Description:
The Teutonic Order is considered to have come under the control of the Habsburg Dynasty after the Peace of Pressburg (1805). This Essay tries to illustrate that this reorganisation, following a several centuries old tradition, was only formally new. Examples for this tradition are the Grandmasters Leopold Wilhelm (1641-1662) and Karl Alexander of Lorraine (1761-1780), whose administration put the wellbeing of the Habsburg Dynasty above the needs of the Teutonic Order.