[5] Attempts to create a federation remained unsuccessful and the German Confederation collapsed in 1866 when the Austro-Prussian War ensued between its two most powerful member states.

In return for an alliance against France in the War of the Spanish Succession, the Great Elector's son, Frederick III, was allowed to elevate Prussia to a kingdom in the Crown Treaty of 16 November 1700.

Its territory was disjointed, stretching 1,200 km (750 mi) from the lands of the Duchy of Prussia on the south-east coast of the Baltic Sea to the Hohenzollern heartland of Brandenburg, with the exclaves of Cleves, Mark and Ravensberg in the Rhineland.

Starting in 1700, the war involved a coalition led by Tsarist Russia against the dominant North European power at the time, the Swedish Empire.

[15] Therefore, in 1715, Prussia, led by Frederick William, joined the coalition for various reasons,[15] including the danger of being attacked from both her rear and the sea; her claims on Pomerania; and the fact that if she stood aside and Sweden lost, she would not get a share of the territory.

The Great Northern War not only marked the end of the Swedish Empire but also elevated Prussia and Russia at the expense of the declining Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as new powers in Europe.

[16] The Great Elector had incorporated the Junkers, the landed aristocracy, into the kingdom's bureaucracy and military machine, giving them a vested interest in the Prussian Army and compulsory education.

The offer was rejected, but Austria faced several other opponents in a desperate struggle for survival, and Frederick was eventually able to gain formal cession with the Treaty of Berlin in 1742.

This war was a desperate struggle for the Prussian Army, and the fact that it managed to fight much of Europe to a draw bears witness to Frederick's military skills.

Facing Austria, Russia, France, and Sweden simultaneously, and with only Hanover (and the non-continental British) as notable allies, Frederick managed to prevent a serious invasion until October 1760, when the Russian army briefly occupied Berlin and Königsberg.

Defeating the Austrian army at the Battle of Burkersdorf and relying on continuing British success against France in the war's colonial theatres, Prussia was finally able to force a status quo ante bellum on the continent.

In 1787, Prussia invaded Holland to restore the Orangist stadtholderate against the increasingly rebellious Patriots, who sought to overthrow the House of Orange-Nassau and establish a democratic republic.

The Kingdom of Prussia was perceived in Poland more as a nationality-neutral personal holding of the ruling House of Hohenzollern, rather than a German nation-state, and any anxiety concerned predominantly freedom to practice religion rather than rights to maintain national identity.

In it, the First French Republic and Prussia had stipulated that the latter would ensure the Holy Roman Empire's neutrality in all the latter's territories north of the demarcation line of the River Main, including the British continental dominions of the Electorate of Hanover and the Duchies of Bremen-Verden.

But when Prussia, after it turned against the First French Empire, was defeated in the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt (14 October 1806), Frederick William III was forced to temporarily flee to remote Memel.

The remainder of the kingdom was occupied by French troops (at Prussia's expense) and the king was obliged to make an alliance with France and join the Continental System.

After the defeat of Napoleon in Russia in 1812, Prussia quit the alliance and took part in the Sixth Coalition during the "Wars of Liberation" (Befreiungskriege) against the French occupation.

Prussian troops under Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher contributed crucially in the Battle of Waterloo of 1815 to the final victory over Napoleon.

Frederick William III submitted Prussia to a number of administrative reforms, among others reorganising the government by way of ministries, which remained formative for the following hundred years.

The Calvinist minority, strongly supported by its co-religionist Frederick William III, and the partially reluctant Lutheran majority formed the united Protestant Evangelical Church in Prussia.

The constitution nevertheless contained a number of liberal elements such as the introduction of jury courts and a catalog of fundamental rights that included freedom of religion, speech and the press.

The parliament, dominated by the liberals, balked at William's desire to increase the number of regiments and withheld approval of the budget to pay for its cost.

Bismarck argued that since they had failed to come to an agreement, there was a "hole" in the constitution, and the government had to continue to collect taxes and disburse funds in accordance with the old budget in order to keep functioning.

The Austrian-led coalition was crushed, and Prussia annexed four of its smaller allies—the Kingdom of Hanover, the Electorate of Hesse, the Duchy of Nassau and the Free City of Frankfurt.

The patriotic fervour aroused by the war against France overwhelmed the remaining opponents of a unified Kleindeutschland nation, and on 18 January 1871 (the 170th anniversary of the coronation of the first Prussian king, Frederick I), the German Empire was proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles[23] outside of Paris, while the French capital was still under siege.

Bismarck realized that the rest of Europe was sceptical of his powerful new Reich, and turned his attention to preserving peace with such acts as the Congress of Berlin.

Before and during World War I (1914–1918), Prussia supplied significant numbers of soldiers and sailors in the German military, and Prussian Junkers dominated the higher ranks.

The joint authority, feudal and bureaucratic, on which Prussian absolute monarchy was based, saw its interests laid in suppression of the drive for personal freedom and democratic rights.

It contained a significant number of liberal elements from the Charte Waldeck, including a parliament with two chambers, the introduction of jury courts, certain limitations on the monarch's powers and a mandate to ensure legal certainty.

Following the major western gains made by Prussia after the Vienna Congress, a total of ten provinces were established, each one subdivided further into smaller administrative regions known as Regierungsbezirke.