Thus at the peace of Utrecht (April 11, 1713), after the War of the Spanish Succession, he acquired the greater part of the duchy of Gelderland. By the treaty of Schwedt, concluded with Russia on the 6th of October, he was assured of an important influence in the solution of the Baltic question, which during the long absence of Charles XII. had become burning; and Swedish Pomerania, as far as the Peene, was occupied by Prussia. But Charles XII. on his return turned against the king, though without success, for the Pomeranian campaign of 1715 ended in favour of Prussia (fall of Stralsund, December 22). This enabled Frederick William I. to maintain a more independent attitude towards the tsar; he refused, for example, to provide him with troops for a campaign (in Schonen) against the Swedes. When on the 28th of May 1718, in view of the disturbances in Mecklenburg, he signed at Havelberg the alliance with Russia, he confined himself to taking up a defensive attitude, and, on the other hand, on the 14th of August 1719 he also entered into relations with his former enemies, England and Hanover. And so, by the treaty of Stockholm (February 1, 1720), Frederick William succeeded in obtaining the consent of Sweden to the cession of that part of Pomerania which he had occupied (Usedom, Wollin, Stettin, Hither Pomerania, east of the Peene) in return for a payment of 2,000,000 thalers. While Frederick William I. succeeded in carrying his wishes into effect in this direction, he was unable to realize another project which he had much at heart, namely, the Prussian succession to the Lower Rhine duchies of Juelich and Berg. The treaty concluded in 1725 at Vienna between the emperor and Spain brought the whole of this question up again, for both sides had pledged themselves to support the Palatinate-Sulzbach succession (in the event of the Palatinate-Neuberg line becoming extinct). Frederick William turned for help to the western powers, England and France, and secured it by the treaty of alliance signed at Herrenhausen on the 3rd of September 1725 (League of Hanover). But since the western powers soon sought to use the military strength of Prussia for their own ends, Frederick again turned towards the east, strengthened above all his relations with Russia, which had continued to be good, and finally, by the treaty of Wuesterhausen (October 12, 1726; ratified at Berlin, December 23, 1728), even allied himself with his former adversary, the court of Vienna; though this treaty only imperfectly safeguarded Prussian interests, inasmuch as Frederick William consented to renounce his claims to Juelich. But as in the following years the European situation became more and more favourable to the house of Habsburg, the latter began to try to withdraw part of the concessions which it had made to Frederick William. As early as 1728 Duesseldorf, the capital, was excluded from the guarantee of Berg. Nevertheless, in the War of the Polish Succession against France