It
was this despised and misunderstood prince who as Frederick II
succeeded his father on the throne of Prussia in 1740 and is known in
history as Frederick the Great.
The year 1740 marked the accession of Frederick the Great in the
Hohenzollern possessions and of Maria Theresa in the Habsburg
territories. [Footnote: Below are discussed the foreign achievements
(pp. 354 ff.) of these two rival sovereigns, and in Chapter XIV (pp.
440 ff.) their internal policies.] It also marked the outbreak of a
protracted struggle within the Holy Roman Empire between the two
foremost German states--Austria and Prussia.
THE MINOR GERMAN STATES
[Sidenote: German States Other than Austria and Prussia]
Of the three hundred other states which composed the empire, few were
sufficiently large or important to exert any considerable influence on
the issue of the contest. A few, however, which took sides, deserve
mention not only because in the eighteenth century they preserved a
kind of balance of power between the rivals but also because they have
been more or less conspicuous factors in the progress of recent times.
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