The story really starts to snap into place in 1701, when the Great Elector’s son, Frederick III (the non-diversity of names makes things confusing) crowned himself king. The very early going of Iron Kingdom was a bit slow, especially since I haven’t spent a lot of time studying this time period. He created a modern army with consistent uniforms, standardized weaponry, and an emphasis on drill. The so-called “Great Elector” started Prussia down the path to greatness – and ruin – by focusing on military prowess.

Things began to change with the reign of Frederick William I. During the Thirty Years’ War, various armies marched unhindered across Prussian lands, leaving desolation in their wake.

It begins in the early 17th century, when Prussia was a relatively weak duchy enclosed within indefensible borders. Iron Kingdom is a massive book boldly striving for comprehensiveness without skimping on detail. Whatever Prussia’s contribution to education, thought, and culture, there is no denying its aggressive militarism. Though Clark adds context, texture, and nuance, there is no changing the fact that Prussia’s martial aptitude created her, allowed her to expand, and ultimately unmade her in the wake of World War II. Mostly, though, I am thinking of an army with a state, rather than a state with an army.īy the end of Iron Kingdom, Christopher Clark’s enormous history of Prussia, my original conception had not changed much. When I think of Prussia, certain impressions spring immediately to mind, some positive, others decidedly not: monocled generals planning their next conquest well-trained soldiers marching in jack-booted lockstep overfed Junkers on their vast feudal estates and a centralized civil bureaucracy striving for coldblooded efficiency. Ĝhristopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 The topographer Nicolaus Leuthinger, author of an early description of Brandenburg, wrote in 1598 of a ‘flat land, wooded and for the most part swamp.’ ‘Sand,’ flatness, ‘bogs’ and ‘uncultivated areas’ were recurring topoi in all the early accounts, even the most panegyric…” Monotonous forests of birch and fir covered much of its surface. The rivers that cross it are sluggish meandering streams that lack the grandeur of the Rhine or Danube. Situated in the midst of the dreary plain that stretches from the Netherlands to northern Poland, the Brandenburg countryside has rarely attracted visitors. This was the heartland of the state that would later be known as Prussia. “In the beginning there was only Brandenburg, a territory encompassing some 40,000 square kilometers and centered on the city of Berlin.

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