FREDERICK AND EUROPE, 1763–1786
The chief significance of the Peace of Hubertusburg for Prussia was not
expressed in any of its clauses. The signature of the treaty implied
that Europe renounced the endeavour to deprive her of the rank among
the Great Powers which she had arrogated to herself in 1740. Their
survival of the great ordeal conferred a new consequence upon Frederick
and his State. “Frederick himself,” Mr. James Sime happily says,
“acquired both in Germany and in Europe the indefinable influence which
springs from the recognition of great gifts that have been proved by
great deeds.” The brief sketch of his domestic labours that has been
given in Chapter X. suggests that he was not lacking in the energy
which was needed to maintain this influence and to derive full profit
from it. The history of his dealings with foreign Powers during the
latter half of his reign is the story of how this was done.
[Illustration: JOSEPH THE SECOND.
AFTER THE PAINTING BY LISTARD.]
From the moment at which he signed the treaty down to the day of his
death, Frederick felt that Austria was still his enemy. Joseph II.,
the eldest son of the Queen, who was unanimously elected Emperor in
1765, had learned politics from the King of Prussia. He desired nothing
so much as to restore the immemorial pre-eminence of his House by a
sudden blow at its upstart rival. Frederick, who had spies everywhere,
was soon acquainted with the ambitions of the restless youth. For
the present he could place some reliance on the pacific influence of
the Queen and more on the emptiness of the Austrian treasury, but he
was none the less compelled to make it his foremost task to thwart
successive Hapsburg schemes of aggrandisement.
His security was the greater, however, because the Peace of Paris
of 1763 reconciled France and England as little as the Peace of
Hubertusburg reconciled Austria and Prussia. Frederick, it is true,
was still treated with coldness by the French, who clung to their
alliance with the Queen, and he was resolved never again to trust an
English ministry. With a rare access of spite, indeed, he condemned the
charger which he had named after Lord Bute to be yoked with a mule and
to perform humiliating duties in his sight. But though neither of the
Great Powers of the West was his ally, their latent hostility was still
too incurable to permit them to unite against him.
On the remaining Great Power, therefore, the well-being of Prussia
depended. The Seven Years’ War of the future, which Frederick was
always labouring to avert by means of elaborate armaments, was
improbable if Russia stood neutral and impossible if she became his
ally. From 1763 onwards the Russian alliance was the prize for which
he strove. He had to surmount the obstacle that as sovereign of
Ost-Preussen he was the natural enemy of the Russian designs upon
Poland. But Austria, on the other hand, besides being interested in
Poland, was the natural enemy of the Russian designs upon the Turk.
Frederick might reasonably hope that by humouring Russia to the extreme
limit which the interests of his State permitted, he might establish
a good understanding with her to the prejudice of the more formidable
empire in the south.
Catherine, whose throne was far from secure, seemed at first resolved
to shun a new connexion with the ally of her murdered husband. Early in
October, 1763, however, her neighbour, Augustus, died, and the stress
of the election to the throne of Poland compelled her to seek the aid
of some foreign Power. France, Austria, and finally the Russian faction
in Poland all disappointed her, and she feared a hostile combination
between Prussia and the Turk. On April 11, 1764, therefore, Frederick’s
desire was gratified. He bound himself to aid Catherine in upholding
the existing constitutional anarchy in Poland and in Sweden, and
received in return the coveted Russian guarantee for Silesia. Then, by
means of force and corruption, Stanislaus Poniatowski was installed as
King of Poland (September 7, 1764). “God said, let it be light, and it
was light,” was Frederick’s congratulation to Catherine. “You speak and
the world is silent before you.”
In accommodating himself without undue humility to the flighty humours
of his imperious ally, and in appropriating for Prussia most of
the benefits of the compact, Frederick showed that experience had
taught him much. The state of Polish and Turkish affairs gave to the
Eastern Question of that day two storm-centres which threatened wide
and immediate disturbance. Frederick, who was deep in his labours of
restoration and reform at home, desired above all to keep the peace.
This imposed upon him tasks of the utmost delicacy. He had to prevent
the formation of a Northern league which Russia desired, to cow Austria
by means of the Russian alliance, to follow with the closest attention
the turbulent course of politics in Poland, to keep Austria from
acquiring influence there, to check the military ardour of the Turk,
and to hinder a _rapprochement_ between Austria and Russia. During more
than four years (April, 1764-October, 1768), he was able to stave off
war, and when at last France induced the Turks to attack Russia, he
found himself liable only to pay an annual subsidy of less than half a
million thalers. In 1769 the alliance was prolonged till 1780.
The war between Russia and the Turks seemed to Frederick a pitiable
display of incompetence. “To form a correct idea of this war,” he
wrote, “you must figure a set of purblind people who, by constantly
beating a set of altogether blind, end by gaining over them a complete
mastery.” But the triumph of Russia, however achieved, threatened to
kindle the general conflagration which he dreaded. It was clear that if
left to herself she would make conquests, and Austria was on the alert
for compensation. The Hapsburg claims might possibly be satisfied at
the expense of the Turk, but this resource was of no avail to furnish
the compensation which Prussia herself would not forego. Frederick cast
longing glances towards West-Preussen, but could not bring himself to
believe that Russia would consent to an acquisition which would add
immensely to the power of a rival state. He therefore feared that the
knot would yield only to the sword.
At this crisis the King twice met Joseph II. face to face. At Neisse,
in August, 1769, little save a personal introduction was effected.
Frederick professed to be charmed with the beautiful soul and noble
ambitions of the young Emperor, while Joseph reported to his mother
that the King talked admirably, but betrayed the knave in every word he
spoke. At the second meeting, which took place in Moravia in September,
1770, Frederick spared no effort to captivate Joseph and Kaunitz. He
donned the Austrian uniform of white, though he smilingly confessed
that his mania for snuff made him too dirty to wear it. He extolled
the Imperial grenadiers as worthy to guard the person of the God of
War. He made Laudon sit beside him, saying in graceful allusion to
Hochkirch and Kunersdorf, that he would rather have General Laudon at
his side than be obliged to face him. After sacrificing to the vanity
of the Chancellor by listening for an hour to a monologue on political
affairs, he won his heart by posing as a grateful convert to his views.
[Illustration: WENZEL ANTON, PRINCE VON KAUNITZ.
AFTER THE PAINTING BY STEINER.]
The result was that Frederick was able to offer Catherine the joint
mediation of Austria and Prussia to end the war. The offer was not
accepted, but it proved that the two foes were not irreconcilable.
The mere hint that Austria might compete for the Prussian alliance was
enough to raise its value at St. Petersburg. It became clear, too,
that only the fear of Prussia was preventing Austria from interfering
on behalf of the Turk. Urged on by his brother Henry, who had just
returned from the Russian capital, Frederick determined early in 1771
to take the risk of offending Russia and provoking Austria to war, in
order to net his profit from this advantageous situation ere it changed.
In the summer of 1770 Austria had drifted, half involuntarily, into
an occupation of Zips, a portion of the territory of Poland which was
almost surrounded by her own, and of some of the adjacent districts.
Frederick now seized upon this, though the Queen was willing to draw
back, as an excuse for pressing upon Russia a plan which he had
promulgated under an alias at an early stage in the war. On February 1,
1769, he had suggested to his ambassador at St. Petersburg
“that Russia should offer to the Court of Vienna Lemberg and
the surrounding country in return for support against the
Turks; that she should give us Polish Preussen with Ermland
and the protectorate over Danzig; and that she should herself
incorporate a suitable part of Poland by way of indemnity for
the expenses of the war.”
The plan of dismembering Poland because the Turks were defeated
was, as Frederick knew full well, distasteful to both of the Powers
whose complicity he desired. Russia was strongly opposed to any
aggrandisement of Prussia to the eastward. Austria, besides being
averse to the aggrandisement of her rival in any quarter, preferred
any lands to the Polish and any method to that of naked force. Yet the
King, while professing that he was an old man whose brain was worn out,
secured the co-operation of Russia within a year (15th January, 1772),
and of Austria less than eight months later.
The triumph of his diplomacy was enhanced by the fact that he would
have been completely foiled if Austria had consented to join Russia
in dismembering the Turk. As it was, he was permitted to enjoy the
spectacle of the Queen struggling with her conscience and upbraiding
herself, her Chancellor, and her son. She complained that they had
aimed at two incompatible objects at once, “to act in the Prussian
fashion and at the same time to preserve the semblance of honesty.” The
prospective additions to her domains were to her odious, since they
were “bought at the price of honour, at the price of the glory of the
monarchy, at the price of the good faith and religion, which are our
peculiar possession.” “She is always weeping, but always annexing,”
sneered the triumphant King.
On August 5, 1772, Austria signed the Treaty of Partition. By agreeing
upon their demands the three Powers had accomplished the hardest part
of their enterprise. The strength of Poland had been wasted by the
anarchy which Russia and Prussia had studiously conserved. Since 1768,
Romanists and Dissidents had been engaged in a bloody and desolating
war in which Russia, the protector of the Greek Church, played the
decisive part. No party among the Poles still retained sufficient
energy to oppose in arms the claims to Polish provinces which, in order
to save appearances, were formulated by the Powers. Frederick even
put forward a double title to Pomerellen, alleging that it had been
wrongfully alienated by the Margrave of Brandenburg in 1311, and that
if he as suzerain consented to overlook this irregularity, he would
still be entitled to the province as heir, since 1637, to the elder
branch of the House of Pomerania. He claimed Great Poland as heir of
the Emperor Sigismund, who had pawned it to the Teutonic Order, from
which the Poles had wrested it by force. The remainder of his share was
due to him as compensation for the loss of the revenues of these two
provinces for so many centuries.
The Polish statesmen had no difficulty in refuting such nonsense as
this. But King Stanislaus was convinced that true patriotism dictated
obedience in order to save what remained. France and England were too
intent on their own affairs to interfere by force. Hence a mixture
of persuasion, bribery, and the presence of 30,000 soldiers was
sufficient to procure the unanimous acquiescence of the Diet after
six months’ negotiation (September 30, 1773). The Austrian ambassador
was astonished at the trifling sums for which the nobles sold their
votes. His Saxon colleague lamented that they shamelessly laid upon the
gaming-tables the foreign gold with which they had just been bribed.
Frederick’s share of the spoil amounted to more than sixteen thousand
square miles, and in 1774 he was able quietly to filch two hundred
additional villages from Poland. Long before the Diet consented to the
cession he had inaugurated Prussian rule. In June, 1772, he made a
triumphal entry into his new province. He gave out to all and sundry
that no one could envy his good fortune, for as he came he had seen
nothing but sand, pines, heath, and Jews. “It is a very good and very
profitable acquisition,” he wrote to Prince Henry, “both for the
political situation of the State and for its finances.” Men said that
without Danzig, which along with Thorn remained Polish, West-Preussen
was but a trunk without a head, but the King was full of schemes for
partitioning the trade of Danzig among his own ports. Voltaire, finding
him deaf to his exhortations to free the Greeks, lamented that the
harbour of Danzig lay nearer his heart than the Piræus.
Soon the poverty-stricken land echoed to the untiring march of
Hohenzollern progress. The contempt which the King openly expressed
for “this perfectly imbecile set with names ending in ki” was apparent
in all his dealings with the privileged classes. His treatment of
private estates as well as of provinces seemed to warrant the Poles
who added the word _Rapuit_ to the _Suum Cuique_ which they saw
inscribed beneath the Prussian eagle. The local officials were simply
dismissed from office, and their lands appropriated at the cost of a
trifling compensation. Though Frederick bound himself to respect the
existing rights and property of the Roman Catholics, the bishops
and abbots likewise lost their lands, but in their case an allowance
amounting to nearly half of their previous incomes was conceded. Upon
the nobles a tax of one-quarter of their net revenues was imposed, but
Protestants were entitled to a discount of twenty per cent. In the hope
of cleansing West-Preussen of its Polish inhabitants, the King went so
far as to favour the purchase of noble lands by German peasants. Strict
watch was kept on the frontier for Polish immigrants who might try to
enter the country.
The common people, however, could not but gain from the introduction of
that policy of developing all the resources of the land which formed
the Hohenzollern ideal of domestic government. Slavery was abolished
and serfdom regulated. New waterways were dug. Colonists were brought
in by thousands. Prussian soldiers scoured the country in search of
gipsies, tramps, and begging Jews. Toleration, justice, and education
were established where all three had been far to seek. The peasants and
townsmen were subjected to the Prussian system of taxation, which laid
upon their shoulders a burden heavy indeed, but steady and not beyond
their strength. Soon the royal revenue from West-Preussen amounted to
more than two million thalers a year.
But for a timely revival of energy in her royal House, it is not
impossible that Sweden, like Poland, would have been the poorer for the
Russo-Prussian alliance. In 1769 Catherine and Frederick had pledged
themselves to maintain anarchy in Stockholm as well as in Warsaw.
Should the existing constitution be modified, Russia would take up
arms and Frederick’s contribution to the war was to be the invasion of
Swedish Pomerania. It is easy to imagine that with Russia and Prussia
in cordial agreement and France and England embroiled or apathetic,
a war with Sweden might have resulted in the annexation of Finland
and the remainder of Pomerania by the allies. In 1772, however, young
Gustavus III., the son of Frederick’s sister Ulrica, delivered Sweden
from the trammels of her constitution by an unlooked-for _coup d’état_.
Russia, which was still hampered by the Turkish war, was unable to wage
war against the revolution, and Frederick, who for once was taken by
surprise, grudgingly accepted the apologies of his nephew.
The remainder of Frederick’s life was dedicated to the defence of the
position that he had already attained. He was determined to do nothing
that could prejudice his cause in a future struggle with Austria. He
therefore looked on while Russia and Austria despoiled the Turk in
1774, while England and her Colonies fell to blows in the next year,
and while France joined in the fray in 1778. His private opinion,
indeed, was that the country which could commit its destinies to a Bute
could hardly fail to be in the wrong. He blamed the English both for
political and military folly—for beginning a terrible civil war with no
settled plans or adequate preparations, for underestimating the enemy’s
force, for dividing her own and for trampling upon the rights of
neutrals. But he avoided with the most scrupulous care any action that
could give offence to either combatant, and declared to his ministers
that he intended to await the issue quietly and to throw in his lot
with the side which fortune favoured.
In the very year in which France allied herself with the Colonies
against England (1778) Frederick’s long-expected struggle with Austria
came to pass. Joseph II., whose restless desire to imitate the
achievements of the King of Prussia was not satisfied by his gains
from Poland and the Turk, thought that the moment had arrived for
acquiring a portion of Bavaria, the great geographical obstacle to the
consolidation of the Hapsburg lands. At the close of the year 1777 the
Elector of Bavaria died, and his lands passed by right to the aged and
childless Elector Palatine. Austria, however, furbished up a claim to a
considerable portion of eastern Bavaria, and on January 14, 1778, the
Elector was half bribed, half frightened into acquiescence. Two days
later 10,000 Austrian troops occupied the ceded districts. Joseph’s
triumph seemed to be assured.
Frederick, however, had still to be reckoned with. Though his health
was indifferent and his desire was all for peace, he took up the
challenge without an hour’s delay. Determined, as he said, “once for
all to humble Austrian ambition,” he assumed his ancient pose as
champion of the German princes against an Emperor who was trampling
upon their constitutional rights. “I know very well,” he owned to
Prince Henry, “that it is only our own interest which makes it our
duty to act at this moment, but we must be very careful not to say
so.” Few volunteers, however, declared themselves on his side. The
Elector’s cousin and heir, Duke Charles of Zweibrücken, became a pawn
in Frederick’s hands, and the Elector of Saxony, who had claims on the
estate of the dead prince, promised 21,000 men. But his only other
ally was Bavarian public opinion, which was shocked at the idea of
partition. The Bavarians, according to the current jest, left off their
pious invocation of “Jesu, Mary, Joseph,” and cried to “Jesu, Mary,
Frederick” to deliver them.
The Austrian statesmen were willing enough to negotiate, but they clung
to the gains which they had made. Their preparations for war were not
complete, but they did not believe that Prussia meant to fight. Both
sides, indeed, hoped more from negotiation than from battle. It became
evident, too, that Frederick was no longer the general whose delight
was in swift and resolute movements. Not till April 6, 1778, did he
march from Berlin, and then he drew rein in southern Silesia, and spent
three months more in fruitless haggling. At last, on July 3rd, he made
a declaration of war, and two days later completed his march across the
mountains into Bohemia. Even then the Queen brought herself to beg for
peace, so that, although hostilities continued, August was half gone
before the diplomatists finally dispersed.
The War of the Bavarian Succession formally began, however, when
Frederick set out for Bohemia, on July 3, 1778. He was attacking with
two armies, each about 80,000 strong. Earlier in the year he had hoped
that the main Austrian force would assemble in Moravia. In that case
his plan was to lead his own army from Silesia against it, to win a
great victory, and thus to compel the enemy to call back their troops
from Bohemia. This would make it easy for Prince Henry with a combined
host of Prussians and Saxons to advance on Prague while the King made
progress in Moravia. The two armies, if all continued to go well, would
then press forward towards the Danube.
The plan was spoiled, however, because the Austrians were bold enough
to choose north-eastern Bohemia for their place of concentration.
There they were indeed further from Vienna, but they secured greater
possibilities of offensive action. If Frederick invaded Moravia they
could overrun Silesia behind his back or fall upon Prince Henry and
Saxony in overwhelming force. The King, therefore, reluctantly turned
aside into Bohemia by way of Nachod in order to engage the enemy’s
attention until his brother, marching from Dresden, should have
established himself firmly in the north.
On his arrival in Bohemia, Frederick found the Austrians some 250,000
strong. Joseph and Lacy with the bulk of the troops confronted him in
a position on the Elbe nearly fifty miles in length and as strong as
water, earthworks, and cannon could make it. Judging it impregnable,
Frederick waited impatiently for his brother to get the better of
Laudon, who was guarding the northern gate into Bohemia. The army
chafed at the enforced inaction, but the King still hoped by sending
repeated detachments to Moravia to compel the enemy to meet him there
in the field.
Prince Henry, after hesitating for some time between different routes,
performed his task to perfection. Early in August he led his army
over the mountains to the east of the Elbe by ways hitherto reputed
impassable. Laudon was at his wits’ end. He fell back upon the line
of the Iser, but on August 14th, Joseph himself admitted that he was
too weak to hold it. If Laudon were driven off, the great position on
the Elbe would be untenable, but Prince Henry lacked the hardihood to
venture the decisive move. Dissensions between the royal brothers and
the failure of their efforts to effect a junction justified the policy
of their opponents, who, Frederick sneered, seemed to be turned into
stone. Soon the movements of the Prussians were dictated largely by
hunger and the conflict earned its nickname of the Potato War. Heavy
rains completed their discomfiture. By the middle of October the
exultant Austrians had seen the last of the invaders.
The campaign of 1778 cost the combatants some 20,000 men and 29,000,000
thalers in money. Frederick had shown himself captious and irresolute.
His brother declared that he was more on his guard against the
treachery of the King than against the enterprises of the enemy. The
army had become dejected, ill-disciplined, and disaffected. Frederick,
though he prepared to invade Moravia in the spring, spent the winter
in working his hardest for peace. France and Russia lent their aid. In
March, 1779, a congress of the four Powers met at Teschen, and on May
13th peace was signed.
The Peace of Teschen was in some degree a triumph for Frederick. The
chief points for which he had taken up arms were secured at no great
cost. The Austrian acquisitions were limited to the Quarter of the Inn,
a strip of territory bounded on the west by that river, while Bavaria
was obliged to pay 4,000,000 thalers in settlement of the Saxon claims.
Prussia seemed thus to have maintained the rights of two great German
princes from motives of pure patriotism. Her military prestige, on
the other hand, had suffered. She had not derived prompt support from
her intimacy with Russia and she had failed to disturb the connexion
between Austria and France. No less than four royal marriages now
linked the Bourbons to their secular foes the Hapsburgs. By accepting
the guarantee of France and Russia to a treaty in which the Peace of
Westphalia was once more confirmed, Prussia had moreover paved the way
for unwelcome foreign intrusions into German affairs.
Frederick saw good reason to fear that the danger from Austria would be
renewed so soon as Joseph should be emancipated from the restraining
influence of the aged Queen. For the time being, however, he was
free to resume his round of toil, to mourn the loss of Voltaire, to
correspond with the philosopher d’Alembert, and to pursue reforms
in law and education. The Prussian judges were now empowered to
interrogate the parties to suits and compelled to hear what they had
to say. A codification of the law and a Book of Rights which should
stereotype the existing feudal system of society in Prussia were set
on foot. And at the moment when Romanist sovereigns drove out the
Jesuits, Frederick welcomed the fugitives as harmless individuals, who
could help to supply one of the most pressing needs of the State by
instructing the common people.
The lack of qualified elementary teachers in Frederick’s dominions
was attested by the fact that in 1763 an edict of educational reform
in Silesia permitted them to continue such employments as tailoring,
but forbade them to eke out their incomes by peddling, by selling
beer or brandy, or by fiddling in public-houses. A counsel of despair
had been to set the worn-out sergeants to keep school. Out of 3443
of them, however, only 79 were reported by the military officials as
possibly fit to serve, and investigation by the civil authorities still
further reduced the number. Under such conditions as these the influx
of members of an order which had long been famous for its schools was
regarded by the King as a boon to Prussia. To grant them an asylum
gratified his real love of toleration, without in his opinion involving
the smallest peril to the allegiance of his subjects.
From time to time, however, Frederick was unpleasantly reminded of
his insecurity. In the summer of 1780, Austria secured a portion of
the Bavarian inheritance which it was beyond his power to take away.
In spite of all his diplomacy, the mighty sees of Cologne and Münster
fell into Hapsburg hands. At this moment of triumph, Maria Theresa died
(November 29, 1780). “She has done honour to her throne and to her
sex,” wrote the King to d’Alembert. “I have made war against her, but
I have never been her enemy.”
Though Frederick regarded his great antagonist as bigoted and
hypocritical, he mourned her sincerely, for her death removed the most
potent check upon her son. Joseph seemed to have inherited his mother’s
energy, without her reverence for existing institutions. He now plunged
into a medley of hasty and sweeping reforms, treating the inhabitants
of his miscellaneous provinces as cavalierly as though he were a
Frederick and they submissive Prussians. The King could afford to look
on while Joseph and Kaunitz embroiled themselves with the landowners,
the Hungarians, and the Church. It was not long, however, before their
foreign policy compelled him to active interference.
Since 1780 the Russian alliance had failed him. He valued it as a
means of preserving peace, but the policy which now prevailed at St.
Petersburg looked towards war. Frederick, who was strangely blind to
this, declared in response to the blandishments of the Czarina that
the time was not ripe to seize more of Poland (1779). He proposed the
admission of the Turk into the league at the moment when Catherine was
dreaming of a new crusade. In Joseph, on the other hand, the Czarina
found a willing partner in a policy of adventure. From the time when
he visited her in the summer of 1780, the alliance between Russia
and Prussia was practically dead. Frederick sacrificed to it in May,
1781, by joining the Armed Neutrality which Russia had organised in
order to check the high-handed treatment of neutral vessels by Great
Britain. But in the same month Catherine and Joseph made a defensive
alliance for eight years. Frederick rightly divined that the ambitious
Czarina had won the Emperor’s countenance to the scheme of a revival by
Russia of the old Eastern Empire. Her eldest grandson was destined to
be Czar of all the Russias. Her second was named after the founder of
Constantinople and suckled by six Greek nurses. The third, sneered the
King, when another was expected, would presumably become Great Mogul.
But though Frederick regarded Catherine as pretentious, saying that if
she were corresponding with God the Father she would claim at least
equal rank, none knew better than he the value of her alliance. In 1762
Russia had turned the scale, and had she been favourable to the plan,
Joseph’s bold throw for Bavaria might have been successful. It was no
light matter for Frederick that in his old age his State was threatened
by an Emperor whose thoughts were still running on Silesia and who had
succeeded in seducing his sole ally. France and England were beyond
the range of his overtures, and when the Russian armies moved in
1783 Europe believed that the Turk was about to be finally expelled.
Frederick, it seemed, was doomed to perilous isolation.
[Illustration: UNTER DEN LINDEN IN 1780.
FROM AN ETCHING BY ROSENTAG.]
One force indeed remained—a force difficult to marshal, but as Charles
V. had found, formidable when marshalled—which Frederick might hope
to rally to his side. The tilted balance of Europe might still be
redressed in Germany. By his conduct in the affair of the Bavarian
Succession Frederick had proved that it was not impossible for Germans
to trust him, and since that time Austria by fresh aggressions had
alienated from herself the general body of Romanist opinion among
them. It appeared that the Empire which was a corporation for the
preservation of rights had acquired in Joseph a head who set at naught
all rights save those of Austria. The inevitable result was that the
princes began to think of uniting in self-defence.
From the beginning of the year 1784, Frederick devoted himself to
the task of organising a confederacy of German States to defend the
existing constitution. This was a far more arduous undertaking than
any negotiation with a single Great Power. It was always difficult to
induce a number of naturally jealous neighbours to combine. In 1784
the difficulty was increased threefold. The danger from Austria was
general and prospective, rather than specific and imminent. It might
be averted, indeed, by maintaining an equality of strength between
Prussia and Austria, but the princes would beware of embarking upon a
course which might make Prussia the stronger of the two. Frederick,
moreover, was compelled to entrust a great share in the negotiations to
his ministers. His chief agent, Hertzberg, had dared to form political
ideas of his own. In the hope that a _rapprochement_ with Austria would
lead to further gains in Poland, he quietly obstructed the measures of
the aged King.
The inactivity of the Prussian ministers might have delayed the
confederation indefinitely had not all Germany been shocked by the
sudden revival of the Emperor’s designs upon Bavaria. Again, just as
seven years earlier, Austria corrupted the Elector Palatine without
the privity of his heir and again her acquisition of the Electorate
was paraded before the world as an accomplished fact. In the first
days of January, 1785, Rumianzow, the Russian agent at the German
Diet, suddenly presented to the Duke of Zweibrücken a joint demand of
Austria and Russia for his acceptance of a bargain to which the Elector
Palatine had already consented. The substance of this was that Bavaria
was assigned to the Emperor in return for the Austrian Netherlands, the
title of King, and handsome rewards in money.
“I, who am already more than half beyond this world,” complained
Frederick to his brother, “am forced to double my wisdom and activity,
and continually keep in my head the detestable plans that this curséd
Joseph begets afresh with every fresh day. I am condemned to enjoy no
rest before my bones are covered with a little earth.” His energy,
none the less, was as great as the crisis demanded. Austria was always
hampered in time of war because the distant Netherlands were hers
as much as because the adjacent Bavaria was not. The exchange was
therefore most alluring, but the opposition of Prussia to the scheme
was so stout as to evoke disclaimers from all the parties to it.
Catherine protested that she would countenance no violation of the
Peace of Teschen. Louis XVI., whom Frederick believed to have been
bribed by the offer of Luxemburg, stated in answer to his protests
that the Emperor renounced the scheme. Before the end of February,
1785, the danger was past.
To guard against its recurrence Frederick none the less completed the
_Fürstenbund_ or League of Princes. On July 23, Prussia, Saxony, and
Hanover entered into an alliance, with the object of safeguarding the
lands and rights of every member of the Empire. By separate articles
the three Electors bound themselves to act together in Imperial
business. The accession of the Archbishop of Mainz, who as president
of the Electoral College had a casting vote, both gave the League a
majority at the election of the Emperor, and prevented it from being
regarded as a mere clique of Protestants. Frederick’s triumph was
complete when, in spite of the diplomatic opposition of the Emperor, a
host of German princes accepted the result of his work. The rulers of
Zweibrücken, Hesse-Cassel, Gotha, Weimar, Brunswick, Ansbach, Baden,
Anhalt, Mecklenburg, and Osnabrück formed with the four protagonists a
great body of organised German conservatism led by the King of Prussia.
Frederick in his old age had improvised with marvellous success a
temporary insurance against the greatest danger that visibly threatened
his State.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]