ABSTRACT
When the Great Elector died he left an army 30,000 strong. Taxation and subsidies from other powers alone were no longer sufficient to maintain the army. The need to finance the army was one major factor responsible for his expanding trade and commerce in Brandenburg-Prussia. One of the major aspects of his domestic policy had been to attract immigrants to Prussia and in this context, during the last years of his life, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 had played into his hands because it brought some 20,000 French and Walloon Huguenot emigrants to Brandenburg-Prussia. Possessing more highly developed commercial and industrial skills than the majority of the native population, and having also a rather better education, the Huguenot immigrants represented an asset the value of which to the commercial, industrial and intellectual development of Brandenburg-Prussia can never be overestimated.
