Frederick William I of Prussia

Born in Berlin on 14 August 1688, he was raised by a Huguenot governess and came of age watching plague and corruption tear through Prussia during the Great Northern War. When he became King in Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg in 1713, he set about reorganizing the state with the zeal of an accountant at war: he doubled the Prussian Army, expanded the officer corps to 3,000, imposed taxes, and cracked down on graft and inefficiency in the civil service. A believer in absolute monarchy, he sold off Prussia's overseas colonies to fund military expansion, conquered the port of Stettin, and founded the Canton system to sustain his forces. His health deteriorated and his temper with it, but the reforms held. When he died on 31 May 1740 after twenty-seven years on the throne, he left his son Frederick the Great a centralized state and an army ready to use it.