brandenburg-Prussia, the later Kingdom of Prussia. After the Thirty Years' War, the province consisted of Farther Pomerania. Subsequently, the Lauenburg and Bütow Land, Draheim, and Swedish Pomerania south of the Peene river were joined into the province. The province was succeeded by the Province of Pomerania set up in 1815.
The Treaty of Paris of 24 February 1812 between Napoleon I of France and Frederick William III of Prussia established a Franco-Prussian alliance directed against Russia. On 24 June, Prussia joined the French invasion of Russia. The unpopular alliance broke down when the Prussian contingent in French service signed a separate armistice, the Convention of Tauroggen, with Russia on 30 December 1812. On 17 March 1813, Frederick William declared war on France and issued his famous proclamation "To My People".
Franz Balthasar Schönberg von Brenkenhoff (1723-1780) was a Prussian secret financial adviser. He was the head of the Netze District and the builder of the Bromberger Kanal.
The Prussian State Ministry from 1808 to 1850 was the executive body of ministers, subordinate to the King of Prussia and, from 1850 to 1918, the overall ministry of the State of Prussia consisting of the individual ministers. In other German states, it corresponded to the state government or the senate of a free city.