On 16 December 1740, Prussian troops invaded Silesia, and despite two major wars the Prussians stayed. The loss of Silesia ushered in a period of profound change for the Habsburg (now formally the Habsburg-Lorraine) dynasty and their territories. The Pragmatic Sanction having proved unable to preserve the integrity of the Habsburg lands, the problem now for Maria Theresa and her advisers was how to protect the Habsburg interest in the era of power politics embodied by Prussia.

The immediate goal was to regain Silesia and crush Prussia. When this proved impossible, the Habsburgs faced the existential task of adapting their regime and the basis of their authority for survival in the age of Enlightenment, an age of administrative rationalization, increasing state power and rationalist challenging of tradition.

Over the next century and more the Habsburg dynasty responded to this challenge of modernity by first adapting its institutions and outlook to the new circumstances, then reacting against the radicalization of those circumstances, and finally attempting to pull off the trick of both adapting to modern economic and social circumstances while denying the political change that went with these.

This process, with its theme, counter-theme and resolution, appears analogous to the sonata form associated with the contemporary musical revolution in Vienna. Yet it was actually much more like the sonata form's philosophical counterpart, the Hegelian dialectic, for harmonious resolution was lacking.