Description
This book examines Prussia's response to Napoleon and Napoleonic expansionism in the years before the crushing defeats of Auerstadt and Jena, a period of German history as untypical as it was dramatic. Between the years 1797 and 1806 the main fear of Prussian statesmen was French power, rather than revolution from below. This threat spawned a foreign-policy debate characterised by geopolitical thinking: the belief that Prussian policy was conditioned by her unique geographic situation at the heart of Europe. The book breaks new ground both methodologically and empirically. By combining high-political and geopolitical analysis, it is able to present a more comprehensive and nuanced picture than earlier interpretations. The book also draws on a very wide range of sources, official and unofficial, many previously unused.
Chapter
2 The structure of Prussian politics during the early reign of Frederick William III
From discussion to decision: the development of the decision-making process in Prussia and its underlying assumptions
Discussion instead of decision: structural weaknesses in the political system of post-Frederician Prussia
The monarch and his servants: Frederick William III and the antechamber of power
Alternative power centres? Aristocracy, bureaucracy and the autocratic state
3 Problem areas of Prussian policy and politics: the centres of attention abroad, 1797-1804
From intervention to neutrality: a brief outline of Prussian foreign policy, 1792-1804
The role of geopolitical thinking in Prussian foreign policy
Hanover: the 'neuralgic spot'
Prussia and her neighbours (1): the French threat
Prussia and her neighbours (2): Russia, Austria, Great Britain, the Reich and the smaller German states
4 Problem areas of Prussian policy and politics: the centres of attention at home, 1797-1804
The primacy of foreign policy: the French threat, fear of revolution and the reform of state and society
The executive reform debate before 1804
The struggle for the executive: adversarial politics in Prussia, 1797-1804
The politics of neutrality
5 The failure of neutrality: Prussian policy and politics, October 1804-September 1805
The beginning of a new policy towards Prussia
The French alliance overtures
6 Delayed decisions: Prussian policy and politics, October 1805-February 1806
Ansbach, Potsdam and after: the ascendancy of Hardenberg
The Harrowby mission: Hanover or the Netherlands?
Schonbrunn: the issues of the ratification debate
Schonbrunn: the high politics of the ratification debate
The Prussian dilemma after Austerlitz
7 The Hanoverian crisis: Prussian policy and politics, March-June 1806
The Treaty of Paris: the ratification debate and the hegemony of France
The triumph of Haugwitz. High politics and foreign policy in Prussia during the early stages of the Hanoverian crisis
The role of economic interest groups in Prussian policy
Secret du Rot: Frederick William and the parallel foreign policy
8 Facing Napoleonic France: Prussian responses to the French threat, 1804-1806
The primacy of foreign policy and the 'imperious dictates of geography': Prussia confronts the French threat, October 1804 to June 1806
Redressing 'la defectuosite la plus monstrueuse de Tassiette geographique de la Prusse'. Hanover and the annexation debate, 1804-1806
The uses of adversity: the French threat and high politics in Prussia, 1804-1806
The decision against France, June-July 1806
'Now or never': the road to Jena, August-September 1806
9 The search for decision: Prussian reform attempts immediately before Jena
The historiography of the (pre-) Reform movement in Prussia
The Prussian executive in crisis, 1804-1806
The substance of Reform: decision, not discussion
The adversarial context of Reform
The Impact of Napoleon
：Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797–1806
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