The emergence of the Hohenzollerns of Prussia as rivals of the Habsburgs and the beginning of the Austro-Prussian dualism created the possibility of reversing the process of civic decentralization that had prevailed in Germany since the late Middle Ages. The interests of the territorial princes of the Holy Roman Empire inclined them toward a policy of particularism, while the government of Austria, with its Flemish, Italian, Slavic, and Magyar territories, could not perforce become the instrument of German unification. Prussia, on the other hand, was militarily strong enough and ethnically homogeneous enough to make national consolidation the main object of statecraft. Still, in the 18th century, no Prussian ruler thought in national terms. The intention of Frederick II (Frederick the Great) and of his successors Frederick William II and Frederick William III was to pursue dynastic rather than national objectives. Like the lesser princes of Germany, all they sought was to maintain and enlarge their authority against the claim of imperial supremacy. Far from wanting to end the disunity of Germany, they hoped to prolong and exploit it. The patriotic Prussophile historians, who a hundred years later argued that what Bismarck had achieved was the consummation of what Frederick had sought, were letting the present distort their understanding of the past. In fact, the greatest of the Hohenzollerns had remained as indifferent to the glaring political weaknesses of his nation as to its great cultural achievements. His attitude toward the constitutional system of the Holy Roman Empire was similar to that of the self-seeking princelings who were his neighbors and from whom he was distinguishable only by talent and power. He may have scorned their sybaritic way of life, but politically he wanted what they wanted—namely, the freedom to seek the advantage of his dynasty without regard for the interests of Germany as a whole.

His preoccupation with the welfare of his state rather than with that of his nation is apparent in the strategy by which he tried to check Habsburg ambitions after the Seven Years’ War (1756–63). During the first half of his reign he had relied primarily on military force to advance his dynastic interests at the expense of the Habsburgs. In the second half he preferred to employ the weapons of diplomacy to achieve the same end. In 1777 the ruling dynasty of Bavaria came to an end with the death of Maximilian Joseph. The elector of the Palatinate, the Wittelsbach Charles Theodore, now became ruler over the Wittelsbach territory of Bavaria as well. Without legitimate heirs and without affection for his newly acquired eastern possessions, he agreed to a plan proposed by Emperor Joseph II to cede part of the Bavarian lands to Austria. But any increase in the strength of the Habsburgs was unacceptable to Frederick the Great. With the tacit approval of most of the princes of the empire, he declared war against Austria in 1778, hoping that other states within and outside central Europe would join him. In this expectation he was disappointed. Expecting an easy success, Joseph also became discouraged by the difficulties that he encountered. The War of the Bavarian Succession dragged on from the summer of 1778 to the spring of 1779, with neither side enhancing its reputation for military prowess. There was much marching back and forth, while hungry soldiers scrounged for food in what came to be called the “Potato War.” The upshot was the Treaty of Teschen (May 1779), by which the Austrian government abandoned all claims to Bavarian territory except for a small strip along the Inn River. The conflict had brought Frederick no significant military victories, but he had succeeded in frustrating Habsburg ambition.

Joseph II, however, was a stubborn adversary. In 1785 he once again advanced a plan for the acquisition of Wittelsbach lands, this time on an even more ambitious scale. He suggested to Charles Theodore nothing less than an outright exchange of the Austrian Netherlands for all of Bavaria. The emperor, in other words, proposed to surrender his distant possessions on the North Sea, which were difficult to defend, for a territory that was contiguous and a population that was assimilable. The scheme went far beyond that which Prussia had defeated seven years before, and Frederick opposed it with equal determination. He hoped to enlist the diplomatic aid of France and Russia against what he regarded as an attempt to upset the balance of power in central Europe. But, more than that, he succeeded in forming the Fürstenbund (League of Princes), which 17 of the more important rulers in Germany joined. The members pledged themselves to maintain the fundamental law of the empire and to defend the possessions of the governments included within its boundaries. The growing opposition to the absorption of Bavaria by Austria persuaded Joseph that the risks inherent in his plan outweighed its advantages. The proposed exchange of territories was dropped, and Frederick could celebrate yet another triumph of his statecraft, the last of an illustrious career. But the association of princes that he founded did not survive its author. Its sole purpose had been the prevention of Habsburg hegemony. Once the danger had passed, it lost the only justification for its existence. Those nationalists who later maintained that it foreshadowed the creation of the German Empire misunderstood its origins and objectives. It was never more than a weapon in the struggle for the preservation of a decentralized form of government in Germany.

The Hohenzollerns’ subordination of national to dynastic interests was even more apparent in the partitions of Poland. Frederick the Great was the chief architect of the First Partition, that of 1772, by which the ill-starred kingdom lost about one-fifth of its inhabitants and one-fourth of its territory to Prussia, Russia, and Austria. His successor, Frederick William II, helped to complete the destruction of the Polish state by the partitions of 1793 (between Prussia and Russia) and 1795 (between Prussia, Russia, and Austria). The result was bound to be an enhancement of Prussia’s role in Europe but also a diminution of its focus on Germany. The Hohenzollerns willingly embarked on a course that would in time have transformed their kingdom into a binational state comparable to the Habsburg empire. The German population in the old provinces would have been counterbalanced by the Slavic population in the new; the Protestant faith of the Brandenburgers and Prussians would have had to share its influence with the Roman Catholicism of the Poles; the capital city of Berlin would have found a competitor in the capital city of Warsaw. In short, the center of gravity of the state would have shifted eastward, away from the problems and interests of the Holy Roman Empire. Yet the rulers of Prussia did not shrink from a policy that was likely to have such far-reaching consequences. They never contemplated sacrificing the advantage that their state would gain from an enlargement of its resources in order to assume the role of unifiers of their nation. Such a political attitude would have been an anachronism during the age of princely absolutism in Germany. It was not design but accident that before long led to the abandonment by Prussia of most of its Polish possessions and that thereby allowed it to play a leading role in the affairs of Germany.