e first duke of Prussia in 1525, thereby creating the Duchy of East Prussia. The house of Hohenzollern was now established in Prussia.Relatives in Brandenburg were quick to see their opportunity in Prussia and act on it. Elector Joachim II secured his and his son John Sigismund’s place in Ducal Prussia. In 1611 when the last male heir of the Prussian Duke’s die, it is passed to the Brandenburg elector of the House of Hohenzollern, John Sigismund. John’s grandson, Frederick William the Great Elector gained complete sovereignty over Ducal Prussia in 1660. Frederick William was a strong man with an intellectual strength and an iron will. He was educated at the electorate until the age of fourteen and then sent to live with his relatives in Holland, which was a center for European diplomacy at the time. Frederick William managed to keep his territories out of the thirty years war and away from Polish hands. He chose to marry Louisa Henrietta, the eldest daughter of Frederick Henry of Orange. This marriage solidified the relationship between his electorate and the powerful Protestant state. (Feuchtwanger, 82)Frederick William managed to secure the whole of Pomerania and the eastern half of Cammin from the Treaties of Westphalia in 1648. Frederick used the successful army he created as an advantage towards creating an independent Prussian Duchy. Frederick created the standing army and the four to five thousand men he enlisted in 1641 grew to a permanent standing army of twenty-five the thirty thousand men by 1688. The magnitude of the army required special administrative systems for its finance, maintenance and efficiency. The army served as in instrument of unification, localized enlistment led to the direction of a centralized government. The army made its own reputation was sharply distinguished from public life. The militarization of the state meant that the ruler as well as his dominion was militarized, therefore inte...
