INTRODUCTION

The story of a revolution always begins with its ancien régime. In the case of the transformation of Prussia under Frederick William I, this procedure is particularly necessary because the revolutionary character of that king's reign is frequently not emphasized by historians. Instead, it is customary to regard the four Hohenzollerns – Frederick William the Great Elector, Frederick III (I), Frederick William I, and Frederick II the Great – as a single group, with each ruler making a greater or lesser contribution to the development of Prussian absolutism. The assumption behind this approach is that the basic framework for what became the eighteenth-century Prussian state was established by the Great Elector in the aftermath of the Thirty Years’ War and then gradually evolved under his successors until it attained its definitive form under Frederick the Great in the mid-eighteenth century.

This conception of early modern Prussian history has received support from the most ideologically diverse sources. The Prussian Historical School focused its abundant energies on the growth of the key state institutions, most of which, notably the War Commissariat, dated from the Great Elector's reign. Though the innovative character of Frederick William I's kingship was often recognized, especially by Gustav Schmoller, the politically conservative Prussian School's interpretation of the “rise of Prussia” inevitably stressed the formal continuity of the basic state structures.