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In 1701 Brandenburg-Prussia became the Kingdom of Prussia under Frederick I, with the permission of the Holy Roman Emperor and Polish King. Under Frederick II ( Frederick the Great), Prussia seized the province of Silesia from Austria, and defended it through the Seven Years War which ended in 1763 with Prussia as the dominant state of eastern Germany. Prussia also acquired various territories in other parts of Germany through marriage or inheritance, including Pomerania on the Baltic coast.
During this period the formidable Prussian military machine and efficient state bureaucracy were founded, institutions which were to form the foundations of the German state until 1945, and (in some respects) of the GDR after that. Prussia greatly expanded its territories to the east during the Partitions of Poland between 1772 and 1795. (see New East Prussia and South Prussia), which brought territory as far east as Warsaw under Prussian rule.
Frederick William II led Prussia into war with revolutionary France in 1792, but was defeated at Valmy and was forced to cede his western territories to France. Frederick William III resumed the war, but suffered disaster at Jena and withdrew from the war after ceding yet more territory at the Treaty of Tilsit.
In 1813 Prussia renounced this treaty and rejoined the war against Napoléonic France. Her reward in 1815 was the recovery of her lost territories, as well as the whole of the Rhineland and Westphalia and some other territories. These western lands were to be of vital importance because they included the Ruhr valley, centre of Germany's fledgling industrialisation, and particularly of the arms industry. Prussia emerged from the Napoléonic Wars as the dominant power in Germany, overshadowing her long-time rival Austria, which had given up the German Imperial Crown in 1806. In exchange, Prussia withdrew from areas of central Poland to allow the creation of Congress Poland under Russian sovereignty.
The first half of the 19th century saw a prolonged struggle in Germany between the forces of liberalism, which wanted a united federal Germany under a democratic constitution, and the forces of conservatism, which wanted to keep Germany as a patchwork of weak independent states, with Prussia and Austria competing for influence. In 1848 the liberals got their chance when revolutions broke out across Europe. An alarmed Frederick William IV agreed to convene a National Assembly and grant a constitution. But when the Frankfurt Parliament offered Frederick William the crown of a united Germany, he refused, on the grounds that revolutionary assemblies could not grant royal titles. Prussia obtained a semi-democratic constitution, but the grip of the landowning classes (the junkers) remained unbroken, especially in the eastern parts.
(for more on this period see Kingdom of Prussia)
In 1862 Prussian King William I appointed Otto von Bismarck as Minister-President (prime minister). Bismarck was determined to defeat both the liberals and the conservatives, by creating a strong united Germany, but under the domination of the Prussian ruling class and bureaucracy, not the western German liberals. He achieved this by provoking three successive wars, with Denmark in 1864 ( second war of Schleswig), which gave Prussia Schleswig-Holstein, with Austria in 1866 ( Austro-Prussian War), which allowed Prussia to annex Hanover and most other north German territories who had sided with Austria, and with France in 1870 ( Franco-Prussian War), which allowed him to force Mecklenburg, Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg and Saxony to accept incorporation into a united German Empire (which excluded Austria, however), of which William I assumed the title of Emperor (Kaiser).
This was the high point of Prussia's fortunes, and had the state continued to have wise leaders, Prussia's economic power and political status might have peacefully made her the centre of European civilisation. However, Wilhelm II, who became Emperor in 1888 after the 99-days-rule of Frederick III, was a man of limited experience, narrow and reactionary views and poor judgement. After dismissing Bismarck in 1890 he embarked on a program of militarisation and adventurism in foreign policy that eventually led Germany into the disaster of World War I. The Prussian junkers and generals dominated the conduct of the war, so when it ended in defeat they had to accept responsibility. The Prussian monarchy was overthrown along with all other German monarchies, and Germany became a republic. The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 created a new Polish state and forced Germany to cede a large swathe of territory to it. East Prussia found itself cut off from the rest of Germany by the Polish Corridor.
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