By diplomacy more than by military prowess,
he obtained the new territories by the peace of Westphalia. Then,
taking advantage of a war between Sweden and Poland, he made himself so
invaluable to both sides, now helping one, now deserting to the other,
that by cunning and sometimes by unscrupulous intrigue, he induced the
king of Poland to renounce suzerainty over East Prussia and to give him
that duchy in full sovereignty. In the Dutch War of Louis XIV (1672-
1678) he completely defeated the Swedes, who were in alliance with
France, and, although he was not allowed by the provisions of the peace
to keep what he had conquered, nevertheless the fame of his army was
established and Brandenburg-Prussia took rank as the chief competitor
of Sweden's hegemony in the Baltic.
In matters of government, the Great Elector was, like his contemporary
Louis XIV, a firm believer in absolutism. At the commencement of his
reign, each one of the three parts of his lands--Brandenburg, Cleves,
and East Prussia--was organized as a separate, petty state, with its
own Diet or form of representative government, its own army, and its
own independent administration.
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