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Emperor Charles VI: The Early Years of the Reign

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

J. W. Stoye
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Extract

The second decade of the eighteenth century in Europe was an era of administrative experiment and reform. In certain respects, these were as impressive as the measures ofso-called ‘enlightened’ absolutists after the Seven Years War. The earlier, like the later, period discloses the attempt of governments to undo the consequences of prolonged warfare; in this case, also, in some areas, to soften the fearful effects of disease which decimated populations and their livestock in 1710–14, during the last major visitation of bubonic plague in the history of central Europe. Peter the Great tried to give a more settled form to the changes hastily improvised to take the strain of his war with Sweden. Frederick William I set to work on those schemes which led to the resettlement of derelict areas in East Prussia, and to the organization of the General Directory. In France, leaving aside the abortive constitutional reaction afterLouis XIV's death, the gigantic problem of the debt was tackled by orthodox financiers and administrators as well as by John Law. In this setting, it seems worth asking whether the Austrian Habsburgs, faced by similar problems, sought similar remedies. Such an inquiry may help to give a clearer picture of the main outlines of European development immediately after 1713, in the period which is still occasionally regarded as a featureless interim between the fiercer climaxes of the War of the Spanish Succession and the Great Northern War on the one hand, and the age of Frederick, Catherine and Maria Theresa on the other.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 12 , December 1962 , pp. 63 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1962

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