Maria Theresa

Maria Theresa (1717 to 1780) was the ruler of the Habsburg monarchy from 1740 until her death in 1780 and the only woman to hold that position in her own right, sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia and other lands and, by marriage, Holy Roman Empress. She took the throne on the death of her father, Charles VI, in October 1740, when Saxony, Prussia, Bavaria and France repudiated the Pragmatic Sanction they had recognised in his lifetime. In December of that year Frederick II of Prussia invaded Silesia and asked her to cede it; she chose to fight for the province, and the conflict widened into the War of the Austrian Succession. Short of experienced military commanders, she released Marshal Wilhelm Reinhard von Neipperg, whom her father had imprisoned, and gave him command of the Austrian troops. The Treaty of Breslau of June 1742 ended the First Silesian War, and the Treaty of Dresden of December 1745 ended the Second, leaving Prussia in possession of Silesia except for Austrian Silesia. She and Prince Kaunitz tried to win Silesia back in the Seven Years' War, which followed Frederick's invasion of Saxony in 1756. Her reforms, carried out with Friedrich Wilhelm von Haugwitz, created a standing army of 108,000 men, and she founded the Military Order of Maria Theresa in 1757.