Frederick William I of Prussia (The Soldier King)

Frederick William I, famously known as the 'Soldier King' (Der Soldatenkönig), was the austere, ferocious architect who forged the Kingdom of Prussia from an impoverished, vulnerable Baltic principality into a premier European military superpower. Despising the lavish court luxury of his father Frederick I, Frederick William slashed palace expenses by eighty percent, sold royal jewels, and invested every thaler into administrative efficiency and the army.

He built the fourth-largest standing army in Europe (80,000 soldiers) in a nation ranked only twelfth in population, famously prompting Mirabeau's quip: 'Prussia is not a state with an army, but an army with a state.' He introduced compulsory primary education, built the canton recruitment system, accumulated an immense gold surplus, and assembled his famous regiment of giant soldiers, the Potsdam Giants. Remarkably, despite his militarism, he avoided aggressive foreign wars. Though he subjected his intellectual son, Frederick the Great, to brutal military discipline (even forcing him to watch his friend Katte's execution), he bequeathed to Frederick an incorruptible civil service, a full treasury, and the finest drilled army on Earth.