began, so to speak, while the ink was still wet on the signatures to
the Peace of Dresden. Next to Austria, where the alienation of Silesia
was regarded as entirely temporary, the chief source of the intrigues
was Russia; Austria, of course, always played the rôle of diplomat
with a light touch, whereas Russia, at all times clumsy, at all times
ready to conspire, hammered away at the war and the annexation of
East Prussia. I mentioned that Russia’s leader of foreign affairs was
Bestuchev, the imperial chancellor, who took care, by arrangement with
the Austrian and English agents, to feed the alcoholic hatred of his
mistress for the King of Prussia, and to hold the resources of his
half-savage country at the service of Austria. Scarcely any relations
now subsisted between the courts of Berlin and Saint Petersburg. A sort
of latent state of war obtained. Every spring, troops assembled in the
Baltic Provinces and threatened to overflow the Prussian border. But
there had to be some show of conducting matters in the European way; so
all sorts of documents were drawn up on parchment, with secret clauses
and everything proper and in order.
The fact was that as early as 1745 an alliance had been entered into
by the maritime powers and the Saxon-Polish and Hungarian courts--the
famous Warsaw Alliance, so-called. It had only been ratified in the
spring of that year, at Leipsic, and looked harmless enough on the
surface, but it had a secret clause, the Warsaw Agreement, signed only
by the monarchs of Hungary and Poland, which was definitely directed
against the robber of Silesia. Scarcely had the Peace of Dresden been
signed, when Vienna, through the proper diplomatic channels, let it
be known in Dresden that she hoped the Warsaw Agreement was still
in force. Brühl would have been delighted to utter a hearty yes in
reply; but that he was afraid to; began to wriggle, and through all
the following years continued to wriggle, until the arrival of the
catastrophe. Saxony had come off unharmed from the Peace of Dresden;
contrary to her expectations, for when Frederick was fighting in
Bohemia she had attacked him in the rear. But he contented himself
with an indemnity--the victor of Soor and Kesselsdorf was just then
behaving with great moderation, not to say magnanimity. Brühl, however,
hated Frederick; at that time everything political had a strong
personal coloration, and the hatred of the luxurious and effeminate
minister-president toward the ascetic and industrious soldier was
inborn and indestructible, it yielded nothing in violence to the
Austrian brand. Brühl would have been delighted to give it free vent;
but there was the outward attitude of Saxony toward the Prussian
states, and there was the abominable superiority of the Prussian army.
“The Warsaw Agreement,” answered Brühl: yes, it subsisted, and then
again, it did not subsist. It subsisted conditionally. It subsisted
on condition that it did no harm to Saxony. It subsisted on condition
that Russia joined it. It was indispensable that Russia should join--if
she did, then by all means. It went without saying. “_Parfaitement_,”
replied Austria, and applied to Russia; and Russia barely waited to be
asked, she was on the spot at once, with clumsy and unlimited zeal.
In the year ’46 a defensive alliance--only defensive, of course--was
arranged between Austria and Russia. It contained a secret clause, to
the effect that if the King attacked either of them, he should be held
to have forfeited Silesia thereby--beloved, lamented Silesia, which
grew dearer and dearer to the Empress-queen, the more she saw what
Frederick knew how to get out of it; Catholic Silesia, whose possession
by a heretic and criminal cried to heaven. Brühl was politely invited
to come in ... but Brühl still wriggled. No, no signature, no official
commitment, it was too dangerous. And as they were sure of his good
intentions, they let him off the signature, in God’s name. If anybody
accuses Saxony of having joined an alliance against Frederick, he lies.
Saxony had preserved its neutrality, Saxony had not signed. That it had
done its utmost, with Austria, to stir up trouble in Saint Petersburg
is another matter. It was neutral, none the less; it had not signed.
A defensive alliance, be it known, is an alliance which only begins
to be in force when one or another party to it is attacked by a given
other power or group of powers. But one speaks in strategy of an
offensive defensive; and it would appear that something of the kind
may also occur in the diplomatic sphere; indeed, if it were not for
the conciliatory title, it might sometimes be very hard to distinguish
a defensive alliance from its reprehensible opposite. In politics, as
also in life, the name is mostly a sort of _concession au publique_,
and deals only superficially with the fact it represents. An attack
may be of sheer necessity; but then it is not an attack at all, it
is a defence. And if an attack is advantageous to the members of
the defensive alliance, why, then it becomes as good as impossible
to draw the psychological line where the _casus fœderis_ ceases to
be a contingency which everybody would unite in avoiding, and turns
into something devoutly to be wished. Thus it becomes a question of
sensibility, and has to be left to the feeling of the allies, when
one of them shall and will feel itself attacked; and accordingly, to
invoke the _casus fœderis_ it is only necessary to drive your opponent
to do the attacking--in other words, to force him into the rôle of
formal aggressor, which is scarcely very difficult, and may be,
under some circumstances, very easy. Things will inevitably so shape
themselves, when one of the parties to the defensive alliance is a
power like the Muscovite kingdom, a power whose instinct to expand has
something elemental and irresponsible about it, like the stretching
and the appetite of a giant; a power which, knowing itself ultimately
unconquerable, is at all times clumsily eager for the fray. Now, as for
this defensive alliance between Austria and Russia, aimed at Prussia:
the Empress Maria Theresa had repeatedly and solemnly renounced
Silesia, and she was much too god-fearing a woman even to think of
breaking the compacts of Dresden, Breslau, and Aix-la-Chapelle. But
for that very reason she needed to find a way of getting back Silesia
which should be morally possible; and this she secured by the alliance
with Russia. For if Frederick were to attack, he would lose his right
to the province. Which was now for the good Maria Theresa the _casus
fœderis_--a danger or a desirability? Let us call it a tempting
danger, or a troubling desire. But what Russia understood by the
word “defensive” is clear from the fact that in 1753 it was formally
announced in the council of state in Saint Petersburg, and made the
basis of a protocol, that it would also be permissible to attack
Prussia in case an ally of Russia attacked her first. A corollary
perhaps rather alcoholic in origin, but it makes the question wherein a
defensive alliance differs, except in name, from another, to a certain
extent legitimate.
Well, and did Frederick know of these things? Oh, yes, one thing and
another did come to his ears in the course of these years, if more by
way of a trickle than in a steady stream. He had to put them together
and make sense of them himself. The system of espionage was just
then at the height of its flower, blossoming rather more luxuriantly
than it does today; and Frederick was its greatest supporter,
considering it to be of the highest importance to maintain spies
everywhere, in all the important places. He called them his “_Kujons_”
(rascals) or “_Pfaffen_” (parsons), and never could have too many of
them--especially since they did not cost very much. Brühl had set up a
whole office in Dresden just for deciphering the Prussian dispatches;
so we may consider it in the light of a retort on Frederick’s part
that he kept a “_Kujon_” there in his pay, to post him in events
important for the King to know. This famous _filou_, named Menzel, a
book-keeper by occupation, had access to the files which contained the
secret documents of the government of Saxony, and for years made copies
of the diplomatic correspondence between Russia and Vienna, which,
together with the replies sent by the wriggling Brühl, he punctually
dispatched to Potsdam. From these documents Frederick gleaned precisely
the dealings which Saxony had with Vienna and Saint Petersburg at the
beginning and toward the middle of the fifties. He learned how Brühl
wriggled and twisted in order both to preserve and to betray the
neutrality of Saxony; how Russia was persuaded to come in; how they
egged her on, in her clumsy enthusiasm, to bring things to a point;
how a god-fearing empress set to work to find a valid, an ethical
excuse for action. He learned--if he had not known before--what
sort of thing a defensive alliance might be, when directed against
himself; and, supposing that he, on his side, was not god-fearing and
peaceably disposed, not at all inclined to rest on the laurels of
Hohenfriedberg, but, on the contrary, cherishing all sorts of schemes
and treacheries--then, here in these very papers, he himself possessed
the moral possibility which the good Empress-queen was to reap from
his offensive. As you see, the real inwardness of things was somewhat
complicated, though it was, on Frederick’s side, more downright, more
contemptuous, less involved, than it was with Maria Theresa and the man
who, as Frederick said, had fifteen hundred wigs and no head.
I pass over the numerous provocations, intrigues, and crises of the
second class, which occupied the political world during these years
of peace, without lying on the direct line of the march of events. As
early as the spring of ’49, the eager Bestuchev had come very near to
springing the mine--on the score of the antagonism between France and
England. The Duke of Newcastle, then the head of the English Foreign
Office, was working for an alliance directed against France, which
should include, besides the sea powers, Russia, Austria, Saxony, and a
few other German states--all very much to Bestuchev’s mind, for here
the prospect beckoned him of involving Sweden and Prussia in a general
conflict. He set to work in Sweden, where he thought to bring about a
change in the succession, and wean the country from French and Prussian
influence, drawing it within the sphere of Russian control. He hoped
in this way to force Prussia to act in a military sense. And when he
demanded from England, Austria, and Saxony a declaration that he might
count on their support in his Swedish undertakings, the whole world
expected an immediate catastrophe. But Frederick maliciously drew his
neck out of the noose. He invoked the French interest in behalf of
Sweden, he mildly warned the London uncle; and as he gave emphasis to
his diplomacy by calling up his reserves, England and Austria found
it expedient to dissociate themselves from Russia. Moreover, Denmark
was won over to the Prussian-Swedish-French _entente_; there was even
talk that Turkey would come in. In short, the hostile combination was
sprung, Bestuchev was isolated and obliged to put off the execution of
his plans to a better time.
But the initiative now passed to an Austrian statesman, with a name
famous in history, who at this stage of developments stepped full
length into the picture: lean and stiff, in a peruke powdered with
excessive care, the curls of which were arranged to hide the wrinkles
on his forehead; with a long, calm, blue-eyed, almost English face,
and a huge diamond order in his velvet coat. His name was Kaunitz,
Wenzel Anton Count Kaunitz; Maria Theresa, who early recognized
his great talents, later made him a prince. He was an oddity, such
as the eighteenth century brought forth in numbers. Excessively
hypochondriac--another peculiarity fashionable in that time--he
abominated fresh air, and never went out of doors, so that he was
as white as a cellar plant. In his pocket he carried a whole little
arsenal of dental instruments, which he brought out after a meal--even
when he dined out--and began to rummage about in his mouth with a lot
of rags and lancets and little mirrors. Until one time the French
ambassador said: “_Levons-nous; le prince veut être seul._” After
that Kaunitz left off going into society. Goodness knows how many
other maggots he had in his brain; but as a politician he was shrewd,
far-sighted, judicial, and with an enormous gift for sticking to a
plan once formed. And he had just one thought in his head: Prussia
must be thrown by the heels, if the illustrious house of Austria were
to continue in existence. That was a good and right thought, from his
point of view, but it had in itself nothing original about it. What
was original, original and really magnificent, was the method which
Kaunitz, and Kaunitz alone, evolved in order to put his thought into
execution.
Kaunitz comprehended that to checkmate Prussia and crowd her to
the wall it was necessary not only to break up the Franco-Prussian
alliance, but actually to draw France over to the Austrian side. If
genius consists in essential independence of thought, that was a
conception worthy of the name. All the world over, it was an impossible
idea that France and Austria should ever walk hand in hand. Sooner
would fire and water mix. The mutual jealousy of the two houses had
left its mark on the whole history of Europe--not merely since the days
of the great Richelieu. But, granted that this was so, Kaunitz could
not see why it should be so for ever. “Much is not dared”--so ran his
device--“Much is not dared because it seems hard, much seems hard only
because it is not dared.” He acted upon this motto. If France decided
to join the Saint Petersburg offensive-and-defensive alliance, she
brought Sweden over with her; Saxony too would not hesitate to turn
on Frederick, so soon as she risked nothing by the act; and if the
Versailles government no longer stirred up the German princes against
the house of Austria, the German states were pretty certain to be
loyal. By a general understanding such as that, everybody stood to win.
If France were instrumental in the recovery of Silesia, she would be
allowed as a reward some enlargement in Flanders. East Prussia would
fall to Russia, Magdeburg to Saxon Poland; if Sweden cared in the least
about Pomerania, she would be a fool to stand aside. Anyhow, Sweden
had no choice, she was bound by French money. If hope and hatred once
moved them all to strike this monstrous alliance, then Frederick was
surrounded, hopelessly and helplessly, and a coalition formed such as
the world had never seen before: a glorious coalition, which history
could not but christen with the name of Wenzel Anton Kaunitz.
These ideas did not spring full-grown in one day from the head of
their originator. Like all good things they had deep beginnings. Even
at the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, which Kaunitz concluded for Austria,
he offered Brabant and Flanders to Versailles, on condition that his
country recovered Silesia by means of French assistance. But France
declined. Considering her position with regard to England, she found
the Prussian alliance too valuable to be weakened by such undertakings.
Since that date Kaunitz had industriously fed and fostered the mistrust
of the bad man at Potsdam in all the courts of Europe. From 1747 to
1748 he was consul in London, where he plied George II with intercepted
Prussian dispatches and a thousand insinuations against his nephew. But
in the year 1751 he came to Paris, and there began the golden age of
his career as an intriguer.
He lived in the Palais Bourbon like a private gentleman of quality,
with several women whom he gave entertainment; but he received very
little. However, with the two important persons, the monarch and the
Poisson person, he was on the best of terms; it was he who brought
his liege lady in Vienna to the point of those _princesse et cousine_
letters which were probably the hardest sacrifice ever legitimacy laid
upon the altar of politics. Kaunitz pursued his aims with a tact and
persistence truly admirable. He knew that at bottom the Most Christian
King, despite the alliance still in force, abominated Frederick. Louis
was bigoted and lazy; coddled, self-indulgent, uxorious; naturally his
active, soldierly, free-thinking, Protestant cousin of Brandenburg
was an offence to him. The alliance existed for reasons of state, of
course; it was directed against England, and threatened Hanover, the
English possession on the continent. But as for personal or dynastic
sympathies, they were nil, there was no basis for them; and setting
the political aside, a friendship between two old, aristocratic houses
like Bourbon and Habsburg was more humanly fitting than the one that
obtained between Versailles and the upstart breed of the Potsdam
drill-sergeant. And the creature had written scurrilous lampoons
against our marquise, and government by mistresses, and our all-highest
and laziest Majesty’s sacred person: Kaunitz hinted very skilfully,
and now and then was in a position to produce a bit of new evidence.
What audacity, what ingratitude this king displayed! What immemorial
disloyalty! For never, unless with France’s help, could he have got
Silesia for himself, and how had he shown his gratitude? By leaving
her in the lurch and crawling off into the woods with his prey. But
that is the way little states always behave when the big ones fall out
among themselves. To whose use and behoof, when you think of it, had
France and Austria been at each others’ throats all these centuries?
_Cui bono?_--to speak Latin. Had either one of them gained anything?
No, they had only weakened each other; the gainers had been the small
and middle-sized states, who otherwise would have had to do as they
were told, and who now were fishing in troubled waters. It was this
Prussian land-grabber who had won; thanks to the discord between France
and Austria, he had gained a position for which nature had not intended
him. Kaunitz was not so radical as to assert that an understanding
between his own country and France was conceivable, possible, perhaps
even necessary. Only it was amusing to imagine how things would be if
such an understanding were to come within the range of possibilities.
It would be like heaven, that was all. Everybody’s cares and troubles
would vanish, you would wish for a thing and it would fall into your
lap. Poor Silesia--it would not take long to wrench it from the
clutches of the bad man. And if France also dreamed dreams--Flemish
dreams--be sure Austria would find an opportunity to show herself
grateful. What else? Nothing else, probably--save that, yes, France
and Austria united would simply be able to do anything they wanted to.
Strengthened on both sides, in splendid equilibrium, without occasion
for jealousy, they would hold sway in Europe, and every foreign will
would have to bow the knee in face of their united front. So would it
be if a concord between them were possible. But such was not the case;
unfortunately, not at all. Tradition compelled them to work against
each other, to the end that neither of them got anything; and so it
must be, to all eternity. Habits were strong, bad habits were the
strongest. Stronger than all else was prejudice, and reason must bow
before it.--Or must it?
This was the sort of thing that Kaunitz dropped into every ear which
stayed still long enough to listen. He trotted out his theory on every
occasion, turned it this side and that, showed it in various lights.
First people laughed, then they stopped to think. It was daring, it was
amusing--after a while they wondered if perhaps it might not be more
than a joke. Gradually it became the _dernier cri_, a political mode,
_très chic_ as a topic of conversation in boudoirs and coffee-houses.
The erstwhile Poisson was enchanted with it--and the Empress had
written her such a charming letter! But there were sound ministerial
reasons for not repudiating the alliance with Prussia; and Kaunitz’s
paradoxes could not so soon have taken on even a half-way tangible
form, had not the man against whom they were directed advantaged all
his labours.
Frederick probably felt that a cooler breeze had begun to blow
from Versailles; and the French attitude seemed the more foolish to
him in that an English-French conflict was looming large and black
on the horizon. They would surely come to blows on the subject of
the French-Canadian border-line; the rivalry of the two maritime
powers was pressing to a warlike issue; and as Frederick’s treaty
with France could not possibly extend to a Prussian guarantee of the
French possessions in America, he felt that France might reasonably
be solicitous about his friendship. What was it Versailles wanted? If
it was a land war, if it wanted to attack England in Hanover, then
surely Prussia’s help was more important than this new flirtation
with Vienna--a joke which would soon be played out when the war with
England was once on. For ever since the days of Louis XIV Austria’s
place, and Holland’s too, had been on the English side in a French and
English war. And as for Russia, England did not spare her guineas when
she set out to bribe the Muscovite navy “against the common foe.” And
the common foe--Frederick might flatter himself that he was the man.
England had in him a not quite comfortable neighbour on the continent,
and she did well to take precautions against a Prussian attack on her
electorate of Hanover. But while she set her diplomacy to work, what
did France do? France did nothing at all, whereas there were three
things at least which she should have done. She should have stirred up
Turkey, to hold the two empires in check. She should have come to an
understanding with Frederick on the subject of Hanover. And, lastly,
she should have brought England to hear reason, by attacking Hanover.
Frederick had been expecting for months that the Duke of Nivernais
would come to Potsdam to negotiate. But he did not come. Obviously,
Kaunitz was at the bottom of that. Frederick thought the petticoat
government at Versailles was showing itself pitiably hare-brained and
silly. England was sending a fleet to America; she was capturing French
ships and King George was threatening in parliament; but Louis and
his one-time Poisson seemed bent on repose. The only step Louis took
was to instruct his foreign minister, Rouillé, to make the following
proposal to the Prussian ambassador: “Write to your sovereign that he
ought to assist us against Hanover. There will be a lot of plunder.
The King of England’s treasury is well filled. The King need only help
himself.” It was brazen. But it shows incidentally what sort of repute
King Frederick enjoyed in Europe and particularly at the court of
Versailles. He sent back the reply that if they had proposals like that
to make they would do better to employ a Mandrin as go-between (Mandrin
being a notorious highway robber). He hoped that in future M. Rouillé
would make a distinction between the persons with whom he had to deal.
A haughty, virtuous answer--and one that would certainly make a good
impression in England.
Frederick had chosen between England and France. He saw the latter
vacillating, feeble, lacking in confidence. And he felt that he was
being undermined in Paris by Prince Kaunitz. He gave France up. He was
convinced that if he attacked Hanover he would have England, Austria,
and Russia against him. On the other hand, if he cast in his lot with
England, in the first place the French would not come to Germany, and
in the second he would have the money-bags on his side in all future
contingencies. An understanding with Russia would thereby be achieved,
and who knew if it might not in the future be possible to prize Russia
loose from Austria, and by thus isolating Maria Theresa wean her from
her hope of regaining Silesia? Here was the reasoning that underlay
Frederick’s humourless retort to M. Rouillé. And England heard it.
Could she win over Hanover’s dangerous neighbour, and thus secure her
continental communications for her naval war with France? England
took steps. And soon the _rapprochement_ came about. By the middle
of January 1756 a convention was signed at Westminster, according to
which Prussia and England vowed mutual peace and friendship, and, in
particular, bound themselves to act to prevent any armed power from
marching into or through Germany. That was all.