1716–1718. Their position as the dominant power within the Holy Roman Empire was challenged by Bavaria, Hanover, Prussia, and Saxony, who increasingly acted as independent powers; in 1742, Charles of Bavaria became the first non-Habsburg Emperor in over 300 years. The Dutch had successfully defended their positions in the Southern Netherlands, and their troops were central to the alliance which halted French territorial expansion in Europe until a new cycle began in 1792. However, the war left them effectively bankrupt, and inflicted permanent damage on the Dutch merchant navy; while they remained the dominant economic power in the Far East, Britain took over as the pre-eminent global commercial and maritime power. The Barrier Treaty fortresses became the central driver of Dutch foreign policy in the decades after 1713, but although judged favourably by contemporaries, modern historians still argue about their effectiveness, since the forts were conquered by France during the War of the Austrian Succession. Louis XIV died on 1 September 1715, and was succeeded by his five-year-old great-grandson Louis XV; on his deathbed, he is alleged to have admitted, "I have loved war too well". True or not, while the final settlement was far more favourable than the Allied terms of 1709, it is hard to see what Louis gained he had not already achieved through diplomacy by February 1701. Since 1666, French policies assumed military and economic superiority over their rivals, but this was no longer the case by 1714 when Britain appeared to have overtaken France on both fronts. The continued widening of this gap as British trade expanded post-Utrecht was viewed by Louis' successors as a permanent threat to the European balance of power. Seeking to reduce this was a major factor in France entering the 1740 to 1748 War of the Austrian Succession. Wider implications include the rise of Prussia and Savoy while many of the participants were involved in the 1700–1721 Great Northern War, with Russia becoming a major European power for the first time as a result. Finally, while colonial conflicts were relatively minor and largely confined to the North American theatre, the so-called Queen Anne's War, they were to become a key element in future wars. Meanwhile, maritime unemployment brought on by the war's end led to the third stage of the Golden Age of Piracy, as many sailors formerly employed in the navies of the warring powers turned to piracy for