The Eighteenth Century: European States, International Wars, And Social Change

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Chapter 18

• The Eighteenth Century European States,
  International Wars, And Social Change

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The European States

• Enlightened Absolutism-not incredibly drastic,
  social utility
• Limited by presence of nobility and their
  interests
• Some accomplishments of note legal reform,
  education reform, religious toleration, etc,

• Problems in France weak, incompetent government
• Britain King vs. Nobility, Parliament-patronage
• Rise of Absolutism in central and eastern
  Europe-Prussia, Russia, Austria

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The European States cont.

• Prussia Increasingly militarized and
  bureaucratized-middle class bureaucracy
• Frederick William I and Frederick the Great
• Participant in the Seven Years War

• Austria centralized by Maria Theresa
• Joseph II pursued enlightened absolutism and
  radical reform but failed
• Participant in Seven Years War

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The European States cont.

• Russia Increased it's territory, power of nobles
  strengthened
• Along with Austria and Prussia, partitioned
  Poland also had control of independent Polish
  state

• Spain under Bourbon control, temporarily
  rejuvenated
• Portugal weakened, no longer a major power
• Italian states Dominated by Austria
• Scandinavian states made attempts at enlightened
  reform, but ultimately returned to traditional
  rule

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Wars and Diplomacy (1740-1748) War of Austrian
Succession

• -Unable to produce an heir to the Austrian throne
• -Charles VI negotiated pragmatic sanction,
  holding throne for daughter Maria Theresa
• -Pragmatic Sanction disregarded, Frederick II
  (Prussia) invaded Austrian Silesia, and France
  helped
• -Maria Theresa joined with Great Britain
• -Fought all over Europe and its colonies
• -1748 Aix la Chapelle (treaty), all territories
  returned except Silesia (to Prussia)

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Wars and Diplomacy (1756-1763) The Seven Years
War

• Maria Theresa wanted Silesia back, worked to
  separate Prussia and France
• New alliances France/Austria/Russia vs. Great
  Britain/Prussia
• Conflict in Europe
• -Frederick II defeated
• -Russia leaders changed, withdrew from conflict
• -Peace of Hubertusburg 1763, Prussia gets
  Silesia
• War in India (Britain/France)
• -British (under Robert Clive) won, Treaty of
  Paris 1763
• French and Indian war
• -French/Indians vs. Colonists/British
• -Treaty of Paris Britain gains most of America

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Wars and Diplomacy Armies and Warfare

• composition of armies
• -reflected hierarchical structure of society
• maritime powers Britain and Dutch Republic
• increase in size
• nature of warfare
• -no longer religious, now ideological
• -violent and destructive
• -warfare based on limited objectives
• -clever elaborate maneuvers rather than direct
  confrontation
• -siege warfare

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Economic Expansion and Social Change

• - Rapid population growth (doubled since first
  half of century)
• Cause decline in the death rate because of more
  food and better transportation of food supplies
  (improved diet less famine)
• New crops from America corn potatoes
• Surplus of food
• Cause end of bubonic plague
• COMUNQUE - diseases (typhus, smallpox, influenza,
  dysentery), poor hygienic conditions and famine
  could still be devastating.

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• lower class women served as wet nurses
• childhood increasingly viewed as a phase in
  human development.
• primogeniture the practice of treating the first
  son as the favorite.
• infanticide unable to care for children ?
  abandoned them to foundling homes.
• newly married couples established independent
  households
• increase food production because of more
  farmland, increased yields per acre, healthier
  and more abundant livestock, improved climate.
• new agricultural techniques considered best
  suited to large scale farms

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• chronic shortage of money that undermined the
  efforts of governments to meet their needs.
• new public and private banks and the acceptance
  of paper notes ? expansion of credit in the 18th
  century.
• textile industries ?most still produced by
  traditional methods.
• textile centers
• cottage industry
• - Expansion banking and trade
• - Agricultural revolution

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The Social Order of the 18th C

• Social classes still very traditional
• Division still in orders of estates
• Ideas of Enlightenment starting to reach idea of
  social
• Did not like that a person is immovable in
  society

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Peasants

• Largest group
• Most peasants did not have land, had to work a
  nobles land
• Serfdom still around places like eastern Germany
  and Prussia
• Small villages were still the center of their
  lives

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Nobility

• 2-3 of European population
• Nobles still were thought to make best officers
  in the military and best leaders in politics
• BUT as Enlightenment hit, people started to find
  if they could make they could be part of the
  nobility
• Had country homes to separate themselves from the
  lower classes
• Grand tour

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Cities

• Artisans had to start taking unskilled jobs
• Poverty very visible, huge problem

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Leaders

• Louis XV and Louis XVI contributes to Frances
  decline, led to French Revolution
• Frederick William I and Frederick ? army and
  bureaucracy
• Maria Theresa no intense reform, more central
• Catherine the Great ? reform, repression of
  peasantry
• Joseph II of Austria II ? alienated nobility and
  church, tried to abolish serfdom
• Robert Walpole a lot of power b/c George's had
  little understanding of gov. and spoke little
  English, too peaceful
• William Pitt the Elder expansion!