Frederick William I (Prussia)
| Frederick William I | |
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Portrait by Samuel Theodor Gericke (1713)
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King in Prussia Elector of Brandenburg |
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| Reign | 25 February 1713 – 31 May 1740 |
| Predecessor | Frederick I |
| Successor | Frederick II |
| Born |
14 August 1688 Berlin, Prussia |
| Died | 31 May 1740 (aged 51) Berlin, Prussia |
| Burial | Friedenskirche, Sanssouci Park, Potsdam |
| Spouse | Sophia Dorothea of Hanover |
| Issue |
See
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| House | Hohenzollern |
| Father | Frederick I |
| Mother | Sophia Charlotte of Hanover |
| Religion | Calvinism |
| Signature | _signature.JPG){kind=small} |
Frederick William I (German: Friedrich Wilhelm I) (14 August 1688 – 31 May 1740), known as the 'Soldier King,' was the King in Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg from 1713 until his death, as well as the father of Frederick the Great. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel.
He was born in Berlin to Frederick I of Prussia and Sophia Charlotte of Hanover. During his first years, he was raised by the Huguenot governess Marthe de Roucoulle.
His father had successfully acquired the title King for the margraves of Brandenburg. On ascending the throne in 1713 the new King sold most of his fathers' horses, jewels and furniture; he did not intend to treat the treasury as his personal source of revenue the way Frederick I and many of the other German Princes had. During his own reign, Frederick William I did much to centralize and improve Prussia. He replaced mandatory military service among the middle class with an annual tax, established schools and hospitals, and resettled East Prussia (which had been devastated by the plague in 1709).
The king encouraged farming, reclaimed marshes, stored grain in good times and sold it in bad times. He dictated the manual of Regulations for State Officials, containing 35 chapters and 297 paragraphs in which every public servant in Prussia could find his duties precisely set out: a minister or councillor failing to attend a committee meeting, for example, would lose six months' pay; if he absented himself a second time, he would be discharged from the royal service.
In short, Frederick William I concerned himself with every aspect of his relatively small country, planning to satisfy all that was needed for Prussia to defend itself. His rule was absolutist and he was a firm autocrat. He practiced rigid, frugal economy, never started a war, and led a simple and austere lifestyle, in contrast to the lavish court his father had presided over. At his death, there was a large surplus in the royal treasury (which was kept in the cellar of the royal palace). He intervened briefly in the Great Northern War in order to gain a portion of Swedish Pomerania. More significantly, aided by his close friend Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau, the "Soldier-King" made considerable reforms to the Prussian army's training, tactics and conscription program—introducing the canton system, and greatly increasing the Prussian infantry's rate of fire through the introduction of the iron ramrod. Frederick William's reforms left his son Frederick with the most formidable army in Europe, which Frederick used to increase Prussia's power. The observation that "the pen is mightier than the sword" has sometimes been attributed to him. (See as well: "Prussian virtues".)
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Wikipedia