“I have nothing more at heart,” Frederick replied, “than to stand well with Austria. I wish always to be her ally, never her enemy. But the prince sees how I am situated. Bound by express treaty with her czarish majesty, I must go with Russia in any war. I will do every thing in my power to conciliate her majesty with the emperor—to secure such a peace at St. Petersburg as may meet the wishes of Vienna.”[183]
Singularly enough, the very next day Frederick received an express from the Divan requesting him, with the aid of Austria, to mediate peace with Russia. The Turks had encountered such reverses that they were anxious to sheathe the sword. Frederick with great joy undertook the mediation. But he found the mediation far more difficult than he had imagined. Catharine and Maria Theresa, so totally different in character, entertained a rooted aversion to each other. The complications were so great that month after month the deliberations were continued unavailingly. Maria Theresa was unrelentingly opposed to the advance of Russia upon Constantinople.
Thus originated with the Empress Catharine, one hundred years ago, the idea of driving the Turks out of Europe, and of annexing Constantinople to her majestic empire. From that time until now the question has been increasingly agitating the courts of Europe. Every day, now, the “Eastern Question” is assuming greater importance. The following map very clearly shows the commanding position of Constantinople, and the immense strength, both in a military and a commercial point of view, it would give to the Russian empire.
Meneval, private secretary of Napoleon I., records that, in one of the interviews of the emperor with Alexander, the czar offered to co-operate with Napoleon in all his plans if the emperor would consent that Russia should take Constantinople. The French emperor replied, after a moment’s hesitation,
“Constantinople! never. It is the empire of the world.”
MAP OF THE EAST.
There can be but little doubt, however, that the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles will ere long be in the hands of Russia. “I know that I or my successors,” said the Czar Nicholas, “must have Constantinople. You might as well arrest a stream in its descent from a mountain as the Russians in their advance to the Hellespont.”[184]
There was a famine in Poland, and the famine was followed by pestilence. A general state of tumult and discord ensued. Maria Theresa had gathered a large army on the frontiers of Hungary to watch the designs of Russia upon Turkey. Availing herself of this disturbed state of Poland, Maria Theresa marched her troops into one of its provinces called Zips, which had once belonged to Hungary, and quietly extended her boundaries around the acquisition. Catharine was much exasperated by the measure.
The czarina had, about that time, invited Prince Henry, the warlike brother of Frederick, to visit her. They had met as children when the czarina was daughter of the commandant at Stettin. Henry was received with an extraordinary display of imperial magnificence. In the midst of this routine of feasting, balls, and masquerades, Catharine one day said to Henry, with much pique, referring to these encroachments on the part of Maria Theresa,