Saxony-Poland as a major European power

Count Heinrich von Brühl was Saxony's most important statesman in the Age of Augustus. Endowed with great power by Elector Frederick Augustus II, he determined the fortunes of Electoral Saxony and Poland in the middle of the 18th century. He played a major role in establishing Saxony and Poland-Lithuania as a major European power alongside Russia, Prussia and Austria, and shaped an era of great splendour and growing prosperity. The Seven Years' War, the outcome of which Brühl could not foresee, brought this period of prosperity to an end.