Frederick the Great and the Rise of Prussia

by William Fiddian Reddaway

Commentary on this profession, if not sufficiently supplied by Frederick’s interviews with Botta, was afforded two days after his entry into Silesia. Then for the first time a Prussian representative, Borcke, informed the rulers of Austria of his master’s proceedings. Shamefaced and without hope of success, he began the unwelcome task by offering to the Archduke Francis his master’s guarantee for the Hapsburg lands in Germany, a place in the Prussian alliance with England, Holland, and Russia, his vote at the Imperial election, and a loan of two million florins. Then he named the price—the cession of all Silesia. “Rather the Turks before Vienna,” cried the Archduke, “rather the Netherlands to France, rather any concession to Bavaria and Saxony.” And when he grew calmer and spoke of negotiation, the door opened and Maria Theresa asked whether her husband was there.

Next day the subject was broached anew by a more Olympian plenipotentiary, Oberhofmarschall Gotter, who had arrived after Borcke’s message was made known. He found Vienna stirred to its depths and the English ambassador declaring that if such a thing were done Frederick would be excommunicated from the society of Governments. None the less he took the high tone and strove to intimidate the pliable Archduke.

“‘I bear,’ he said, ‘in one hand safety for the House of Austria and in the other, for Your Highness, the Imperial crown. The treasures of the King my master are at the service of the Queen, and he brings her the succour of his allies, England, Holland and Russia. As a return for these offers and as compensation for the peril which he incurs by them, he asks for all Silesia, and will take no less. The King’s resolve is immovable. He has the will and the power to possess himself of Silesia, and if it be not offered to him with a good grace these same troops and treasures will be given to Saxony and Bavaria, who are asking for them.’”

Gotter’s words seem to strike the keynote of the Silesian adventure. His silence as to legal claim throws into strange relief the preposterous character of the moral claim which he advances. Saxony and Bavaria had made no overtures to Frederick, and Frederick, as soon became apparent, was willing to accept much less than the whole of Silesia. The spirit of Maria Theresa breathed in the calm and dignified reply of the Archduke. Her high-minded confidence in Providence, her allies, her people, and herself blunted all the weapons of Prussia—the threats and cajolings addressed to the sovereign and the three hundred thousand thalers offered to the ministers. Austria declared that the invasion must cease or she would not even negotiate. Thereupon Gotter and Borcke joined their voices to the loud and unceasing chorus of remonstrance with which Prussia and Europe assailed the ears of Frederick in vain.

The young King’s firmness may be ascribed in part to an overweening confidence in his own talents and in part to the favourable progress of his enterprise. He knew himself to be a cleverer man than his father and he had boundless faith in prompt and decided action. His success in the affairs of Mainz and Herstal could not but have augmented his self-esteem. The sight of the well-found and eager army which a word from him had assembled filled him with a sense of omnipotence. He declared that it must not be said that the King of Prussia marched with a tutor at his elbow. The minister of France, who admitted his great power of becoming what he wished, smiled maliciously at what he wished to become.

“Fully convinced of his superiority in every department, he already thinks himself a clever statesman and a great general. Alert and masterful, he always decides upon the spot and according to his own fancy. His generals will never be anything but adjutants, his councillors anything but clerks, his finance-ministers anything but tax-gatherers, his allies among the German princes anything but his slaves.”

Frederick’s whole career is a vindication of this estimate.

Already, both in Silesia and in Europe, good progress had been made. No Austrian armies disputed Frederick’s advance, for Charles VI’s grandiose projects had denuded his home provinces of troops. The natural defences of Silesia, too, were all on the wrong side. Mountains formidable though by no means impassable screened it from loyal Bohemia and loyal Moravia, and thus blocked the direct paths to Vienna. Only a few hills and streams barred an attack from the side of Saxony and no natural obstacle intervened between Breslau and Berlin. The strong portal looking towards Prussia was Glogau, which closed the Oder, the great natural highway of Silesia. Breslau, the capital, a city which Frederick could praise as the finest in Germany, was too big to be a fortress by nature and too independent to be made one by art. In the main Protestant, and therefore ill-disposed towards Austrian rule, it stood firmly upon its right to provide for its own defence and refused to receive a garrison. Glogau was therefore the only formidable fortress in Lower Silesia, the half of Silesia where Protestant feeling was strongest and which was most exposed to the Prussian invasion. The south-eastern half, Upper Silesia, contained two other strong places of high importance—Brieg, which commanded the upper Oder, and Neisse, which secured the backdoor of the province towards Austria. But Glogau, Brieg, and Neisse were all ill-supplied and undermanned. Without a field army to use them as bases and supports they could not oppose a serious obstacle to the army of the King.

THE BOARD OF FINANCES AT NEISSE.