MARIA THERESA.
From 1743 to 1748.
Prosperous Aspect of Austrian Affairs.--Capture of Egra.--Vast Extent of
Austria.--Dispute with Sardinia.--Marriage of Charles of Lorraine with
The Queen's Sister.--Invasion of Alsace.--Frederic Overruns Bohemia.--
Bohemia Recovered by Prince Charles.--Death of the Emperor Charles
VII.--Venality of the Old Monarchies.--Battle of Hohenfriedberg.--Sir
Thomas Robinson's Interview with Maria Theresa.--Hungarian
Enthusiasm.--The Duke of Lorraine Elected Emperor.--Continuation of the
War.--Treaty of Peace.--Indignation of Maria Theresa.
The cause of Maria Theresa, at the commencement of the year 1743, was
triumphant all over her widely extended domains. Russia was cordial in
friendship. Holland, in token of hostility to France, sent the queen an
efficient loan of six thousand men, thoroughly equipped for the field.
The King of Sardinia, grateful for his share in the plunder of the
French and Spanish provinces in Italy, and conscious that he could
retain those spoils only by the aid of Austria, sent to the queen, in
addition to the coöperation of his armies, a gift of a million of
dollars. England, also, still anxious to check the growth of France,
continued her subsidy of a million and a half, and also with both fleet
and army contributed very efficient military aid. The whole force of
Austria was now turned against France. The French were speedily driven
from Bavaria; and Munich, the capital, fell into the hands of the
Austrians. The emperor, in extreme dejection, unable to present any
front of resistance, sent to the queen entreating a treaty of
neutrality, offering to withdraw all claims to the Austrian succession,
and consenting to leave his Bavarian realm in the hands of Maria Theresa
until a general peace. The emperor, thus humiliated and stripped of all
his territories, retired to Frankfort.
On the 7th of September Egra was captured, and the queen was placed in
possession of all her hereditary domains. The wonderful firmness and
energy which she had displayed, and the consummate wisdom with which she
had conceived and executed her measures, excited the admiration of
Europe. In Vienna, and throughout all the States of Austria, her
popularity was unbounded. After the battle of Dettingen, in which her
troops gained a decisive victory, as the queen was returning to Vienna
from a water excursion, she found the banks of the Danube, for nine
miles, crowded with her rejoicing subjects. In triumph she was escorted
into the capital, greeted by every demonstration of the most
enthusiastic joy.
Austria and England were now prepared to mature their plans for the
dismemberment of France. The commissioners met at Hanau, a small
fortified town, a few miles east of Frankfort. They met, however, only
to quarrel fiercely. Austrian and English pride clashed in instant
collision. Lord Stair, imperious and irritable, regarded the Austrians
as outside barbarians whom England was feeding, clothing and protecting.
The Austrian officers regarded the English as remote islanders from whom
they had hired money and men. The Austrians were amazed at the impudence
of the English in assuming the direction of affairs. The British
officers were equally astounded that the Austrians should presume to
take the lead. No plan of coöperation could be agreed upon, and the
conference broke up in confusion,
The queen, whose heart was still fixed upon the elevation of her husband
to the throne of the empire, was anxious to depose the emperor. But
England was no more willing to see Austria dominant over Europe than to
see France thus powerful. Maria Theresa was now in possession of all her
vast ancestral domains, and England judged that it would endanger the
balance of power to place upon the brow of her husband the imperial
crown. The British cabinet consequently espoused the cause of the
Elector of Bavaria, and entered into a private arrangement with him,
agreeing to acknowledge him as emperor, and to give him an annual
pension that he might suitably support the dignity of his station. The
wealth of England seems to have been inexhaustible, for half the
monarchs of Europe have, at one time or other, been fed and clothed from
her treasury. George II. contracted to pay the emperor, within forty
days, three hundred thousand dollars, and to do all in his power to
constrain the queen of Austria to acknowledge his title.
Maria Theresa had promised the King of Sardinia large accessions of
territory in Italy, as the price for his coöperation. But now, having
acquired those Italian territories, she was exceedingly reluctant to
part with any one of them, and very dishonorably evaded, by every
possible pretense, the fulfillment of her agreement. The queen
considered herself now so strong that she was not anxious to preserve
the alliance of Sardinia. She thought her Italian possessions secure,
even in case of the defection of the Sardinian king. Sardinia appealed
to England, as one of the allies, to interpose for the execution of the
treaty. To the remonstrance of England the queen peevishly replied,
"It is the policy of England to lead me from one sacrifice to another. I
am expected to expose my troops for no other end than voluntarily to
strip myself of my possessions. Should the cession of the Italian
provinces, which the King of Sardinia claims, be extorted from me, what
remains in Italy will not be worth defending, and the only alternative
left is that of being stripped either by England or France."
While the queen was not willing to give as much as she had agreed to
bestow, the greedy King of Sardinia was grasping at more than she had
promised. At last the king, in a rage threatened, that if she did not
immediately comply with his demands, he would unite with France and
Spain and the emperor against Austria. This angry menace brought the
queen to terms, and articles of agreement satisfactory to Sardinia were
signed. During the whole of this summer of 1743, though large armies
were continually in motion, and there were many sanguinary battles, and
all the arts of peace were destroyed, and conflagration, death and woe
were sent to ten thousand homes, nothing effectual was accomplished by
either party. The strife did not cease until winter drove the weary
combatants to their retreats.
For the protection of the Austrian possessions against the French and
Spanish, the queen agreed to maintain in Italy an army of thirty
thousand men, to be placed under the command of the King of Sardinia,
who was to add to them an army of forty-five thousand. England, with
characteristic prodigality, voted a million of dollars annually, to aid
in the payment of these troops. It was the object of England, to prevent
France from strengthening herself by Italian possessions. The cabinet of
St. James took such an interest in this treaty that, to secure its
enactment, one million five hundred thousand dollars were paid down, in
addition to the annual subsidy. England also agreed to maintain a strong
squadron in the Mediterranean to coöperate with Sardinia and Austria.
Amidst these scenes of war, the usual dramas of domestic life moved on.
Prince Charles of Lorraine, had long been ardently attached to Mary
Anne, younger sister of Maria Theresa. The young prince had greatly
signalized himself on the field of battle. Their nuptials were attended
in Vienna with great splendor and rejoicings. It was a union of loving
hearts. Charles was appointed to the government of the Austrian
Netherlands. One short and happy year passed away, when Mary Anne, in
the sorrows of child-birth, breathed her last.
The winter was passed by all parties in making the most vigorous
preparations for a new campaign. England and France were now thoroughly
aroused, and bitterly irritated against each other. Hitherto they had
acted as auxiliaries for other parties. Now they summoned all their
energies, and became principals in the conflict. France issued a formal
declaration of war against England and Austria, raised an army of one
hundred thousand men, and the debauched king himself, Louis XV., left
his _Pare Aux Cerfs_ and placed himself at the head of the army. Marshal
Saxe was the active commander. He was provided with a train of artillery
superior to any which had ever before appeared on any field. Entering
the Netherlands he swept all opposition before him.
The French department of Alsace, upon the Rhine, embraced over forty
thousand square miles of territory, and contained a population of about
a million. While Marshal Saxe was ravaging the Netherlands, an Austrian
army, sixty thousand strong, crossed the Rhine, like a torrent burst
into Alsace, and spread equal ravages through the cities and villages of
France. Bombardment echoed to bombardment; conflagration blazed in
response to conflagration; and the shrieks of the widow, and the moans
of the orphan which rose from the marshes of Burgundy, were reechoed in
an undying wail along the valleys of the Rhine.
The King of France, alarmed by the progress which the Austrians were
making in his own territories, ordered thirty thousand troops, from the
army in the Netherlands, to be dispatched to the protection of Alsace.
Again the tide was turning against Maria Theresa. She had become so
arrogant and exacting, that she had excited the displeasure of nearly
all the empire. She persistently refused to acknowledge the emperor,
who, beyond all dispute, was legally elected; she treated the diet
contemptuously; she did not disguise her determination to hold Bavaria
by the right of conquest, and to annex it to Austria; she had compelled
the Bavarians to take the oath of allegiance to her; she was avowedly
meditating gigantic projects in the conquest of France and Italy; and it
was very evident that she was maturing her plans for the reconquest of
Silesia. Such inordinate ambition alarmed all the neighboring courts.
Frederic of Prussia was particularly alarmed lest he should lose
Silesia. With his accustomed energy he again drew his sword against the
queen, and became the soul of a new confederacy which combined many of
the princes of the empire whom the haughty queen had treated with so
much indignity. In this new league, formed by Frederic, the Elector
Palatine and the King of Sweden were brought into the field against
Maria Theresa. All this was effected with the utmost secrecy, and the
queen had no intimation of her danger until the troops were in motion.
Frederic published a manifesto in which he declared that he took up arms
"to restore to the German empire its liberty, to the emperor his
dignity, and to Europe repose."
With his strong army he burst into Bohemia, now drained of its troops to
meet the war in the Netherlands and on the Rhine. With a lion's tread,
brushing all opposition away, he advanced to Prague. The capital was
compelled to surrender, and the garrison of fifteen thousand troops
became prisoners of war. Nearly all the fortresses of the kingdom fell
into his hands. Establishing garrisons at Tabor, Budweiss, Frauenberg,
and other important posts, he then made an irruption into Bavaria,
scattered the Austrian troops in all directions, entered Munich in
triumph, and reinstated the emperor in the possession of his capital and
his duchy. Such are the fortunes of war. The queen heard these tidings
of accumulated disaster in dismay. In a few weeks of a summer's
campaign, when she supposed that Europe was almost a suppliant at her
feet, she found herself deprived of the Netherlands, of the whole
kingdom of Bohemia, the brightest jewel in her crown, and of the
electorate of Bavaria.
But the resolution and energy of the queen remained indomitable. Maria
Theresa and Frederic were fairly pitted against each other. It was Greek
meeting Greek. The queen immediately recalled the army from Alsace, and
in person repaired to Presburg, where she summoned a diet of the
Hungarian nobles. In accordance with an ancient custom, a blood-red flag
waved from all the castles in the kingdom, summoning the people to a
levy _en masse_, or, as it was then called, to a general insurrection.
An army of nearly eighty thousand men was almost instantly raised. A
cotemporary historian, speaking of this event, says:
"This amazing unanimity of a people so divided amongst themselves as the
Hungarians, especially in point of religion, could only be effected by
the address of Maria Theresa, who seemed to possess one part of the
character of Elizabeth of England, that of making every man about her a
hero."
Prince Charles re-crossed the Rhine, and, by a vigorous march through
Suabia, returned to Bohemia. By surprise, with a vastly superior force,
he assailed the fortresses garrisoned by the Prussian troops, gradually
took one after another, and ere long drove the Prussians, with vast
slaughter, out of the whole kingdom. Though disaster, in this campaign,
followed the banners of Maria Theresa in the Netherlands and in Italy,
she forgot those reverses in exultation at the discomfiture of her great
rival Frederic. She had recovered Bohemia, and was now sanguine that she
soon would regain Silesia, the loss of which province ever weighed
heavily upon her heart. But in her character woman's weakness was allied
with woman's determination. She imagined that she could rouse the
chivalry of her allies as easily as that of the Hungarian barons, and
that foreign courts, forgetful of their own grasping ambition, would
place themselves as pliant instruments in her hands.
In this posture of affairs, the hand of Providence was again interposed,
in an event which removed from the path of the queen a serious obstacle,
and opened to her aspiring mind new visions of grandeur. The Emperor
Charles VII., an amiable man, of moderate abilities, was quite crushed
in spirit by the calamities accumulating upon him. Though he had
regained his capital, he was in hourly peril of being driven from it
again. Anguish so preyed upon his mind, that, pale and wan, he was
thrown upon a sick bed. While in this state he was very injudiciously
informed of a great defeat which his troops had encountered. It was a
death-blow to the emperor. He moaned, turned over in his bed, and died,
on the 20th of January, 1745.
The imperial crown was thus thrown down among the combatants, and a
scramble ensued for its possession such as Europe had never witnessed
before. Every court was agitated, and the combinations of intrigue were
as innumerable as were the aspirants for the crown. The spring of 1745
opened with clouds of war darkening every quarter of the horizon.
England opened the campaign in Italy and the Netherlands, her whole
object now being to humble France. Maria Theresa remained uncompromising
in her disposition to relinquish nothing and to grasp every thing. The
cabinet of England, with far higher views of policy, were anxious to
detach some of the numerous foes combined against Austria; but it was
almost impossible to induce the queen to make the slightest abatement of
her desires. She had set her heart upon annexing all of Bavaria to her
realms. That immense duchy, now a kingdom, was about the size of the
State of South Carolina, containing over thirty thousand square miles.
Its population amounted to about four millions. The death of the Emperor
Charles VII., who was Elector of Bavaria, transmitted the sovereignty of
this realm to his son, Maximilian Joseph.
Maximilian was anxious to withdraw from the strife. He agreed to
renounce all claim to the Austrian succession, to acknowledge the
validity of the queen's title, to dismiss the auxiliary troops, and to
give his electoral vote to the Duke of Lorraine for emperor. But so
eager was the queen to grasp the Bavarian dominions, that it was with
the utmost difficulty that England could induce her to accede even to
these terms.
It is humiliating to record the readiness of these old monarchies to
sell themselves and their armies to any cause which would pay the price
demanded. For seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars England purchased
the alliance of Poland, and her army of thirty thousand men. Before the
treaty was formally ratified, the Emperor Charles VII. died, and there
were indications that Bavaria would withdraw from the French alliance.
This alarmed the French ministry, and they immediately offered Poland a
larger sum than England had proffered, to send her army to the French
camp. The bargain was on the point of being settled, when England and
Austria again rushed in, and whispered in the ear of Augustus that they
intended to chastise the King of Prussia thoroughly, and that if Poland
would help them, Poland should be rewarded with generous slices of the
Prussian territory. This was a resistless bribe, and the Polish banners
were borne in the train of the Austrian alliance.
The Duke of Lorraine was much annoyed by the imperial assumption of his
wife. She was anxious to secure for him the crown of Germany, as adding
to her power and grandeur. But Francis was still more anxious to attain
that dignity, as his position in the court, as merely the docile subject
of his wife, the queen, was exceedingly humiliating. The spring of 1745
found all parties prepared for the renewal of the fight. The drama was
opened by the terrible battle of Fontenoy in the Netherlands. On the
11th of May eighty thousand French met the Austrian allied army of fifty
thousand. After a few hours of terrific slaughter the allies retreated,
leaving the French in possession of the field. In Italy, also, the tide
of war set against the queen. The French and Spaniards poured an army of
seventy thousand men over the Alps into Italy. The queen, even with the
aid of Sardinia, had no force capable of resisting them. The allies
swept the country. The King of Sardinia was driven behind the walls of
his capital. In this one short campaign Tortona, Placentia, Parma,
Pavia, Cazale and Aste were wrested from the Austrians, and the citadels
of Alexandria and Milan were blockaded.
The queen had weakened her armies both in the Netherlands and Italy that
she might accumulate a force sufficient to recover Silesia, and to crush,
if possible, her great antagonist Frederic. Maria Theresa was greatly
elated by her success in driving the Prussians from Bavaria, and
Frederic was mortified and irritated by this first defeat of his arms.
Thus animated, the one by hope, the other by vengeance, Maria and
Frederic gathered all their resources for a trial of strength on the
plains of Silesia. France, fully occupied in the Netherlands and in
Italy, could render Frederic no assistance. His prospects began to look
dark. War had made sad ravages in his army, and he found much difficulty
in filling up his wasted battalions. His treasury was exhausted. Still
the indomitable monarch indulged in no emotions of dejection.
Each party was fully aware of the vigilance and energy of its
antagonist. Their forces were early in the field. The month of April was
passed in stratagems and skirmishes, each endeavoring in vain to obtain
some advantage over the other in position or combinations. Early in May
there was a pretty severe conflict, in which the Prussians gained the
advantage. They feigned, however, dejection and alarm, and apparently
commenced a retreat. The Austrians, emboldened by this subterfuge,
pursued them with indiscreet haste. Prince Charles pressed the retiring
hosts, and followed closely after them through the passes of the
mountains to Landshut and Friedburg. Frederic fled as if in a panic,
throwing no obstacle in the path of his pursuers, seeming only anxious
to gain the ramparts of Breslau. Suddenly the Prussians turned--the
whole army being concentrated in columns of enormous strength. They had
chosen their ground and their hour. It was before the break of day on
the 3d of June, among the hills of Hohenfriedberg. The Austrians were
taken utterly by surprise. For seven hours they repelled the impetuous
onset of their foes. But when four thousand of their number were mangled
corpses, seven thousand captives in the hands of the enemy, seventy-six
standards and sixty-six pieces of artillery wrested from them, the
broken bands of the Austrians turned and fled, pursued and incessantly
pelted by Frederic through the defiles of the mountains back to Bohemia.
The Austrians found no rest till they had escaped beyond the
Riesengeberg, and placed the waves of the Elbe between themselves and
their pursuers. The Prussians followed to the opposite bank, and there
the two armies remained for three months looking each other in the face.
Frederic, having gained so signal a victory, again proposed peace.
England, exceedingly desirous to detach from the allies so energetic a
foe, urged the queen, in the strongest terms, to accede to the
overtures. The queen, however, never dismayed by adversity, still
adhered to her resolve to reconquer Silesia. The English cabinet,
finding Maria Theresa deaf to all their remonstrances and entreaties,
endeavored to intimidate her by the threat of withdrawing their
subsidies.
The English ambassador, Sir Thomas Robinson, with this object in view,
demanded an audience with the queen. The interview, as he has recorded
it, is worthy of preservation.
"England," said the ambassador to the queen, "has this year furnished
five million, three hundred and ninety-three thousand seven hundred and
sixty-five dollars. The nation is not in a condition to maintain a
superiority over the allies in the Netherlands, Italy and Silesia. It
is, therefore, indispensable to diminish the force of the enemy. France
can not be detached from the alliance. Prussia can be and must be. This
concession England expects from Austria. What is to be done must be done
immediately. The King of Prussia can not be driven from Bohemia this
campaign. By making peace with him, and thus securing his voluntary
withdrawal, your majesty can send troops to the Netherlands, and check
the rapid progress of the French, who now threaten the very existence of
England and Holland. If they fall, Austria must inevitably fall also. If
peace can be, made with Prussia France can be checked, and the Duke of
Lorraine can be chosen emperor."
"I feel exceedingly grateful," the queen replied, "to the king and the
English nation, and am ready to show it in every way in my power. Upon
this matter I will consult my ministers and acquaint you with my answer.
But whatever may be the decision, I can not spare a man from the
neighborhood of the King of Prussia. In peace, as well as in war, I need
them all for the defense of my person and family."
"It is affirmed," Sir Thomas Robinson replied, "that seventy thousand
men are employed against Prussia. From such a force enough might be
spared to render efficient aid in Italy and in the Netherlands."
"I can not spare a man," the queen abruptly replied.
Sir Thomas was a little touched, and with some spirit rejoined, "If your
majesty can not spare her troops for the general cause, England will
soon find it necessary to withdraw her armies also, to be employed at
home."
This was a home thrust, and the queen felt it, and replied, "But why may
we not as well detach France from the alliance, as Prussia?"
"Because Prussia," was the reply, "can be more easily induced to accede
to peace, by allowing her to retain what she now has, than France can be
induced to yield, by surrendering, as she must, large portions of her
present acquisitions."
"I must have an opportunity," Maria Theresa continued, "to strike
Prussia another blow. Prince Charles has still enough men to give
battle."
"But should he be the victor in the battle," Sir Thomas replied,
"Silesia is not conquered. And if the battle be lost, your majesty is
well nigh ruined."
"If I had determined," said the queen, "to make peace with Frederic
to-morrow, I would give him battle to-night. But why in such a hurry?
Why this interruption of operations which are by no means to be
despaired of? Give me only to October, and then you may do as you
please."
"October will close this campaign," was the answer. "Our affairs are
going so disastrously, that unless we can detach Prussia, by that time
France and Prussia will be able to dictate terms to which we shall be
compelled to accede."
"That might be true," the queen replied, tartly, "if I were to waste my
time, as you are urging me to do, in marching my troops from Bohemia to
the Rhine, and from the Rhine to the Netherlands. But as for my troops,
I have not a single general who would condescend to command such merely
_machinery_ armies. As for the Duke of Lorraine, and my brother, Prince
Charles, they shall not thus degrade themselves. The great duke is not
so ambitious of an empty honor, much less to enjoy it under the
patronage of Prussia. You speak of the imperial dignity! Is it
compatible with the loss of Silesia? Great God! give me only till
October. I shall then at least be able to secure better conditions."
The English ambassador now ventured, in guarded phrase, but very
decisively, to inform the queen that unless she could accede to these
views, England would be constrained to withdraw her assistance, and,
making the best terms she could for herself with the enemy, leave
Austria to fight her own battles; and that England requested an
immediate and a specific answer. Even this serious menace did not move
the inflexible will of the queen. She, with much calmness, replied,
"It is that I might, with the utmost promptness, attend to this
business, that I have given you so expeditious an audience, and that I
have summoned my council to meet so early. I see, however, very clearly,
that whatever may be my decisions, they will have but little influence
upon measures which are to be adopted elsewhere."
The queen convened her council, and then informed England, in most
courteous phrase, that she could not accede to the proposition. The
British cabinet immediately entered into a private arrangement with
Prussia, guaranteeing to Frederic the possession of Silesia, in
consideration of Prussia's agreement not to molest England's Hanoverian
possessions.
Maria Theresa was exceedingly indignant when she became acquainted with
this treaty. She sent peremptory orders to Prince Charles to prosecute
hostilities with the utmost vigor, and with great energy dispatched
reënforcements to his camp. The Hungarians, with their accustomed
enthusiasm, flocked to the aid of the queen; and Frederic, pressed by
superior numbers, retreated from Bohemia back to Silesia, pursued and
pelted in his turn by the artillery of Prince Charles. But Frederic soon
turned upon his foes, who almost surrounded him with double his own
number of men. His army was compact and in the highest state of
discipline. A scene of terrible carnage ensued, in which the Austrians,
having lost four thousand in killed and two thousand taken prisoners,
were utterly routed and scattered. The proud victor, gathering up his
weakened battalions, one fourth of whom had been either killed or
wounded in this short, fierce storm of war, continued his retreat
unmolested.
While Maria Theresa, with such almost superhuman inflexibility, was
pressing her own plans, the electoral diet of Germany was assembled at
Frankfort, and Francis, Duke of Lorraine, was chosen emperor, with the
title of Francis I. The queen was at Frankfort when the diet had
assembled, and was plying all her energies in favor of her husband,
while awaiting, with intense solicitude, the result of the election.
When the choice was announced to her, she stepped out upon the balcony
of the palace, and was the first to shout, "Long live the emperor,
Francis I." The immense concourse assembled in the streets caught and
reëchoed the cry. This result was exceedingly gratifying to the queen;
she regarded it as a noble triumph, adding to the power and the luster
of her house.
The duke, now the emperor, was at Heidelberg, with an army of sixty
thousand men. The queen hastened to him with her congratulations. The
emperor, no longer a submissive subject, received his queenly spouse
with great dignity at the head of his army. The whole host was drawn up
in two lines, and the queen rode between, bowing to the regiments on the
right hand and the left, with majesty and grace which all admired.
Though the queen's treasury was so exhausted that she had been compelled
to melt the church plate to pay her troops, she was now so elated that,
regardless of the storms of winter, she resolved to send an army to
Berlin, to chastise Frederic in his own capital, and there recover long
lost Silesia. But Frederic was not thus to be caught napping. Informed
of the plan, he succeeded in surprising the Austrian army, and dispersed
them after the slaughter of five thousand men. The queen's troops, who
had entered Silesia, were thus driven pell-mell back to Bohemia. The
Prussian king then invaded Saxony, driving all before him. He took
possession of the whole electorate, and entered Dresden, its capital, in
triumph. This was a terrible defeat for the queen. Though she had often
said that she would part with her last garment before she would consent
to the surrender of Silesia, she felt now compelled to yield. Accepting
the proffered mediation of England, on the 25th of December, 1745, she
signed the treaty of Dresden, by which she left Silesia in the hands of
Frederic. He agreed to withdraw his troops from Saxony, and to
acknowledge the imperial title of Francis I.
England, in consequence of rebellion at home, had been compelled to
withdraw her troops from the Netherlands; and France, advancing with
great vigor, took fortress after fortress, until nearly all of the Low
Countries had fallen into her hands. In Italy, however, the Austrians
were successful, and Maria Theresa, having dispatched thirty thousand
troops to their aid, cherished sanguine hopes that she might recover
Milan and Naples. All the belligerent powers, excepting Maria Theresa,
weary of the long war, were anxious for peace. She, however, still
clung, with deathless tenacity, to her determination to recover Silesia,
and to win provinces in Italy. England and France were equally desirous
to sheathe the sword. France could only attack England in the
Netherlands; England could only assail France in her marine. They were
both successful. France drove England from the continent; England drove
France from the ocean.
Notwithstanding the most earnest endeavors of the allies, Maria Theresa
refused to listen to any terms of peace, and succeeded in preventing the
other powers from coming to any accommodation. All parties,
consequently, prepared for another campaign. Prussia entered into an
alliance with Austria, by which she agreed to furnish her with thirty
thousand troops. The queen made gigantic efforts to drive the French
from the Netherlands. England and Holland voted an army of forty
thousand each. The queen furnished sixty thousand; making an army of one
hundred and forty thousand to operate in the Netherlands. At the same
time the queen sent sixty thousand men to Italy, to be joined by
forty-five thousand Sardinians. All the energies of the English fleet
were also combined with these formidable preparations. Though never
before during the war had such forces been brought into the field, the
campaign was quite disastrous to Austria and her allies. Many bloody
battles were fought, and many thousands perished in agony; but nothing
of any importance was gained by either party. When winter separated the
combatants, they retired exhausted and bleeding.
Again France made overtures for a general pacification, on terms which
were eminently honorable. England was disposed to listen to those terms.
But the queen had not yet accomplished her purposes, and she succeeded
in securing the rejection of the proposals. Again the belligerents
gathered their resources, with still increasing vigor, for another
campaign. The British cabinet seemed now to be out of all patience with
Maria Theresa. They accused her of not supplying the contingents she had
promised, they threatened to withhold their subsidies, many bitter
recriminations passed, but still the queen, undismayed by the
contentions, urged forward her preparations for the new campaign, till
she was thunderstruck with the tidings that the preliminaries of peace
were already signed by England, France and Holland.
Maria Theresa received the first formal notification of the terms agreed
to by the three contracting powers, from the English minister, Sir
Thomas Robinson, who urged her concurrence in the treaty. The indignant
queen could not refrain from giving free vent to her displeasure.
Listening for a moment impatiently to his words, she overwhelmed him
with a torrent of reproaches.
"You, sir," she exclaimed, "who had such a share in the sacrifice of
Silesia; you, who contributed more than any one in procuring the
cessions to Sardinia, do you still think to persuade me? No! I am
neither a child nor a fool! If you will have an instant peace, make it.
I can negotiate for myself. Why am I always to be excluded from
transacting my own business? My enemies will give me better conditions
than my friends. Place me where I was in Italy before the war; but _your
King of Sardinia_ must have all, without one thought for me. This treaty
was not made for me, but for him, for him singly. Great God, how have I
been used by that court! There is _your King of Prussia_! Indeed these
circumstances tear open too many old wounds and create too many new
ones. Agree to such a treaty as this!" she exclaimed indignantly. "No,
no, I will rather lose my head."