The court of Vienna formed two considerable armies in Bohemia and Moravia; yet pretended that they had nothing in view but self-preservation, and solemnly disclaimed both the secret article, and the design which had been laid to their charge. His most christain majesty declared, by his minister at Berlin, that he had no other intention but to maintain the public tranquillity of Europe; and, this being the sole end of all his measures, he beheld with surprise the preparations and armaments of certain potentates; that, whatever might be the view with which they were made, he was dis posed to make use of the power which God had put into his hands, not only to maintain the public peace of Europe against all who should attempt to disturb it, but also to employ all his forces, agreeably to his engagements, for the assistance of his ally, in case her dominions should be attacked; finally, that he would act in the same manner in behalf of all the other powers with whom he was in alliance. This intimation made very little impression upon the king of Prussia, who had already formed his plan, and was determined to execute his purpose. What his original plan might have been, we shall not pretend to disclose; nor do we believe he imparted it to any confidant or ally. It must be confessed, however, that the intrigues of the court of Vienna furnished him with a specious pretence for drawing the sword, and commencing hostilities. The empress-queen had some reason to be jealous of such a formidable neighbour. She remembered his irruption into Bohemia, in the year one thousand seven hundred and forty-four, at a time when she thought that country, and all her other dominions, secure from his invasion by the treaty of Breslau, which she had in no particular contravened. She caballed against him in different courts of Europe; she concluded a treaty with the czarina, which, though seemingly defensive, implied an intention of making conquests upon this monarch; she endeavoured to engage the king of Poland, elector of Saxony, as a contracting power in this confederacy; and, if he had not been afraid of a sudden visit from his neighbour of Prussia, it cannot be supposed but he would have been pleased to contribute to the humiliation of a prince, who had once before, without the least provocation, driven him from his dominions, taken possession of his capital, routed his troops, and obliged him to pay a million of crowns, to indemnify him for the expense of this expedition; but he carefully avoided taking such a step as might expose him to another invasion, and even refused to accede to the treaty of Petersburgh, though it was expressly defensive; the casus fæderus being, his Prussian majesty’s attacking either of the contracting parties. It appears, however, that count de Bruhl, prime minister and favourite of the king of Poland, had, in conjunction with some of the Austrian ministers, carried on certain scandalous intrigues, in order to embroil the king of Prussia with the empress of Russia, between whom a misunderstanding had long subsisted.
THE KING OF PRUSSIA DEMANDS AN EXPLANATION.
His Prussian majesty, perceiving the military preparations of the court of Vienna, and having obtained intelligence of their secret negotiations with different powers of Europe, ordered M. de Klingraafe, his minister at the imperial court, to demand whether all those preparations of war, on the frontiers of Silesia, were designed against him, and what were the intentions of her imperial majesty? To this demand the empress replied, that in the present juncture she had found it necessary to make armaments, as well for her own defence as for that of her allies; but that they did not tend to the prejudice of any person or state whatever. The king, far from being satisfied with this general answer, sent fresh orders to Klingraafe, to represent, that after the king had dissembled, as long as he thought consistent with his safety and honour, the bad designs imputed to the empress would not suffer him longer to disguise his sentiments: that he was acquainted with the offensive projects which the two courts had formed at Petersburgh; that he knew they had engaged to attack him suddenly with an army of two hundred thousand men; a design which would have been executed in the spring of the year, had not the Russian forces wanted recruits, their fleet mariners, and Livonia a sufficient quantity of corn for their support; that he constituted the empress arbiter of peace or war: if she desired the former, he required a clear and formal declaration, or positive assurance, that she had no intention to attack him either this year or the next; but he should look upon an ambiguous answer as a declaration of war; and he called heaven to witness, that the empress alone would be guilty of the innocent blood that should be spilt, and all the dismal consequences that would attend the commission of hostilities.
A declaration of this nature might have provoked a less haughty court than that of Vienna, and, indeed, seems to have been calculated on purpose to exasperate the pride of her imperial majesty, whose answer he soon received to this effect: that his majesty the king of Prussia had already been employed, for some time, in all kinds of the most considerable preparations of war, and the most disquieting with regard to the public tranquillity, when he thought fit to demand explanations of her majesty, touching the military dispositions that were making in her dominions; dispositions on which she had not resolved till after the preparations of his Prussian majesty had been made; that though her majesty might have declined explaining herself on those subjects, which required no explanation, she had been pleased to declare, with her own mouth, to M. de Klingraafe, that the critical state of public affairs rendered the measures she was taking absolutely necessary for her own safety, and that of her allies; but that, in other respects, they tended to the prejudice of no person whatsoever; that her imperial majesty had undoubtedly a right to form what judgment she pleased on the circumstances of the times; and likewise that it belonged to none but herself to estimate her own danger; that her declaration was so clear, she never imagined it could be thought otherwise; that being accustomed to receive, as well as to practise, the decorums which sovereigns owe to each other, she could not hear without astonishment and sensibility the contents of the memorial now presented by M. de Klingraafe; so extraordinary, both in the matter and expressions, that she would find herself under a necessity of transgressing the bounds of that moderation which she had prescribed to herself, were she to answer the whole of its contents; nevertheless, she thought proper to declare, that the information communicated to his Prussian majesty, of an offensive alliance against him, subsisting between herself and the empress of Russia, together with the circumstances and pretended stipulations of that alliance, were absolutely false and forged, for no such treaty did exist, or ever had existed. She concluded with observing, that this declaration would enable all Europe to judge of what weight and quality those dreadful events were which Klingraafe’s memorial announced; and to perceive that, in any case, they could not be imputed to her imperial majesty. This answer, though seemingly explicit, was not deemed sufficiently categorical, or, at least, not suitable to the purposes of the king of Prussia, who, by his resident at Vienna, once more declared, that if the empress-queen would sign a positive assurance that she would not attack his Prussian majesty, either this year or the next, he would directly withdraw his troops, and let things be restored to their former footing. This demand was evaded, on pretence that such an assurance could not be more binding than the solemn treaty by which he was already secured; a treaty which the empress-queen had no intention to violate. But, before an answer could be delivered, the king had actually invaded Saxony, and published his declaration against the court of Vienna. The court of Vienna believing that the king of Prussia was bent upon employing his arms somewhere; being piqued at the dictatorial manner in which his demands were conveyed; unwilling to lay themselves under further restrictions; apprehensive of giving umbrage to their allies, and confident of having provided for their own security, resolved to run the risk of his resentment, not without hopes of being indemnified in the course of the war, for that part, of Silesia which the queen had been obliged to cede it in the treaty of Breslau.
THE PRUSSIAN ARMY ENTERS SAXONY.
Both sides being thus prepared, and perhaps equally eager for action, the king of Prussia would no longer suspend his operations, and the storm fell first upon Saxony. He resolved to penetrate through that country into Bohemia; and even to take possession of it as a frontier, as well as for the convenience of ingress and egress to and from the Austrian dominions. Besides, he had reason to believe the king of Poland, elector of Saxony, was connected with the czarina and the empress-queen; therefore, he thought it would be impolitic to leave that prince in any condition to give him the least disturbance. His army entered the Saxon territory towards the latter end of August, when he published a declaration, importing, that the unjust conduct and dangerous views of the court of Vienna against his majesty’s dominions, laid him under the necessity of taking proper measures for protecting his territories and subjects; that for this purpose he could not forbear taking the disagreeable resolution to enter with his troops the hereditary dominions of his majesty the king of Poland, elector of Saxony; but he protested before God and man, that on account of his personal esteem, and friendship for that prince, he would not have proceeded to this extremity, had he not been forced to it by the laws of war, the fatality of the present conjuncture, and the necessity of providing for the defence and security of his subjects. He reminded the public of the tenderness with which he had treated the elector of Saxony, during the campaign of the year one thousand seven hundred and forty-four, and of the bad consequences resulting to that monarch from his engagements with the enemies of Prussia. He declared that the apprehensions of being exposed again to such enterprises, had obliged him to take those precautions which prudence dictated; but he protested in the most solemn manner, that he had no hostile views against his Polish majesty, or his dominions; that his troops did not enter Saxony as enemies, and he had taken care that they should observe the best order, and the most exact discipline; that he desired nothing more ardently than the happy minute that should procure him the satisfaction of restoring to his Polish majesty his hereditary dominions, which he had seized only as a sacred depositum. By his minister at Dresden, he had demanded a free passage for his forces through the Saxon dominions; and this the king of Poland was ready to grant, with reasonable limitations, to be settled by commissaries appointed for that purpose. But these were formalities which did not at all suit with his Prussian majesty’s disposition or design. Even before this requisition was made, a body of his troops, amounting to fifteen thousand, under the command of prince Ferdinand, brother to the duke of Brunswick, took possession of Leipsic on the twentieth day of September. Here he published a declaration, signifying that it was his Prussian majesty’s intention to consider and defend the inhabitants of that electorate as if they were his own subjects; and that he had given precise orders to his troops to observe the most exact discipline. As the first mark of his affection, he ordered them to provide the army with all sorts of provisions, according to a certain rate, on pain of military execution. That same evening notice was given to the corporation of merchants, that their deputies should pay all taxes and customs to the king of Prussia; then he took possession of the custom-house, and excise office, and ordered the magazines of corn and meal to be opened for the use of his soldiers.
The king of Poland, apprehensive of such a visitation, had ordered all the troops of his electorate to leave their quarters, and assemble in a strong camp marked out for them, between Pirna and Konigstein, which was intrenched, and provided with a numerous train of artillery. Thither the king of Poland repaired with his two sons Xaverius and Charles; but the queen and the rest of the royal family remained at Dresden. Of this capital his Prussian majesty, with the bulk of his army, took possession on the eighth day of September, when he was visited by lord Stormont, the English ambassador at that court, accompanied by count Salmour, a Saxon minister, who, in his master’s name, proposed a neutrality. The king of Prussia professed himself extremely well pleased with the proposal; and, as the most convincing proof of his neutrality, desired the king of Poland would separate his army, by ordering his troops to return to their former quarters. His Polish majesty did not like to be so tutored in his own dominions; he depended for his own safety more upon the valour and attachment of his troops thus assembled, than upon the friendship of a prince who had invaded his dominions, and sequestered his revenue, without provocation; and he trusted too much to the situation of his camp at Pirna, which was deemed impregnable. In the meantime, the king of Prussia fixed his headquarters at Seidlitz, about half a German league distant from Pirna, and posted his army in such a manner, as to be able to intercept all convoys of provisions designed for the Saxon camp; his forces extended on the right towards the frontiers of Bohemia, and the vanguard actually seized the passes that lead to the circles of Satzer and Leutmeritz, in that kingdom; while prince Ferdinand of Brunswick marched with a body of troops along the Elbe, and took post at this last place without opposition. At the same time, the king covered his own dominions, by assembling two considerable bodies in Upper and Lower Silesia, which occupied the passes that communicated with the circles of Buntzlau and Koningsgratz. Hostilities were commenced on the thirteenth day of September, by a detachment of Prussian hussars, who attacked an Austrian escort to a convoy of provisions, designed for the Saxon camp; and having routed them, carried off a considerable number of loaded waggons. The magazines at Dresden were filled with an immense quantity of provisions and forage for the Prussian army, and the bakers were ordered to prepare a vast quantity of bread, for which purpose thirty new ovens were erected. When the king of Prussia first arrived at Dresden, he lodged at the house of the countess Moczinska, and gave orders that the queen and royal family of Poland should be treated with all due veneration and respect: [387] [See note 3 C, at the end of this Vol.] even while the Saxon camp was blocked up on every side, he sometimes permitted a waggon, loaded with fresh provisions and game, to pass unmolested, for the use of his Polish majesty.
GEORGE II. 1727-1760