CHAPTER VII
THE SEVEN YEARS’ WAR TO THE BATTLE OF LEUTHEN
All the world knows that in 1756 the King of Prussia embarked upon a struggle in comparison with which his previous wars might almost be called sham-fights. This was the Third Silesian War, commonly known as the Seven Years’ War, which Macaulay’s lurid prose depicts as setting almost the whole globe on fire. The true cause of Austria’s new struggle, not merely to regain Silesia, but also to curb the dangerous power of Prussia, will be patent to all who have followed the story of Frederick’s life. It was the memory of past wrong quickened by apprehensions of worse to come. Maria Theresa could not believe that Heaven would suffer her despoiler to go unchastised, and she watched the political horizon for signs that the day of vengeance upon him was at hand. At the same time all the neighbours of Prussia perceived with that instinct which is the surest guide of states that the system to which they belonged was jeopardised by an intruding Power whose conduct had been such as to justify a crusade against her.
In that age of unstable alliances and easy wars it was certain that a conviction shared by so many states would sooner or later lead to action. It was equally certain that, while Frederick was king, Prussia would strike back. Hence we may regard with some indifference nice balancings of moral judgment upon the great fact of 1756, when Frederick suddenly made war upon Austria and treated Saxony with almost greater violence. It seems idle to maintain that because Austria had yielded up Silesia by treaty she was debarred for ever from retaliating upon Frederick in the fashion which he had set. Who would apply such a rule to the problems of the present? If it be lawful, in our own day, for France to hope to recover Alsace and Lorraine, or for Spain to hope to recover Gibraltar, it is not easy to understand why, in 1756, Maria Theresa might not lawfully hope to reverse the verdict of 1742 and 1745. And if she and her neighbours contemplated something more than a recovery of lands actually lost, if they sought to reduce the King of Prussia to the harmless level of a Margrave of Brandenburg, who can be indignant or even surprised? A new coalition against Frederick would be merely the Austrian answer to his own riddle, “If I have an advantage, am I to use it or not?”
THE EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF MARIA THERESA IN THE VIENNA HOFFBURG.
REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION OF A. F. CZIHAKS NACHFLG, VIENNA.
But if, as seems undeniable, Austria and her neighbours had good grounds for hoping to attack Prussia, and if, as Frederick had reason to believe, the danger was becoming imminent in 1756, what could be more futile than the statement that none the less he was not justified in striking the first blow? It is true that for reasons of current politics the Austrian Chancellor, Kaunitz, schemed with success to shape events so as to make Prussia seem the aggressor, and that he thus established the conditions under which Austria could claim the fulfilment of a treaty of defensive alliance. At a distance of a century and a half, however, such subtleties can be appraised at their true value. Though in 1756 war emerges from as dense a cloud of diplomacy as ever befogged the path of European history, our generation may regard the Third Silesian War as the natural result of the original aggression of Frederick and of the abiding interests of other Powers.
Those interests, however, demand a brief explanation, for they determined the time and the form of a war which at some time and in some form was inevitable from the very moment at which Austria and Prussia laid down their arms at Dresden. In an age when the true course of states was steered by kings and statesmen of whom some were lazy, some self-seeking, some timid, some honestly mistaken in their designs, it was not to be expected that many should, like Prussia, make straight for a definite goal. Since the Peace of Utrecht, Europe had lived in an atmosphere of general uncertainty. Nations formed countless short-lived comradeships for the pursuit of objects often transient. It was almost impossible to forecast who, if war broke out, would be ranged on one side or the other, and hardly less difficult to forecast the side upon which those who had entered the war as allies of one of the combatants would be found at the end of it. What might, however, be anticipated with confidence was that few Powers would neglect the chance of profit which war afforded. Walpole’s famous boast, “There are fifty thousand men slain in Europe this year and not one Englishman,” was called forth by his triumph in keeping clear of the War of the Polish Succession, which was not too remote to embroil every other Great Power.
While there was then a tendency for every Power to share in every war as an auxiliary if not as a principal, two alliances had become traditional. Ever since the undue predominance of France first imperilled the liberties of Europe, England had steadily supported Austria against her. And so soon as the Great Elector showed that Prussia might be a serviceable ally, France strove to employ her with a view to the humiliation of Austria. Though only occasionally successful in engaging Prussia, she continued to regard her as a natural ally. Thus each of the maritime and commercial rivals of the West had its liaison with one of the German Land Powers of the East.
More to be reckoned on than these connexions were, however, three great antipathies which the course of history had revealed. The clash of interest between Austria and Prussia seemed destined to distract Germany until one or other proved supreme, and, so long as Maria Theresa confronted Frederick, it would be made harsher by a duel between the sovereigns. Russia, while Elizabeth ruled, would go with Austria. The giant State whose westward path had been marked out by Peter the Great already discerned in Prussia the athlete braced to dispute the way. Ost-Preussen was always a tempting bait, and long ere this an ambassador at Frederick’s Court reported that the King feared Russia more than his God. None the less Frederick had permitted his sharp tongue to goad the luxurious Czarina into a fury which surpassed that of the Queen whom he had robbed of Silesia. In April, 1756, the Austrian ambassador at St. Petersburg was informed that Russia was ready to co-operate in an immediate attack upon Prussia by sending 80,000 men, and that she would not lay down her arms until Maria Theresa had recovered Silesia and Glatz.