Historian Leopold von Ranke was unstinting in his praise of Frederick's "heroic life, inspired by great ideas, filled with feats of arms ... immortalized by the raising of the Prussian state to the rank of a power". Johann Gustav Droysen was even more favorable. Nationalist historian Heinrich von Treitschke presented Frederick as the greatest German in centuries. Onno Klopp was one of the few German historians of the 19th century who denigrated and ridiculed Frederick. The novelist Thomas Mann in 1914 also attacked Frederick, arguing—like Empress Maria Theresa—that he was a wicked man who robbed Austria of Silesia, precipitating the alliance against him. Nevertheless, with Germany humiliated after World War I, Frederick's popularity as a heroic figure remained high in Germany. Thomas Carlyle's "History of Frederick the Great" (8 vol. 1858–1865) emphasized the power of one great "hero", in this case Frederick, to shape history.