Chapter 18
The Eighteenth Century:
European States, International Wars, and
Social Change
Europe in 1763
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The European States
Enlightened Absolutism?
Natural Rights
• American Declaration of
Independence
• How are natural rights to be
established and preserved?
• “Enlightened despotism” – Frederick
II of Prussia, Catherine the Great of
Russia, Joseph II of Austria
The Atlantic Seaboard States
France: The Long Rule of Louis
XV
• Rules 1715-1774
• 1743 decides to rule alone
• Succeeded by Louis XVI, 17741792
Great Britain: King and Parliament
United Kingdom of Great Britain, 1707
Ministers chosen by the king to make policy and
guide Parliament
“Pocket boroughs”
Hanoverians – George I, 1714-1727 and George II,
1727-1760
• Queen Anne (1702-1714) the last Stuart ruler
• Robert Walpole, 1721-1742, prime minister
George III, 1760-1820
• John Wilkes
• William Pitt the Younger (1759-1806),
 prime minister in 1803
Decline of the Dutch Republic
Oligarchs
House of Orange
Dutch burghers
Absolutism in Central and
Eastern Europe
Prussia: The Army and The
Bureaucracy
• Frederick William I, 17131740




General Directory
Bureaucracy
Junkers
Army
• Frederick the Great, 17401786
 Law code
 Maintains serfdom
 Expansion into Silesia
 War of Austrian
Succession and Seven
Years’ War
The Austrian Empire of the
Habsburgs
• Empress Maria Theresa, 1740-1780
 Loss of Silesia in War of the Austrian
Succession, 1740-1748
 Shares throne with Joseph II, 1765-1780
• Joseph II, 1780-1790
 Reforms
Russia Under Catherine the Great,
1762-1796
• Reform – Instruction, 1767
• Strengthens landholders at expense of
serfs
• Rebellion of Emelyan Pugachev, 17731775
• Territorial expansion
Pugachev’s
Rebellion
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Destruction of Poland
• Partition in 1772, 1793, and 1795
The Mediterranean World
Spain
• Bourbon rule and reform
Portugal
Italy dominated by Austria
Scandinavian States
Sweden
• Gustavus III, 1771-1792
Denmark
Enlightened Absolutism Revisited
Rarity and brevity
Reality
The Partitions of Poland
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Wars and Diplomacy
The War of the Austrian Succession, 1740-1748
Charles VI, Pragmatic Sanction
Vulnerability of Maria Theresa
Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748
Seven Years’ War, 1756-1763
Diplomatic Revolution
European War
Indian War
North American War
• William Pitt the Elder
British victory
The Battlefields of the Seven Years’ War
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European Armies and Warfare
• Professional armies
• Class division in the armies
 Rank and file from the lower classes
• Navies
• Size of armies
• Use of tactics to preserve armies
Economic Expansion and Social Change
Growth of the European Population
•
•
•
•
Falling death rate
Improvements in diet
Lack of hygiene
Outbreaks of disease
Family, Marriage, and Birthrate Patterns
Child Care
• Treatment of Children
 Impact of Rousseau’s, Emile
 Infanticide
 Foundling institutions
Marriage and Birthrates
• Late marriages
• Family economy
An Agricultural Revolution?
Increased land under cultivation
Increased livestock
Jethro Tull (1674-1741)
Potato and maize
Enclosure
New Methods of Finance
National Banks
National debt
Investment in colonial trading companies
European Industry
Textile and cottage industry
Mechanized production
• Flying shuttle
• Richard Arkwright (1732-1792), “water frame”
• Mechanized looms, 1780s
©2003 Wadsworth, a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Thomson Learning™ is a trademark used herein under license.
The Social Order of the Eighteenth
Century
The Peasants
•
•
•
•
Domination by wealthy landowners
Obligations
Village as center of culture
Diet
The Nobility
• Military service
• The Aristocratic Way of Life: The Country
House
 House, lower and upper floors
• The Aristocratic Way of Life: The Grand
Tour
 Educational purpose, tour Europe’s major cities
Inhabitants of Towns and Cities
Urban oligarchy
Emergent middle class
• Petty bourgeoisie
Laborers
Problem of Poverty
• Charity and work