M�ser wrote an influential social and constitutional history, the Osnabr�cker Geschichte, in the town. Following the Seven Years' War, the town's population fell below 6,000, but an economic revival based on the linen and tobacco industries brought growth from the 1780s.
The French Revolutionary Wars brought Prussian troops into the city in 1795, followed by the French in 1803. The town's population remained below 10,000 in this first decade of the nineteenth century. Control of Osnabr�ck passed to the Electorate of Hanover in 1803 during the German Mediatisation and then briefly to the Kingdom of Prussia in 1806. It was part of the Kingdom of Westphalia from 1807�10, after which it passed to the First French Empire. After the Napoleonic Wars, it became part of the Kingdom of Hanover in 1815.
The town's first railroad was built in 1855, connecting it with L�hne. Further rail connections were built in the following decades, connecting Osnabr�ck with Emden in 1856, Cologne in 1871, and Hamburg in 1874. In 1866 Osnabr�ck was annexed by Prussia after the Austro-Prussian War and administered within the Province of Hanover. Economic and population growth was fueled by the expansions in the engineering and textile industries, with the Hammsersen weaving mill established in 1869 and the Osnabr�cker Kupfer- und Drahtwerk metallurgical firm following in 1873. The last half of the century also brought the expansion of schools and the arrival of electrification and modern sanitation systems.
In 1914 Osnabr�ck had over 70,000 inhabitants. The outbreak of the First World War brought food rationing; the Allied blockade and a harsh winter in 1917 led to further shortages. Following Germany's defeat in 1918 a council of workers and soldiers appeared during the November Revolution but was replaced by the new Weimar Republic in the following year. As in other parts of Germany, Osnabr�ck experienced inflation and unemployment in the 1920s, with over 2,000 out of
