Prussian Reforms
The Prussian Reform Movement was a series of constitutional, administrative, social, and economic reforms early in 19th-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. The reforms were a reaction to the defeat of the Prussians by Napoleon I at the battle of Jena-Auerstedt in 1806, leading to the second Treaty of Tilsit, in which Prussia lost about half its territory and was forced to make massive tribute payments to the First French Empire. To make those payments, it needed to rationalize its administration. To become a great power again, it initiated reforms from 1807 onwards, based on Enlightenment ideas and in line with reforms in other European nations. They led to the re ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Guild
A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular territory. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradespeople belonging to a professional association. They sometimes depended on grants of letters patent from a monarch or other ruler to enforce the flow of trade to their self-employed members, and to retain ownership of tools and the supply of materials, but most were regulated by the local government. Guild members found guilty of cheating the public would be fined or banned from the guild. A lasting legacy of traditional guilds are the guildhalls constructed and used as guild meeting-places. Typically the key "privilege" was that only guild members were allowed to sell their goods or practice their skill within the city. There might be controls on minimum or maximum prices, hours of trading, numbers of apprentices, and many other things. Critics argued that these rules reduced Free market, fre ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor
Francis II and I (; 12 February 1768 – 2 March 1835) was the last Holy Roman Emperor as Francis II from 1792 to 1806, and the first Emperor of Austria as Francis I from 1804 to 1835. He was also King of Hungary, List of rulers of Croatia, Croatia and List of Bohemian monarchs, Bohemia, and served as the first president of the German Confederation following its establishment in 1815. The eldest son of future Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor, Emperor Leopold II and Maria Luisa of Spain, Francis was born in Florence, where his father ruled as List of grand dukes of Tuscany, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Leopold became Holy Roman Emperor in 1790 but died two years later, and Francis succeeded him. His empire immediately became embroiled in the French Revolutionary Wars, the first of which ended in Austrian defeat and the loss of the left bank of the Rhine to France. After another French victory in the War of the Second Coalition, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French. In response, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Confederation Of The Rhine
The Confederated States of the Rhine, simply known as the Confederation of the Rhine or Rhine Confederation, was a confederation of German client states established at the behest of Napoleon some months after he defeated Austrian Empire, Austria and Russian Empire, Russia at the Battle of Austerlitz. Its creation brought about the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire shortly afterward. The Confederation of the Rhine lasted for only seven years, from 1806 to 1813, dissolving after Napoleon's defeat in the War of the Sixth Coalition.Hans A. Schmitt. "Germany Without Prussia: A Closer Look at the Confederation of the Rhine". ''German Studies Review'' 6, No. 4 (1983), pp 9–39. The founding members of the confederation were German princes of the Holy Roman Empire. They were later joined by 19 others, altogether ruling a total of over 15 million people. This granted a significant strategic advantage to the French Empire on its eastern frontier by providing a buffer between France and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. For most of its history the Empire comprised the entirety of the modern countries of Germany, Czechia, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Slovenia, and Luxembourg, most of north-central Italy, and large parts of modern-day east France and west Poland. On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne Roman emperor, reviving the title more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476. The title lapsed in 924, but was revived in 962 when Otto I, OttoI was crowned emperor by Pope John XII, as Charlemagne's and the Carolingian Empire's successor. From 962 until the 12th century, the empire ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Battle Of Austerlitz
The Battle of Austerlitz (2 December 1805/11 Frimaire An XIV French Republican calendar, FRC), also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, was one of the most important military engagements of the Napoleonic Wars. The battle occurred near the town of Slavkov u Brna, Austerlitz in the Austrian Empire (now Slavkov u Brna in the Czech Republic). Around 158,000 troops were involved, of which around 24,000 were killed or wounded. The battle is often cited by military historians as one of Napoleon's tactical masterpieces, in the same league as other historic engagements like Hannibal's Battle of Cannae, Cannae (216 BC) or Alexander the Great's Battle of Gaugamela, Gaugamela (331 BC).Byron Farwell, Farwell p. 64. "Austerlitz is generally regarded as one of Napoleon's tactical masterpieces and has been ranked as the equal of Arbela, Cannae, and Leuthen."Trevor N. Dupuy, Dupuy p. 102 Note: Dupuy was not afraid of expressing an opinion, and he classified some of his subjects as Great ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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War Of The Third Coalition
The War of the Third Coalition () was a European conflict lasting from 1805 to 1806 and was the first conflict of the Napoleonic Wars. During the war, First French Empire, France and French client republic, its client states under Napoleon I and its ally Spain opposed an alliance, the Third Coalition, which was made up of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom, the Austrian Empire, the Russian Empire, Kingdom of Naples, Naples, Kingdom of Sicily, Sicily, and Sweden. Kingdom of Prussia, Prussia remained neutral during the war. Britain had already been at war with France following the breakdown of the Treaty of Amiens, Peace of Amiens and remained the only country still at war with France after the Treaty of Pressburg (1805), Treaty of Pressburg. From 1803 to 1805, Britain stood under constant threat of a Napoleon's planned invasion of the United Kingdom, French invasion. The Royal Navy, however, assured its naval dominance at the Battle of Trafalgar in Oc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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German Mediatisation
German mediatisation (; ) was the major redistribution and reshaping of territorial holdings that took place between 1802 and 1814 in Germany by means of the subsumption and Secularization (church property), secularisation of a large number of Imperial Estates, prefiguring, precipitating, and continuing after the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. Most Hochstift, ecclesiastical principalities, free imperial cities, secular principalities, and other minor self-ruling entities of the Holy Roman Empire lost their independent status and were absorbed by the remaining states. By the end of the mediatisation process, the number of German states had been reduced from almost 300 to 39. In the strict sense of the word, mediatisation consists in the subsumption of an Imperial immediacy, immediate () state into another state, thus becoming ''mediate'' (), while generally leaving the dispossessed ruler with his private estates and a number of privileges and feudal rights, such as High, m ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Concert Of Europe
The Concert of Europe was a general agreement among the great powers of 19th-century Europe to maintain the European balance of power, political boundaries, and spheres of influence. Never a perfect unity and subject to disputes and jockeying for position and influence, the Concert was an extended period of relative peace and stability in Europe following the Wars of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars which had consumed the continent since the 1790s. There is considerable scholarly dispute over the exact nature and duration of the Concert. Some scholars argue that it fell apart nearly as soon as it began in the 1820s when the great powers disagreed over the handling of liberal revolts in Italy, while others argue that it lasted until the outbreak of World War I and others for points in between. For those arguing for a longer duration, there is generally agreement that the period after the Revolutions of 1848 and the Crimean War (1853–1856) represented a different ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wilhelm Von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a German philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1949, the university was named after him and his younger brother, Alexander von Humboldt, a Natural history, naturalist. He was a linguist who made contributions to the philosophy of language, ethnolinguistics, and to the Learning theory (education), theory and practice of education. He made a major contribution to the development of liberalism by envisioning education as a means of potential, realizing individual possibility rather than a way of indoctrination, drilling traditional ideas into youth to suit them for an already established occupation or social role. In particular, he was the architect of the Humboldtian education ideal, which was used from the beginning in Prussian education system, Prussia as a model for its system of public education, as well as in the Un ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hermann Von Boyen
Leopold Hermann Ludwig von Boyen (20 June 1771 – 15 February 1848) was a Prussian army officer who helped to reform the Prussian Army in the early 19th century. He also served as minister of war of Prussia in the period 1810–1813 and again from 1 March 1841 – 6 October 1847. Life Born in Kreuzburg (today's Slavskoye, Russia) in East Prussia, Boyen joined the army in 1784 in Königsberg. In 1788, as a newly minted second lieutenant, he took up a post in the military academy in Königsberg, where he also attended some of the lectures of Immanuel Kant. From 1794 to 1796, Boyen took part in the Polish campaign as Adjutant to General von Günther. In 1799, he became a captain. He served in the war of 1806 on the General Staff of the Duke of Brunswick, and was wounded at the Battle of Auerstädt (14 October 1806). After the Treaty of Tilsit (July 1807) he became a major and a member of Gerhard von Scharnhorst's commission for military re-organisation. By 1810 Boyen had becom ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |