This book now bears little resemblance to its earlier form as a doctoral thesis, which was more limited in scope and took events only up to 1770. During both the research and the transformation of my thesis into a book it has been my good fortune to benefit from the advice and assistance of a large number of people and institutions. I would like to thank particularly my supervisor Professor T. C. W. Blanning, Sidney Sussex College Cambridge, for his constant help and guidance, and my examiners Drs Jonathan Steinberg, Trinity Hall and Derek McKay, LSE, for their constructive criticism. Invaluable assistance and encouragement during my extended stay in Germany in 1986–9 was provided by Professor Volker Press of Tübingen, whose recent sad death represents a great loss for German scholarship. I am also indebted to the late Professor James Allen Vann for his encouragement and advice during the initial stages of my research.

I acknowledge the gracious permission of HRH The Duke of Württemberg to make use of papers in the family Hausarchiv, Stuttgart. I owe a great debt of thanks to Dr Hans-Martin Maurer and his staff at the Hauptstaatsarchiv, Stuttgart, where most of my research was conducted, for their unflagging assistance, and to the archivists and librarians at the Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart, the Wehrgeschichtliches Museum, Rastatt, the British Library Bloomsbury, the Public Record Office, Chancery Lane, London, and Sunderland University Library whose inter-library loans section provided valuable assistance during the final stages of my work.