A Political and Social History of Modern Europe Part 37

The war was not so terrible or b.l.o.o.d.y as its duration and the number of contestants would seem to indicate. Saxony, which inclined more naturally to Austrian than to Prussian friendship, was easily persuaded by bribes to desert her allies and to make peace with Maria Theresa.

Spain would fight only in Italy; and Sardinia, alarmed by the prospect of substantial Bourbon gains in that peninsula, went over to the side of Austria. The Dutch were content to defend their own territories.

[Sidenote: Success of Frederick]

Despite the greatest exertions, Maria Theresa was unable to expel Frederick from Silesia. Her generals suffered repeated reverses at his hands, and three times she was forced to recognize his occupation in order that she might employ all her forces against her western enemies.

By the third treaty between the two German sovereigns, concluded at Dresden in 1745, Silesia [Footnote: Except a very small district, which thereafter was known as "Austrian Silesia."] was definitely ceded by Austria to Prussia. Frederick had gained his ends: he coolly deserted his allies and withdrew from the war.

Meanwhile the Austrian arms had elsewhere been more successful. The French and Bavarians, after winning a few trifling victories in Bohemia, had been forced back to the upper Danube. Munich was occupied by the troops of Maria Theresa at the very time when the elector was being crowned at Frankfort as Holy Roman Emperor. The whole of Bavaria was soon in Austrian possession, and the French were in retreat across the Rhine. Gradually, also, the combined forces of Austria and Sardinia made headway in Italy against the Bourbon armies of France and Spain.

In the last years of the war, the French managed to protect Alsace and Lorraine from Austrian invasion, and, under the command of the gifted Marshal Saxe, they actually succeeded in subjugating the greater part of the Austrian Netherlands and in carrying the struggle into Holland.

On the high seas and in the colonies, the conflict raged between France and Great Britain as "King George's War," which has already been separately noted. [Footnote: See above, pp. 311 f.]

[Sidenote: Treaties of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748): Indecisive Character of Struggle between Prussia and Austria]

The treaties which ended the War of the Austrian Succession were signed at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. They guaranteed the acquisition of Silesia by Frederick II of Prussia and restored everything else to the situation at the opening of the conflict. The Wittelsbach family was reinstated in Bavaria and in the Palatinate, and the husband of Maria Theresa, Francis of Lorraine, succeeded Charles VII as Holy Roman Emperor. France, for all her expenditures and sacrifices, gained nothing. The War of the Austrian Succession was but a preliminary encounter in the great duel for German leadership between Prussia and Austria. It was similarly only an indecisive round in the prolonged battle between France and Great Britain for the mastery of the colonial and commercial world.

[Sidenote: Coalition against Frederick the Great]

In the war just closed, Austria had been the chief loser, and the resolute Maria Theresa set herself at once to the difficult task of recovering her prestige and her ceded territory. Her first efforts were directed toward internal reform--consolidating the administrations of her various dominions by the creation of a strong central council at Vienna, encouraging agriculture, equalizing and augmenting the taxes, and increasing the army. Her next step was to form a great league of rulers that would find a common interest with her in dismembering the kingdom of Frederick. She knew she could count on Saxony. She easily secured an ally in the Tsarina Elizabeth of Russia, who had been deeply offended by the caustic wit of the Prussian king. She was already united by friendly agreements with Great Britain and Holland. She had only France to win to her side, and in this policy she had the services of an invaluable agent, Count Kaunitz, the greatest diplomat of the age. Kaunitz held out to France, as the price for the abandonment of the Prussian alliance and the acceptance of that of Austria, the tempting bait of Frederick's Rhenish provinces. But Louis XV at first refused an Austrian alliance: it would be a departure from the traditional French policy of opposing the Habsburgs. Kaunitz then appealed to the king's mistress, the ambitious Madame de Pompadour, who, like the Tsarina Elizabeth, had had plenty of occasions for taking offense at the witty verses of the Prussian monarch: the favor of the Pompadour was won, and France entered the league against Prussia.

[Sidenote: The "Diplomatic Revolution"]

Meanwhile, however, Great Britain had entered into a special agreement with Frederick with the object of guaranteeing the integrity of Hanover and the general peace of the Germanies. When, therefore, the colonial war between Great Britain and France was renewed in 1754, it was quite natural that the former should contract a definite alliance with Prussia. Thus it befell that, whereas in the indecisive War of the Austrian Succession Prussia and France were pitted against Austria and Great Britain, in the determinant Seven Years' War, which ensued, Austria and France were in arms against Prussia and Great Britain. This overturn of traditional alliances has been commonly designated the "Diplomatic Revolution."

[Sidenote: The Seven Years' War, 1756-1763]

The Seven Years' War lasted in Europe from 1756 to 1763, and, as regards both the number of combatants and the brilliant generalship displayed, deserves to rank with the War of the Spanish Succession as the greatest war which the modern world had so far witnessed. The story has already been told of its maritime and colonial counterpart, which embraced the French and Indian War in America (1754-1763) and the triumphant campaigns of Clive in India, and which decisively established the supremacy of Great Britain on the seas, in the Far East, and in the New World. [Footnote: See above, pp. 312 ff.] There remains to sketch its course on the European continent.

[Sidenote: Frederick's Victory at Rossbach, 1757]

Without waiting for a formal declaration of hostilities, Frederick seized Saxony, from which he exacted large indemnities and drafted numerous recruits, and, with his well-trained veteran troops, crossed the mountains into Bohemia. He was obliged by superior Austrian forces to raise the siege of Prague and to fall back on his own kingdom.

Thence converged from all sides the allied armies of his enemies.

Russians moved into East Prussia, Swedes from Pomerania into northern Brandenburg, Austrians into Silesia, while the French were advancing from the west. Here it was that Frederick displayed those qualities which ent.i.tle him to rank as one of the greatest military commanders of all time and to justify his t.i.tle of "the Great." Inferior in numbers to any one of his opponents, he dashed with lightning rapidity into central Germany and at Rossbach (1757) inflicted an overwhelming defeat upon the French, whose general wrote to Louis XV, "The rout of our army is complete: I cannot tell you how many of our officers have been killed, captured, or lost." No sooner was he relieved of danger in the west than he was back in Silesia. He flung himself upon the Austrians at Leuthen, took captive a third of their army, and put the rest to flight.

The victories of Frederick, however, decimated his army. He still had money, thanks to the subsidies which Pitt poured in from Great Britain, but he found it very difficult to procure men: he gathered recruits from hostile countries; he granted amnesty to deserters; he even enrolled prisoners of war. He was no longer sufficiently sure of his soldiers to take the offensive, and for five years he was reduced to defensive campaigns in Silesia. The Russians occupied East Prussia and penetrated into Brandenburg; in 1759 they captured Berlin.

[Sidenote: French Reverses. The "Family Compact"]

The French, after suffering defeat at Rossbach, directed their energies against Hanover but encountered unexpected resistance at the hands of an army collected by Pitt's gold and commanded by a Prussian general, the prince of Brunswick. Brunswick defeated them and gradually drove them out of Germany. This series of reverses, coupled with disasters that attended French armies in America and in India, caused the French king to call upon his cousin, the king of Spain, for a.s.sistance. The result was the formation of the defensive alliance (1761) between the Bourbon states of France, Spain, and the Two Sicilies, and the entrance of Spain into the war (1762).

[Sidenote: Withdrawal of Russia]

What really saved Frederick the Great was the death of the Tsarina Elizabeth (1762) and the accession to the Russian throne of Peter III, a dangerous madman but a warm admirer of the military prowess of the Prussian king. Peter in brusque style transferred the Russian forces from the standard of Maria Theresa to that of Frederick and restored to Prussia the conquests of his predecessor. [Footnote: Peter III was dethroned in the same year; his wife, Catherine II, who succeeded him, refused to give active military support to either side.] Spain entered the war too late to affect its fortunes materially. She was unable to regain what France had lost, and in fact the Bourbon states were utterly exhausted. The Austrians, after frantic but vain attempts to wrest Silesia from Frederick, finally despaired of their cause.

[Sidenote: Treaty of Hubertusburg (1763): Humiliation of the Habsburgs and Triumph of the Hohenzollerns]

The treaty of Hubertusburg (1763) put an end to the Seven Years' War in Europe. Maria Theresa finally, though reluctantly, surrendered all claims to Silesia. Prussia had clearly humiliated Austria and become a first-rate power. The Hohenzollerns were henceforth the acknowledged peers of the Habsburgs. The almost synchronous treaty of Paris closed the war between Great Britain, on the one hand, and France and Spain on the other, by ceding the bulk of the French colonial empire to the British. Thereafter, Great Britain was practically undisputed mistress of the seas and chief colonial power of the world.

[Sidenote: Frederick the Great and the Part.i.tion of Poland]

Frederick the Great devoted the last years of his life to the consolidation of his monarchy [Footnote: For the internal reforms of Frederick, see below, pp. 440 ff.] and to enlarging its sphere of influence rather by diplomacy than by war. Frederick felt that the best safeguard against further attempts of Austria to recover Silesia was a firm alliance between Prussia and Russia. And it was an outcome of that alliance that in 1772 he joined with the Tsarina Catherine in making the first part.i.tion of Poland. Catherine appropriated the country east of the Duna and the Dnieper rivers. Frederick annexed West Prussia, except the towns of Danzig and Thorn, thereby linking up Prussia and Brandenburg by a continuous line of territory. Maria Theresa, moved by the loss of Silesia and by fear of the undue preponderance which the part.i.tion of Poland would give to her northern rivals, thought to adjust the balance of power by sharing in the shameful transaction: she occupied Galicia, including the important city of Cracow. Maria Theresa repeatedly expressed her abhorrence of the whole business, but, as the scoffing Frederick said, "She wept, but she kept on taking."

The part.i.tion of Poland was more favorable to Prussia than to Austria.

In the former case, the land annexed lay along the Baltic and served to render East Prussia, Brandenburg, and Silesia a geographical and political unit. On the other hand, Austria to some extent was positively weakened by the acquisition of territory outside her natural frontiers, and the addition of a turbulent Polish people further increased the diversity of races and the clash of interests within the Habsburg dominions.

When, a few years later, the succession to the electorate of Bavaria was in some doubt and Austria laid claims to the greater part of that state (1777-1779), Frederick again stepped in, and now by intrigue and now by threats of armed force again prevented any considerable extension of Habsburg control. His last important act was the formation of a league of princes to champion the lesser German states against Austrian aggression.

By hard work, by military might, by force of will, unhampered by any moral code, Frederick the Great perfected the policies of the Great Elector and of Frederick William I and raised Prussia to the rank of partner with Austria in German leadership and to an eminent position in the international affairs of Europe. Had Frederick lived, however, but a score of years longer, he would have witnessed the total extinction of the Holy Roman Empire, the apparent ruin of the Germanies, and the degradation of his own country as well as that of Austria. [Footnote: See below, Chapter XVI.] He might even have perceived that a personal despotism, built by bloodshed and unblushing deceit, was hardly proof against a nation stirred by idealism and by a consciousness of its own rights and power.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HOHENZOLLERN FAMILY (1415-1915): ELECTORS OF BRANDENBURG, KINGS OF PRUSSIA, AND GERMAN EMPERORS]

ADDITIONAL READING

GENERAL. Brief narratives: J. H. Robinson and C. A. Beard, _The Development of Modern Europe_, Vol. I (1907), ch. iv, v; E. F.

Henderson, _A Short History of Germany_, Vol. II (1902), ch. i-iv; A.

H. Johnson, _The Age of the Enlightened Despot, 1660-1789_ (1910), ch.

vii, viii; Ferdinand Schevill, _The Making of Modern Germany (1916)_, ch. i, ii; Arthur Ha.s.sall, _The Balance of Power, 1715-1789_ (1896), ch. vi-ix; C. T. Atkinson, _A History of Germany, 1715-1813_ (1908), almost exclusively a military history; H. T. Dyer, _A History of Modern Europe from the Fall of Constantinople_, 3d ed. rev. by Arthur Ha.s.sall, 6 vols. (1901), ch. xlv-xlviii. Longer accounts: _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. V (1908), ch. xii, xx, xxi, and Vol. VI (1909), ch. vii- ix, xx; _Histoire generale_, Vol. V, ch. xix, Vol. VI, ch. xvi, and Vol. VII, ch. iv, v; emile Bourgeois, _Manuel historique de politique etrangere_, 4th ed., Vol. I (1906), ch. vi, xii, valuable for international relations of the Germanies; Bernhard Erdmannsdorffer, _Deutsche Geschichte, 1648-1740_, 2 vols. (1892-1893).

THE HABSBURG DOMINIONS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. In English: Sidney Whitman, _Austria (1899)_, and, by the same author, _The Realm of the Habsburgs_ (1893), brief outlines; Louis Leger, _A History of Austro- Hungary from the Earliest Time to the Year 1889_, trans. by Mrs. B.

Hill from a popular French work (1889); William c.o.xe, _House of Austria_, 4 vols. (1893-1895) in the Bohn Library, originally published nearly a century ago but still useful, especially Vol. Ill; C. M.

Knatchbull-Hugessen, _The Political Evolution of the Hungarian Nation_, Vol. I (1908), ch. iv-vii; armin Vambery, _The Story of Hungary_ (1894), in the "Story of the Nations" Series. In German: Franz Krones, _Handbuch der Geschichte Oesterreichs_, 5 vols. (1876-1879), Vol. IV, Book XVIII. There is a good brief English biography of _Maria Theresa_ by J. F. Bright (1897) in the "Foreign Statesmen" Series, and a great standard German biography by Alfred von Arneth, _Geschichte Maria Theresias_, 10 vols. (1863-1879). See also A. Wolf and Hans von Zwiedineck-Sudenhorst, _osterreich unter Maria Theresia_ (1884).

THE RISE OF PRUSSIA. _History of All Nations_, Vol. XV, _The Age of Frederick the Great_, Eng. trans. of a well-known German history by Martin Philippson; Herbert Tuttle, _History of Prussia to the Accession of Frederick the Great_ (1884), and, by the same author, _History of Prussia under Frederick the Great_, 3 vols., coming down to 1757 (1888-1896), primarily const.i.tutional and political; Reinhold Koser, _Geschichte der brandenburgisch-preussischen Politik_, Vol. I (1914), from earliest times through the Thirty Years' War, by the late general director of the Prussian State Archives, an eminent authority on the history of his country; J. G.

Droysen, _Geschichte der preussischen Politik_, 14 vols. (1868- 1876), the most elaborate history of Prussia down to 1756 by a famous national historian; Ernst Berner, _Geschichte des preussischen Staates_ (1891), a briefer, popular account, richly ill.u.s.trated; Hans von Zwiedineck-Sudenhorst, _Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitraum der Grundung des preussischen Konigtums_, 2 vols. (1890-1894), an enthusiastic German appreciation; Albert Waddington, _Histoire de Prusse_, Vol. I (1911), from the origins of the state to the death of the Great Elector, an able French presentation. There is an admirable old German biography of Frederick the Great's father, with copious extracts from the sources, by F. C. Forster, _Friedrich Wilhelm I Konig von Preussen_, 3 vols. (1834-1835). On Frederick the Great: F. W. Longman, _Frederick the Great and the Seven Years'

War_, 2d ed. (1886), a good summary in English; W. F. Reddaway, _Frederick the Great and the Rise of Prussia_ (1904) in the "Heroes of the Nations" Series; Thomas Carlyle, _Frederick the Great_, an English cla.s.sic in many editions, sympathetic and in spots inaccurate; Reinhold Koser, _Geschichte Friedrichs des Grossen_, 5th ed., 4 vols. (1912-1914), a most thorough and authoritative biography; _Politische Korrespondenz Friedrichs des Grossen_, ed. by Reinhold Koser and others, in many volumes, const.i.tutes the most valuable original source for the reign of Frederick the Great.

THE WARS OF FREDERICK THE GREAT. G. M. Priest, _Germany since 1740_ (1915), ch. i-iii, a useful outline; D. J. Hill, _History of Diplomacy in the International Development of Europe_, Vol. III (1914), ch. vi- viii, valuable for diplomatic relations; Richard Waddington, _La guerre de sept ans: histoire diplomatique et militaire_, 5 vols. (1899-1914), the best history of the Seven Years' War; A. D. Schaefer, _Geschichte des siebenjahrigen Kriegs_, 2 vols. in 3 (1867-1874), a careful German account; Wilhelm Oncken, _Das Zeitalter Friedrichs des Grossen_, 2 vols. (1881-1882), an important work on Frederick's reign, in the imposing Oncken Series. See also A. W. Ward, _Great Britain and Hanover, Some Aspects of their Personal Union_ (1899).

CHAPTER XII

THE RISE OF RUSSIA AND THE DECLINE OF TURKEY, SWEDEN, AND POLAND

RUSSIA IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

How the backward, Oriental tsardom of Muscovy has been transformed into the huge empire of Russia, now comprising one-sixth of the land surface and one-twelfth of the population of the earth, is one of the most fascinating phases of the history of modern times. It was not until the eighteenth century that Russia came into close contact with the commerce and culture of western Christendom; not until then did she become a great power in the European family of nations.

[Sidenote: Russian Expansion]

Several occurrences during the two centuries which separated the reign of the Tsar Ivan the Great from that of Peter the Great paved the way for the subsequent, almost startling rise of the powerful empire of northern and eastern Europe. The first in importance was the expansion of the Russian race and dominion. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the farming folk of the region about Moscow were emigrating south and east and establishing themselves in the fertile plains of the Don, the Volga, and the Irtysh. [Footnote: Armies of the tsar backed up the colonists: they occupied Kazan in 1552 and Astrakhan, near the Caspian Sea, in 1554.] A glance at the map of Russia will show how the network of rivers combined with the level character of the country to facilitate this process of racial expansion. The gentle southerly flowing Dnieper, Don, and Volga, radiating from the same central region, and connected by way of the Kama with the headwaters of the Dwina, which empties into the White Sea in the extreme north, became chief channels of trade and migration, and contributed much more to the elaboration of national unity than any political inst.i.tutions. Boats could be conveyed over flat and easy portages from one river-basin to another, and these portages with a relatively small amount of labor were gradually changed into navigable channels, so that even now the ca.n.a.ls are more important than many of the railways as arteries of commerce.

[Sidenote: The Cossacks]

As the emigrants threaded their way along the river courses and over the broad plains they had to be constantly on the alert against attacks of troublesome natives, and they accordingly organized themselves in semi-military fashion. Those in the vanguard of territorial expansion const.i.tuted a peculiar cla.s.s known as Cossacks, who, like frontiersmen of other times and places, for example, like those that gained for the United States its vast western domain, lived a wild life in which agricultural and pastoral pursuits were intermingled with hunting and fighting. In the basins of the southern rivers, the Cossacks formed semi-independent military communities: those of the Volga and the Don professed allegiance to the tsar of Muscovy, while those of the Dnieper usually recognized the sovereignty of the king of Poland.