Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/710

644 unoccupied person he chanced to find, whether man, woman, or child.

Frederick William had a mania for big soldiers. With infinite expense and trouble he gathered a regiment of the biggest men he could find, which was known as the "Potsdam Giants,"—a regiment numbering 2400 men, some of whom were eight feet in height. Not only were the Goliaths of his own dominions impressed into the service, but big men in all parts of Europe were coaxed, bribed, or kidnapped by Frederick's recruiting officers. No present was so acceptable to him as a giant, and by the gift of a six-footer more than one prince bought his everlasting favor. Rough, brutal tyrant though he was, Frederick William was an able and energetic ruler. He did much to consolidate the power of Prussia, and at his death in 1740 left to his successor a considerably extended dominion, and a splendid army of 80,000 men.

Frederick the Great (1740–1786).—Frederick William was followed by his son Frederick II., to whom the world has agreed to give the title of " Great." Frederick had a genius for war, and his father had prepared to his hand one of the most efficient instruments of the art since the time of the Roman legions. The two great wars in which he was engaged, and which raised Prussia to the first rank among the military powers of Europe, were the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War.

War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748).—Through the death of Charles VI. the Imperial office became vacant on the very year that Frederick II. ascended the Prussian throne. Charles was the last of the direct male line of the Hapsburgs, and disputes straightway arose respecting the possessions of the House of Austria, which resulted in the long struggle known as the War of the Austrian Succession.

Now, not long before the death of Charles, he had bound all the leading powers of Europe in a sort of agreement called the Pragmatic Sanction, by the terms of which, in case he should leave no son, all his hereditary dominions—that is, the kingdom of Hungary, the kingdom of Bohemia, the archduchy of Austria, and the