On 15 December Leopold's force attacked and destroyed Rutowsky's army in the Battle of Kesselsdorf, opening the way to Dresden, as Prince Charles and the remaining Saxon soldiers retreated through the Ore Mountains into Bohemia. The Prussians occupied Dresden on 18 December, after which Frederick once again sent envoys to Maria Theresa and Frederick Augustus II to propose peace. Austrian and Saxon delegates and British mediators joined the Prussians in Dresden, where they quickly negotiated a peace treaty. Under the resulting agreement, Maria Theresa acknowledged Prussia's control of Silesia and Glatz, and Frederick retroactively recognised Francis I as Holy Roman Emperor and agreed to the Pragmatic Sanction, while also committing to neutrality for the remainder of the War of the Austrian Succession. For its part in the Austrian alliance, Saxony was compelled to pay one million rixdollars in reparations to Prussia. The region's border were thus confirmed at the "status quo ante bellum", which had been Prussia's principal goal. This Treaty of Dresden was signed on 25 December 1745, ending the Second Silesian War between Austria, Saxony, and Prussia. The First and Second Silesian Wars have been described as campaigns within one continuous War of the Austrian Succession. Partly for this reason, contemporaries and later historians have consistently viewed the Second Silesian War's conclusion as a victory for Prussia, which defended its seizure of Silesia. Prussia's intervention in Bohemia also seriously impeded the Austrian war effort against France. However, by making another separate peace while the French continued to fight the wider War of the Austrian Succession, Frederick damaged his own diplomatic credibility. The Treaty of Dresden also deepened Austria and Saxony's hostility toward Prussia, leading them into the anti-Prussian alliance that would spark the Third Silesian War in the following decade. By again defeating Austria, Prussia confirmed its acquisition of Silesia, a densely industrialised region with a large population and substantial tax yields. The small kingdom's unexpected victories over the Habsburg Monarchy marked the beginning of Prussia's rise toward the status of a European great power, as it began to leave German rivals such as Bavaria and Saxony behind. His series of battlefield victories in 1745 won Frederick general acclaim as a brilliant military commander; it was at the end of this war that he began to be spoken of as "Frederick the Great." The seizure of Silesia made Prussia and Austria into lasting and determined enemies, beginning the Austria–Prussia rivalry that would come to dominate German politics over the next century.