Editing History of Germany (section)

===Enlightened absolutism===
[[File:Friedrich der Große (1781 or 1786) - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Frederick II of Prussia|Frederick II, the Great, of Prussia]] reigned from 1740 to 1786.]]

[[Frederick the Great|Frederick II "the Great"]] is best known for his military genius and unique utilisation of the highly organized army to make Prussia one of the great powers in Europe as well as [[Miracle of the House of Brandenburg|escaping from almost certain national disaster]] at the last minute. He was also an artist, author and philosopher, who conceived and promoted the concept of [[enlightened absolutism]].<ref>Dennis Showalter, ''Frederick the Great: A Military History'' (2012)</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Ritter |first=Gerhard |url=https://archive.org/details/stayawayjoenovel00cush |title=Frederick the Great: A Historical Profile |publisher=University of California Press |date=1974 |isbn=978-0-5200-2775-6 |editor-last=Peter Peret |location=Berkeley |author-link=Gerhard Ritter |url-access=registration |orig-date=1936}}; called by [[Russell Weigley]] "The best introduction to Frederick the Great and indeed to European warfare in his time." {{Cite book|author=Russell Frank Weigley|title=The Age of Battles: The Quest for Decisive Warfare from Breitenfeld to Waterloo|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=abPUKDlNmRsC&pg=PA550|date=2004|publisher=Indiana U.P.|page=550|isbn=978-0-2532-1707-3}}</ref>

Austrian empress [[Maria Theresa of Austria|Maria Theresa]] succeeded in bringing about a favorable conclusion for her in [[War of the Austrian Succession|the 1740 to 1748 war]] for recognition of her succession to the throne. However, [[Silesia]] was permanently lost to Prussia as a consequence of the [[Silesian Wars]] and the [[Seven Years' War]]. The 1763 [[Treaty of Hubertusburg]] ruled that Austria and Saxony had to relinquish all claims to Silesia. Prussia, that had nearly doubled its territory was eventually recognized as a great European power with the consequence that the politics of the following century were fundamentally influenced by [[Austria–Prussia rivalry|German dualism]], the rivalry of Austria and Prussia for supremacy in Central Europe.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jörg Ulbert |title=A History of Franco-German Relations in Europe |publisher=Springer Nature Switzerland AG |date=2008 |isbn=978-1-3493-7221-8 |pages=39–48 |chapter=France and German Dualism, 1756–1871 |doi=10.1057/9780230616639_4}}</ref>

The concept of enlightened absolutism, although rejected by the nobility and citizenry, was advocated in [[Prussia]] and [[Austria]] and implemented since 1763. Prussian king [[Frederick II of Prussia|Frederick II]] defended the idea in an essay and argued that the [[Benevolent dictatorship|benevolent monarch]] simply is the ''first servant of the state'', who effects his absolute political power for the benefit of the population as a whole. A number of legal reforms (e.g. the abolition of torture and the emancipation of the rural population and the Jews), the reorganization of the [[Prussian Academy of Sciences]], the introduction of compulsory education for boys and girls and promotion of religious tolerance, among others, caused rapid social and economic development.<ref name="Schui2013">{{Cite book |first=Florian |last=Schui |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v6xahmxWS3YC&pg=PA92 |title=Rebellious Prussians: Urban Political Culture Under Frederick the Great and His Successors |date=14 March 2013 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-1995-9396-5 |page=92}}</ref>

During 1772 to 1795 Prussia instigated the [[partitions of Poland]] by occupying the western territories of the former [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth]]. Austria and [[Russian Empire|Russia]] resolved to acquire the remaining lands with the effect that Poland ceased to exist as a sovereign state until 1918.<ref>Lucjan R. Lewitter, "The Partitions of Poland" in A. Goodwyn, ed. ''The New Cambridge Modern History: vol 8 1763–93'' (1965) pp. 333–359</ref>