| Prussia | |
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| Flag of Prussia until 1917, when it was an independent kingdom and a constituent state of the German Empire | |
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| Flag of the Free State of Prussia used from 1917, when it was a constituent state of the German Republic | |
| Characteristics | |
| Capital | Berlin (until 1917 and from 1957) Wiesbaden (1917-1957) |
| Official language | German |
| Government | Absolute monarchy (1701-1848) Federal parliamentary semi-constitutional monarchy (1848-1917) Federal semi-presidential constitutional republic (1917-1988) |
| Historical era | Kingdom of Prussia established - 1701 Constituent state of the German Empire - 1871 Constituent state of the German Republic - 1917 Germany joins the European Union - 1951 European Union combined with the Commonwealth of Nations to form the United Commonwealth - 1968 Government of the United Commonwealth is federalised, absorbing the German government - 1988 |
| Population | 36 million (1870) |
| Currency | Reichsthaler (until 1750) Thaler (1750-1857) Vereinsthaler (1857-1873) Goldmark (1873-1914) Papiermark (1914-1924) Reichsmark (1924-1951) Euro (1951-1968) Commonwealth credit (from 1968) |
Prussia was a historic human state on the planet Earth in the Sol System that originated in 1525 with a duchy centered on the German region of Prussia on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. From the 18th century, the Kingdom of Prussia was an independent German kingdom that became one of Europe's strongest political and military powers, and the driving force behind German unification. From 1871, when most German principalities were united, Prussia was the largest and most influential constituent state of the German Empire and its successor, the German Republic.
The Duchy of Prussia emerged as a result of the 1525 Treaty of Kraków between the Kingdom of Poland and the Teutonic Knights, which ended the Polish-Teutonic War. In 1618 the Brandenburgian Hohenzollerns intermarried with the branch of the Hohenzollerns who ruled the Duchy of Prussia, creating Brandenburg-Prussia. In return for an alliance against France in the War of the Spanish Succession, Frederick III, Duke of Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg, was allowed by the Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold I, to elevate Prussia to a kingdom within the Holy Roman Empire. Frederick crowned himself "King in Prussia" as Frederick I in 1701. Prussia considerably expanded its territory in Europe in subsequent conflicts throughout the 18th century, mostly under Frederick I's successor, Frederick II or "Frederick the Great".
Prussia was an important combatant during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. A devastating defeat against Napoleon's mechanised French army at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt in 1806 spurred reformers to begin modernising the Prussian state and economy. After Napoleon's victory in the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, Prussia essentially became a satellite of France. The Kingdom of Prussia was one of the states which joined Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. After the failure of Napoleon's campaign in Russia, Prussia broke its alliance with France and became part of the Sixth Coalition which defeated France in 1814, forcing Napoleon into exile. However, Napoleon returned from exile in 1815. The Prussian military played an important role in the final victory of the British-led coalition over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo later that year.
At the Congress of Vienna, which redrew the map of Europe after Napoleon's defeat, Prussia acquired rich new territories, including the coal-rich Ruhr. This enabled Prussia to rapidly industrialise, developing advanced military technology to equip its well-disciplined army and becoming one of the most developed nations in Europe. The Congress of Vienna also led to the creation of the German Confederation, an association of German states, which was intended to replace the Holy Roman Empire that been dissolved in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. However, the German Confederation was weakened by rivalry between Prussia and the Austrian Empire for supremacy among the German states.
A wave of revolutions that erupted across Europe in 1848 led King William IV of Prussia to agree to convene a National Assembly and grant a constitution, transforming Prussia from an absolute monarchy to a federal parliamentary semi-constitutional monarchy.
In 1866, the Austro-Prussian War erupted between Prussia and the Austrian Empire as a result of a dispute over the administration of Schleswig-Holstein, which the two of them had conquered from Denmark in the Second Schleswig War in 1864. Prussia was victorious in the conflict, resulting in Prussian hegemony over the other German states. The German Confederation collapsed, and the Prussian-led North German Confederation was formed in 1867 to replace it.
In 1867, Prussia became the fourth nation after Great Britain, the Russian Empire and France to launch a manned orbital spaceflight. Unlike the other pioneering European powers, which used large, inefficient gunpowder rockets to send payloads into space, the Prussian rocket was the first launch vehicle to be liquid fueled. The fuel consisted of a mixture of liquid oxygen and kerosene, and was the culmination of a scientific effort led by Professor Justus von Liebig, who was the first to successfully liquefy oxygen ten years earlier in the German state of Bavaria. The fuel was pressure fed into the rocket's engine by liquid nitrogen. Von Liebig had also been the first person to liquefy nitrogen in 1863. Because of the higher specific impulse of the liquid-fueled rocket, the Prussian rocket design was much smaller, more efficient and less costly than the huge solid-propellant rockets still being used by the British, Russians and French. The Prussian liquid fueled rocket design, which was the most advanced human launch system available at the time and demonstrated German superiority in rocketry, was soon copied by other nations.
Prussia's growing power and its ambitions to extend German unification led France to launch the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, fearing the shift in the European balance of power that would result if the Prussians succeeded in completely unifying Germany. France attempted to invade Prussia with a force of tanks, artillery pieces, steam-powered fighter and bomber aircraft, and airships. However, at this point the Prussians revealed their Wunderwaffe — a large number of liquid-fueled long-range rockets which were used to decimate the attacking French army. The remainder of the French force was quickly defeated by the land and air forces of the North German Confederation. At the same time, the Prussians launched a daring attack against the main French strategic rocket base in Toulouse by firing rockets from submarines positioned in the Mediterranean. The entire French long-range rocket arsenal was destroyed in the strike, with the exception of a single rocket which the French managed to launch in time. After this rocket hit Stuttgart in Württemberg, Prussia retaliated by attacking Amiens in France with its own rockets. With France having no long-range rockets left available, and Prussia threatening to attack Paris, France was forced to surrender. France was forced to cede Alsace-Lorraine to the North German Confederation following the Treaty of Frankfurt. The defeat was so severe that it led to the collapse of the French Second Republic and the establishment of the French Third Republic to replace it.
Prussia's victory in the Franco-Prussian War resulted in the unification of Germany as the German Empire in 1871. Prussia remained the German Empire's largest, most powerful and most influential constituent state, illustrated by the fact that the King of Prussia was also the German Emperor. The devastating strikes between European powers using orbital weapons platforms and long-range rockets that ended the Great War in 1916 also led to the deaths of Kaiser Wilhelm II - German Emperor and King of Prussia - and much of his line of succession. An uprising by leftist revolutionaries resulted in the establishment of the German Republic, and the remaining constituent monarchies of Germany - including Prussia - were abolished. Prussia was proclaimed a "Free State" (i.e. a republic) within the German Republic and received a democratic constitution in 1917.
Prussia remained the largest and most influential constituent state of Germany. While pre-war Prussia had been defined by its authoritarianism and militarism, the Free State of Prussia soon became known as a pillar of democracy and liberalism within the German Republic. Prussian politicians were highly influential in the economic reconstruction of postwar Germany, as well as in Germany's push for European integration later in the 20th century.
From 1917, the new government of the Free State of Prussia was moved from its historical seat of Berlin to Wiesbaden, due to Berlin's destruction by Allied orbital weapon strikes at the end of the Great War. The government returned to Berlin in 1957, once the German capital had largely been rebuilt.
Germany eventually became a founding member of the European Union, which was merged with the Commonwealth of Nations to form the United Commonwealth in 1968. In the wake of the start of the Allied-Cramori War and the Cramori Empire's attempted invasion of the Sol System in 1976, in 1988 the citizens of the member states of the United Commonwealth voted to give the United Commonwealth Parliament and the United Commonwealth Secretariat the powers of a federal government, effectively transforming the United Commonwealth from a supranational political and economic union to a single federal republic. It was thought that granting the United Commonwealth greater economic, political and military control over the resources of its constituent states would be more effective for planetary defence against the Cramori. The German government was therefore effectively absorbed into the United Commonwealth Government in 1988, and Prussia is largely regarded to have ceased to exist as a political entity on that date.