this video is sponsored by call of War check it out via the link in the description in the beginning there was only Brandenburg a territory encompassing some 40 000 square kilometers and centered on the city of Berlin the Brandenburg Countryside has rarely attracted visitors it poses no distinct landmarks the rivers that cross it are sluggish Meandering streams that lack the Grandeur of the Rhine or Danube the soil across much of Brandenburg was a poor quality in some areas especially around Berlin the ground was so Sandy and light that trees would not grow on it Brandenburg was landlocked and without defensible natural borders of any kind it was a purely political entity assembled from the land Seas from Pagan Slavs during the Middle Ages that is how historian Christopher Clark described the electorate of Brandenburg an unpromising and largely uninteresting electorate of the Holy Roman Empire itself a loose Confederation of mostly Germanic states in Central Europe in 1417 Brandenburg was purchased for the price of 400 000 Hungarian Gold gilders by the house of hohen's Island a rising clan of South German nobility under their leadership this unassuming polity would rise from a small state in Central Europe to one of the most powerful Empires on Earth and come to be known by a new name along the way Prussia but for now there is only Brandenburg so you can call me Ezekiel and this is the history of Prussia the German states may be divided now but in large part thanks to the hoenn's islands Brandenburg and later Prussia they would be unified into Germany which you can play as right now in today's sponsor call of War Call of war is the free online PVP strategy game that puts you in charge of any country in the world during World War II including Germany you'll then lead your nation in a massive real-time multiplayer match with up to a hundred other players some games run for weeks and feature all of the drama and entry you would expect to win call of War you'll have to make the best use of all the tools at your disposal including tanks warplanes and even secret weapons like nuclear bombs but sheer power isn't everything you'll need to make skillful use of diplomacy to win powerful friends and turn your enemies against each other the game is available on both PC and mobile devices so click on our exclusive Link in the description to get 13 000 gold and one month of Premium subscription for free this offer is only available for a limited time though so take advantage before it's gone amen [Music] the opening Decades of the 16th century saw the Protestant Reformation spread across Europe bringing political and religious upheaval along with it like most other North German nobility the hohens converted to the new faith and converted their people over the following Century but the hohen's islands were far too ambitious to be content with just religious reform they wanted to expand Beyond Brandenburg but they would not accomplish this with a kind of military conquests which the future Prussia would be famous for rather the Hoenn solerns pursued a policy more closely associated with Habsburg Austria marriage the hohen salerns married their children to every ruler whose lands they were likely to inherit this policy was tremendously Successful by the middle of the 17th century the hohenz islands inherited land in Germany's Rich Northwest and all of dukal Prussia in the East but while the hoenns islands were not interested in war war soon took an interest in them when in 1618 the protest in Bohemians to fenestrated Catholic Austrian diplomats in Prague beginning the 30 Years War while impressive the new Brandenburg prussia's land Acquisitions did nothing to solve any of her Geographic challenges if anything it made them worse the hohen salerns now controlled lands both inside and outside of the Holy Roman Empire technically do call Prussia owed its allegiance to the king of Poland none of the new territories were connected to Brandenburg or even to each other and Berlin did not have an army large enough to defend any of them while its government was too weak to raise the taxes necessary to expand it frankly the Hoenn tolerance of this era were lovers not Fighters brandenburg's elector for most of the 30 years war was George William he knew how bad the situation was so trying to pursue a policy of neutrality but with neither The Diplomatic influence nor military power to actually enforce that neutrality armies from both sides ignored his wishes and passed through his lands frequently looting them along the way this forced George William into an alliance with the Catholic emperor however the elector did not totally abandon his Protestant friends and petitioned his brother-in-law Gustavus Adolphus the king of Sweden to join the war on the protestant's behalf unfortunately for the elector he got exactly what he wanted when Gustavus landed in Northern Germany he used his army to bully Brandenburg Prussia into breaking its alliance with the emperor and to Ally with him but when Gustavus Adolphus died leading a cavalry charge at the Battle of lutzin Brandenburg was forced to once again turn coat and realy itself with the emperor when the remaining Swedish forces found out about this they occupied in pillage Brandenburg the situation was so bad that George William was forced to flee Berlin for dukhal prasha where he would remain until his death the level of Devastation inflicted on Brandenburg is hard to overstate the 30 years war is already Infamous for the frequency and degree of atrocities committed against civilians and Brandenburg was among the worst regions hit 50 of its population would die as a direct result of the conflict and from the free spread of disease and famine it caused by the end of the 30 Years War Brandenburg Prussia was a husk of its 4 former South it would take a great man to redeem the ruined nation and a great man is exactly what it got a man who's known to history as the great elector Frederick William Frederick Williams spent much of the 30 Years War as a student in the Netherlands a small Mercantile Nation on The Cutting Edge of military economic and social development Frederick William would bring many Dutch ideas back with him to Brandenburg including its particular brand of protestantism Calvinism unfortunately converting the ruling family of Lutheran Brandenburg to Calvinism would cause some problems down the line Frederick William would become elector in 1640 and quickly set to work saving his ruined Nation Frederick Williams centralized State Control allowing him to raise the taxes necessary to support an army actually capable of Defending Brandenburg Prussia this expanded and modernized force would prove its worth in the closing years of the 30 Years War and in the northern European conflicts that followed in one of these interventions he managed to win the independence of Duke Hall Prussia from Poland largely thanks to France Brandenburg Prussia gained land in the Peace of Westphalia that ended the 30 Years War transforming Brandenburg Prussia into the second largest state in the Holy Roman Empire right behind Austria the most significant gains were in eastern Pomerania connecting Brandenburg to the Baltic coast and bringing it within 120 miles of dukal Prussia with only polish-held Royal Prussia in the way by the end of the great elector's Reign Brandenburg Prussia was a state reborn it had a powerful military and international prestige on a level only below the great Powers it even boasted a small Baltic Fleet and a colony in Africa the title of electorate was no longer good enough for such a mighty realm it was finally time to turn Brandenburg Prussia into a kingdom [Music] on January 18th 1701 there was a new King in Prussia not of Prussia mind you but in Prussia this technicality was the source of much Amusement throughout the courts of Europe but was a political necessity so as not to offend Poland by implying kingship over polish-held Royal Prussia it also helped to appease the Holy Roman Emperor whose support was fully secured when Prussia agreed to side with them in the likelihood of a conflict with bourbon Spain so as the rest of Europe marched towards the cataclysmic War of the Spanish succession Prussia entered into a state of revelry in celebration of its new king a significant portion of Prussia state budget was spent on one of the most refined and wasteful Court cultures in Europe all of this pop and expense would be ended by the next king in Prussia the soldier King Frederick William the first who returned Prussia to its past trend of centralizing state power and growing military much of this military growth was accomplished by a very aggressive conscription policy it was so bad that young men would flee into neighboring states only to be chased across the border by Prussian recruitment officers this upset all of prussia's neighbors with Hanover even threatening to declare war if the prussians didn't stop crossing their border to chase down fleeing recruits obviously this system was tremendously unpopular and damaged the nation's economy by choking up all of the skilled and manual labor eventually these press gangs would be replaced by the Canton system now each Prussian regiment was organized around a locality the young men of the area would undergo mandatory military training to serve their regiment after this mandatory service period was up soldiers were kept in reserve where they'd have to train for two to three months out of the year to maintain military readiness to prevent undue economic damage this was paired with a system of furloughs allowing soldiers to return to work when needed and for skilled workers and married men to avoid service entirely the sons of the nobility did not enjoy any such immunity though and were forced to serve as officers with so many of prussia's people in the military the nation developed a tremendous amount of Martial Pride some regiments would voluntarily gather and drill on their own this new system allowed the Prussian state to maintain a military far larger than its population could otherwise support growing from forty thousand men at the beginning of the soldier King's Reign to 80 000 by the end of it one of the most overlooked aspects of Prussian history were its religious struggles the hohens islands were a calvinist dynasty ruling over a Lutheran population naturally there were many attempts to convert their subjects but were generally unsuccessful but while the Prussian people would not come to Calvinism the hohens found a way to make Calvinism come to Prussia when Calvinists face persecution anywhere in Europe the Hoenn Solange would step up to offer them Refuge religion was not the only motive though because Calvinists were usually wealthy and well educated meaning they would contribute a lot to the Prussian economy this tolerance was also partially extended to Jews with Refuge being offered to only the wealthiest Jewish refugees these new prussians would contribute considerably to the nation's economy the Prussian Government tried to further grow their economy through regulations protectionist trade policies and Industrial subsidies but they were not very successful at the very least the subsidies supported otherwise unprofitable industries that would later Thrive with the introduction of free markets all of this meant that Prussia could punch above its weight both economically and militarily [Music] foreign Frederick William may have been a great ruler but he was a terrible father to his son in Heir the future Frederick the great we won't go into detail here but it was bad so bad that the young Frederick tried to run away but when the plot was foiled his father locked Frederick in prison psychologically tortured him ruined the lives of everyone of Frederick's friends and finally forced Frederick to watch his own best friend get executed through the bars of his prison window but after that horrifying incident the young Frederick slowly had his Liberties return to him and would inherit the Kingdom in 1740. Frederick would soon come to be known as the great but it would be just as accurate to call him Frederick the enlightened for he was the epitome of the enlightened despot among Frederick's first acts as King was to loosen censorship laws and invite exiled intellectuals back to Prussia he ended the practice of using torture to secure confessions and during executions and reduce the number of death penalty offenses Frederick was a lover of French philosophy and culture speaking French fluently and maintaining a correspondence with Voltaire as one would expect of a man of the Enlightenment Frederick was largely irreligious and sexually liberal allegedly he once pardoned a man for bestiality Frederick himself was likely homosexual but if he was not gay he was certainly uninterested in sex showing very little interest in his wife or any other women so like a true Sigma male he took the energy that would have been wasted on women and turned it towards a far more important task conquering Europe [Music] the single most important event of Frederick the Great's Reign was his invasion of Austrian stylegia on December 17 1740 capturing it in just six weeks this Invasion would catapult Prussia to new heights of power and Prestige as well as to the brink of utter ruin the invasion itself was a cynical move Frederick had some vague claims to parts of the province but the truth is he invaded Silesia because he could Russia was distracted with internal squabbling Austria's traditional Ally Britain had its hands full with a conflict against Spain and Austria itself had just been inherited by a woman Maria Theresa under normal circumstances women could not inherit the Austrian Empire but a special dispensation had been created for her unfortunately in the eyes of much of Europe that only gave her a weak claim prussia's successful Invasion made Austria look so weak that the other European powers including France and Spain joined the invasion to get their own piece of the seemingly collapsing Empire this broader conflict is known as the war of the Austrian succession but Frederick already got what he wanted and didn't want to see Austria weakened any further so he took this opportunity to leave the war thus ending the first silegian war the second silesian war was also a part of the broader war of Austrian succession it began two years later when the conflict started to tip too far in Austria's favor which could have allowed the austrians to counter-invade Silesia so Frederick struck first then once Austria was bullied to his satisfaction and still not wanting them to lose the wider conflict he signed another piece in 1745 firmly establishing prussia's rule over Silesia and its status as a great power the war of the Austrian succession would end with Austria only losing some minor peripheral territories but there was one more silesian war to go and it too was a theater of another much larger conflict one that would not go nearly as well for Prussia foreign the Seven Years War began when French and British troops clashed in their American colonies dragging the two Powers into open War the diplomacy gets a little complicated here but in brief Prussia was a French Ally at the time and was well positioned to attack British Hanover to prevent this the British offered the Russians a subsidy if they attacked Prussia to distract them Frederick did not want to be invaded by Russia so signed an alliance with the British to alleviate their fears this was a huge mistake though because he had just signed an alliance with France's mortal enemy Versailles was outraged terminated their alliance with Prussia and Allied themselves with their mortal enemy Austria the Russians meanwhile were still interested in invading Prussia so they joined the Coalition too in one massive blunder Frederick had just made enemies of the three most dangerous states in Europe and with only Britain an island nation on the other side of the continent to help in prussia's one Saving Grace is at its standing army allowed it to make preemptive strikes against his larger neighbors before they could mobilize but Frederick blundered yet again because he didn't actually attack one of those larger neighbors instead he attacked Saxony why Saxony well Frederick had become convinced that they were a member of the invading Coalition but he was wrong and this invasion was so outrageous that all of Europe turned against him cooling prussia's friends and heeding her enemies Sweden joined the invasion how could Prussia possibly survive well for one Frederick was a brilliant military commander and while the British couldn't send troops they did provide Prussia with a massive war subsidy that kept them in the war for far longer than they otherwise could have furthermore prussia's enemies were not as United as they first seemed they were more motivated by opportunism than anything else hell France was only invading because they were mad at Prussia over the British Alliance they had no real strategic reasons to be hostile but the first member of the invading coalition to crack was Russia and for the silliest reason possible the Russian Emperors Elizabeth died in 1762. the new emperor Peter was an admirer of Frederick so much so that he voluntarily ended the war against Prussia without taking a single inch of territory naturally the Russians hated Peter for this and soon removed him from power and replaced him with his far more competent wife Catherine the Great the Russian evacuation from the war also forced the swedes to make peace and even to send a small Corps of troops to fight alongside the prussians meanwhile the war between France and Britain turned decidedly in Britain's favor forcing France to leave the Coalition too this left Austria alone with no useful allies and no way to defeat the prussians so after tremendous loss of life on all sides the third silesian war or seven years war ended in the status quo Antebellum Prussia experienced Devastation on a level it had not suffered since the 30 Years War but at the cost of 400 000 people 10 percent of its total population Prussia had just barely survived so please leave a military medal Emoji in the comments to celebrate the victory of our boys in Prussian Blue [Music] now firmly a member of Europe's community of great Powers Frederick the Great Lost no time flexing prussia's muscle on prussia's eastern border the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth was facing political collapse so to take advantage of this Frederick proposed a partition of Poland between Austria Russia and himself which they all agreed to prussia's share would mainly be composed of Royal Prussia which he renamed to West Prussia finally connecting do call prasha to the capital at Berlin toward the end of Frederick's Reign at 66 years old he would fight one last war against the austrians known as the potato War this was a conflict to prevent Austria from inheriting Bavaria after its last Sovereign died without an heir this war was not nearly as intense as the silesian wars but ended in Prussian Victory all the same Emmanuel Kant perhaps the greatest Prussian philosopher of Frederick's day would depict Frederick as the ideal of an enlightened Monarch Frederick liked to think of himself as the very embodiment of the Prussian State both men believed in enlightened absolutism but also came to the same concerning conclusion absolutism only worked when the Monarch was truly enlightened but what would such a concentration of power mean in the hands of an unworthy King and that's exactly what we're going to find out in part two which when it's out you'll be able to watch by clicking the link on the top right of your screen this video was funded by the hohen's islands looking to reclaim their rightful place on the German Imperial Throne including their loyal Knight Josiah as well as by this video's sponsor call of war the game is totally free and when you click our exclusive Link in the description you'll get a gift including 13 000 gold and one month of Premium subscription take advantage before the offer ends links to call of war and where you can support us directly are in the description like comment and subscribe for more I'll see you in part two thank you [Music] [Music] foreign