Maria Theresa’s eyes were opened now, and she replied that she could not spare any troops from Bohemia without exposing it to danger from Prussia. She would furnish the twenty-five thousand men agreed upon, in the Netherlands, leaving England to take Reuss in payment and seek assistance from the sovereign princes of Germany. These terms of Maria Theresa’s were definite and final, but England further demanded that Austria should not only send thirty thousand men immediately to the Netherlands, but also an extra force to defend Hanover. This Maria Theresa refused to do, whereupon England threatened to break its alliance with Austria unless it complied with these demands. Maria Theresa then declared plainly what she should demand of England in return for the protection of her territory against Prussia and Italy. Before her answer had been sent, still more peremptory demands arrived from England; but Kaunitz made no reply to them. Matters had gone too far to avoid a breach any longer. England broke off negotiations with Austria and went over at once to the King of Prussia.
Frederick II had learned through a traitor at Dresden that a secret alliance existed against him between Austria and Saxony, to which Russia was a party. He therefore gladly accepted the overtures of England, since his union with France had come to an end, with little prospect of its renewal. The treaty between Maria Theresa and France was signed on the first of May, 1756.
Thus there had been a remarkable change in the relations of the European powers when the storm-clouds gathered once more and broke in the Seven Years’ War.
Chapter V
Battles of the Seven Years’ War
True to his practice of boldly meeting an impending danger, Frederick preferred to open hostilities himself, rather than leave it to his enemies. Why should he hesitate to kindle the flames of war in the land of so bitter an enemy as the Elector of Saxony (also King of Poland) had shown himself to be? Without any formal declaration having been made, therefore, he proceeded to invade Saxony with an army of sixty thousand men in three divisions. His advance, as usual, was rapid; all places of importance were seized, and on September 10, 1756, he entered Dresden. The Elector fled to the fortress of Königstein, which was considered impregnable, and at the foot of which the Saxon army of seventeen thousand men, all told, was in position.
The Queen alone remained in Dresden. She had the key to the secret archives, and when Frederick ordered them to be seized she placed herself before the door of the room in which they were kept, declaring they should never be taken except by force. She was pushed aside, however, the chests were broken open, and Frederick found the documents, copies of which had been sent him by the traitor already mentioned, and which furnished proof of the secret alliance against him. With the exception of this violence, which, in truth, the august lady had brought upon herself, she was treated with the greatest respect. The poor country fared worse. Although pillage was strictly forbidden, Saxony had to bear all the oppression of a conquered country and meet levies of all kinds. Frederick emptied the arsenals, confiscated all the state revenues, and treated Saxony as if it were part of his own dominions; but he spared the people wherever it was possible. Ignoring the protests of the Emperor and also of France, he pursued his own course, and worked for his own ends firmly and resolutely.
The position which the Saxon troops held at the foot of Königstein was unassailable. The only way to vanquish them was by starvation, so the King left them well surrounded and marched with his army into Bohemia to prevent any assistance reaching the Saxons from that quarter. There were two Austrian armies in Bohemia—one under the command of Marshal Browne, at Kollin; the other under General Piccolomini at Olmütz, and later at Königgrätz. Browne was Saxony’s nearest hope of rescue; but Frederick’s sudden and unexpected appearance in Bohemia took him by surprise and found him unprepared for action. Several weeks elapsed, in fact, before he was ready to move, and Frederick made good use of the time. Moreover, the Minister of War, regarded as the most conservative of the Austrian field-marshals, wished to spare the army as much as possible, and to threaten Frederick for the advantage of Saxony without exposing it to long marches and changes of position.
Browne sent a force of eight thousand to Losowitz under Count Wied, while he himself left Kollin and took up a position near Budin. Wied’s vanguard met the Prussians at Peterswalde, September tenth, and Browne was forced into an engagement. The battle was fought near Losowitz, October, 1756, but was not decisive, both generals claiming the victory. Meanwhile, the famished Saxons at Königstein were in terrible straits. They had made an ineffectual effort to escape, and a second attempt was scarcely more successful, for their new position was no better than the one they had abandoned. The Prussians again surrounded them, and Browne, who had hurried forward hoping to rescue the beleaguered army, was compelled to retreat, leaving the unfortunate Saxons with no choice but to lay down their arms and surrender themselves with all their artillery to Frederick.
This blow crushed Saxony’s hopes of further resistance, but the King of Prussia, more magnanimous than might have been expected considering his many reasons for irritation against that country, granted neutrality to Königstein and its occupants. The Elector wisely preferred, however, to retire to Warsaw, and Frederick, for reasons of his own, took good care that he should meet with no interference from Prussian troops on the way thither.
These events closed the campaign. Browne remained in Bohemia and the King went into Winter quarters in Saxony, leaving part of his troops in Silesia. Maria Theresa took the loss of Saxony very much to heart, for she was thereby deprived of a faithful ally. Her army had suffered little and accomplished less, but at least it had escaped great dangers and was safe, and this was some cause for congratulation in Vienna; for, considering the unprepared condition in which the opening of the campaign had found Browne, the outcome might easily have been different and his troops have shared the fate of Saxony’s.