 | This article on a notable topic needs additional citations for verification . An editor has performed a search and found that sufficient sources exist; these may be found on the talk page.(September 2022) |
Karl Justus Gruner from 1815 Justus von Gruner (28 February 1777 - 8 February 1820) was a Prussian official who became the first president of the Berlin Police.
Justus Gruner was born as a son of a lawyer in Osnabrück and studied law and political science at the universities of Halle and Göttingen. From 1799 to 1802 he worked as an advocat in Osnabrück. [1] He entered the Prussian service and worked as an official in the Prussian colonial administration. Gruner became known as a careful and hard-working civil servant in the areas Prussia had recently conquered in Poland. He worked in the region of Posen where he helped German settlers. After this he also worked in East Prussia and West Pomerania. [2]
In 1809 Gruner was appointed as director of the Police of Berlin. The Prussian ministers Stein and Hardenberg became impressed by his commitment, patriotism and reformist ideas. In Berlin Gruner was responsible for the centralization of the police force and extended its jurisdiction to the suburbs. He also reformed the fire department and devised different sorts of measures to combat corruption. Because of those merits the Prussian Secret Council of State appointed him as chief of the "higher police". But Gruner was displeased with the hesitancy of king Frederick William III of Prussia and resigned from his post in 1812. [2]
After his resignation he started to create an anti-Napoleonic spy network from Prague. He was asked to do this on behalf of tsar Alexander I of Russia. He was just a couple of months in the business of spying when he was captured by the police force that worked for Clemens von Metternich, in that time an ally of Imperial France. In 1813 Gruner was released after Austria joined the Sixth Coalition against Napoleon. He was immediately appointed as governor of the general government of the liberated Duchy of Berg. [2]
Due to his contacts with Hardenberg and Stein he was asked to become the head of the Allied security service and created after his arrival in Paris the Allied General Directorate of Police and the Allied military police force. His service would be responsible for assisting and keeping an eye on the French administration of the Restoration and for ensuring the safety of the occopying forces of the Allies. [3] His forces were tasked to amass rumours on behalf of the occupying powers. [4] The first success of Gruner and his force in France was the arrest of the French Napoleonic spy Karl Schulmeister. [5] In November 1815 the Prussian headquarters was moved to Caen and the function and the force of Gruner were abolished. He received his last payment in January 1816. [6]
Next he was sent to Switzerland as a diplomat where he worked until in 1819. As a Prussian ambassador he had influence on the Swiss politics and Gruner contributed to the reorganisation of the Swiss military. Despite his anti-French sentiment he showed himself as an advocate for the Swiss neutrality. He died in 1820 in Wiesbaden. [7]
In the Battle of Lützen, Napoleon I of France defeated an allied army of the Sixth Coalition.
The Austro-Prussian War, Seven Weeks' War, German Civil War, Brothers War or Fraternal War, known in Germany as Deutscher Krieg, Deutscher Bruderkrieg and by a variety of other names, was fought in 1866 between the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia, with each also being aided by various allies within the German Confederation. Prussia had also allied with the Kingdom of Italy, linking this conflict to the Third Independence War of Italian unification. The Austro-Prussian War was part of the wider rivalry between Austria and Prussia, and resulted in Prussian dominance over the German states.
Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, Fürst von Wahlstatt, Graf (count), later elevated to Fürst von Wahlstatt, was a Prussian Generalfeldmarschall. He earned his greatest recognition after leading his army against Napoleon I at the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig in 1813 and the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
Karl August Fürst von Hardenberg was a Prussian statesman and Prime Minister of Prussia. While during his late career he acquiesced to reactionary policies, earlier in his career he implemented a variety of Liberal reforms. To him and Baron vom Stein, Prussia was indebted for improvements in its army system, the abolition of serfdom and feudal burdens, the throwing open of the civil service to all classes, and the complete reform of the educational system.
The Hundred Days, also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition, marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815. This period saw the War of the Seventh Coalition, and includes the Waterloo Campaign, the Neapolitan War as well as several other minor campaigns. The phrase les Cent Jours was first used by the prefect of Paris, Gaspard, comte de Chabrol, in his speech welcoming the king back to Paris on 8 July.
Frederick William III was King of Prussia from 16 November 1797 until his death in 1840. He was concurrently Elector of Brandenburg in the Holy Roman Empire until 6 August 1806, when the Empire was dissolved.
The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918. It was the driving force behind the unification of Germany in 1871 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.
The twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt were fought on 14 October 1806 on the plateau west of the river Saale in today's Germany, between the forces of Napoleon I of France and Frederick William III of Prussia. The defeat suffered by the Prussian Army subjugated the Kingdom of Prussia to the French Empire until the Sixth Coalition was formed in 1813.
In the War of the Sixth Coalition, sometimes known in Germany as the Wars of Liberation, a coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Sweden, and a number of German States defeated France and drove Napoleon into exile on Elba. After the disastrous French invasion of Russia of 1812 in which they had been forced to support France, Prussia and Austria joined Russia, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Portugal, and the rebels in Spain who were already at war with France.
Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst was a Hanoverian-born general in Prussian service from 1801. As the first Chief of the Prussian General Staff, he was noted for his military theories, his reforms of the Prussian army, and his leadership during the Napoleonic Wars. Scharnhorst limited the use of corporal punishments, established promotion for merit, abolished the enrollment of foreigners, began the organization of a reserve army, and organized and simplified the military administration.
Count Christian Günther von Bernstorff was a Danish and Prussian statesman and diplomat.
Christian August Heinrich Kurt Graf von Haugwitz was a German statesman, best known for serving as Foreign Minister of Prussia during the Napoleonic Wars.
The Waterloo campaign was fought between the French Army of the North and two Seventh Coalition armies, an Anglo-allied army and a Prussian army. Initially the French army was commanded by Napoleon Bonaparte, but he left for Paris after the French defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. Command then rested on Marshals Soult and Grouchy, who were in turn replaced by Marshal Davout, who took command at the request of the French Provisional Government. The Anglo-allied army was commanded by the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian army by Prince Blücher.
Heinrich Friedrich Karl Reichsfreiherrvom und zum Stein, commonly known as Baron vom Stein, was a Prussian statesman who introduced the Prussian reforms, which paved the way for the unification of Germany. He promoted the abolition of serfdom, with indemnification to territorial lords; subjection of the nobles to manorial imposts; and the establishment of a modern municipal system.
Friedrich Ferdinand Alexander zu Dohna-Schlobitten was a Prussian politician.
The Prussian Reform Movement was a series of constitutional, administrative, social and economic reforms early in nineteenth-century Prussia. They are sometimes known as the Stein-Hardenberg Reforms, for Karl Freiherr vom Stein and Karl August von Hardenberg, their main initiators. German historians, such as Heinrich von Treitschke, saw the reforms as the first steps towards the unification of Germany and the foundation of the German Empire before the First World War.
Karl Sigmund Franz Freiherr vom Stein zum Altenstein was a Prussian politician and the first Prussian education minister. His most lasting impact was the reform of the Prussian educational system.
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".
The Congress of Châtillon was a peace conference held at Châtillon-sur-Seine, north-eastern France, from 5 February to 5 March 1814, in the latter stages of the War of the Sixth Coalition. Peace had previously been offered by the Coalition allies to Napoleon I's France in the November 1813 Frankfurt proposals. These proposals required that France revert to her "natural borders" of the Rhine, Pyrenees and the Alps. Napoleon was reluctant to lose his territories in Germany and Italy and refused the proposals. By December the French had been pushed back in Germany and Napoleon indicated that he would accept peace on the Frankfurt terms. The Coalition however now sought to reduce France to her 1791 borders, which would not include Belgium.
Beatrice A. de Graaf is a Dutch history professor at the Faculty of Humanities at Utrecht University. Her areas of expertise are terrorism, international relations & security and the modern history of Europe.