Thenceforward it was plain that the dragging war would lead to no decisive issue. Frederick was so sure of his cause that he had already sent a commissioner to examine the civil needs of Pomerania. But he could only undertake formidable aggressive movements if the Turks and Tartars rose, and once again they disappointed his hopes. Instead of new combatants joining in the fray the old ones were quitting it. Bute was eager to take the step which Pitt had scorned to take in 1760. Before the year was out France and England signed the preliminaries which were embodied in the Peace of Paris in February, 1763. Immediately after Burkersdorf, the Russians withdrew and it was not to be expected that the Austrians and Imperialists could accomplish by themselves a task which had baffled the unbroken coalition. Daun, indeed, attempted to avenge Burkersdorf by a counter-surprise. He failed and in October, 1762, Schweidnitz fell. Before the month was over Prince Henry, who was conducting the campaign in Saxony, gained a great victory over the Imperialist army at Freiberg. The campaign closed with an armistice between Frederick and the Austrians and a series of Prussian forays against the hostile princes of the Empire.
At last the Queen realised that she had failed. She promptly determined not to prolong a struggle which could only add to the misery of mankind. So vast a legacy of hate had, however, been left by the war that it was difficult to find a single Power whose good offices both sides could accept with a view to peace. The Queen therefore brought herself to approach “the wicked man” direct and sent an envoy to the King of Prussia. For nearly seven weeks negotiations went on at Hubertusburg, a castle of the unfortunate Saxon monarch. Frederick showed himself pliant in matters of etiquette and unbending where any practical advantage was at stake. He was willing to gratify Hapsburg pride by sending his envoy more than half-way to meet the envoy of the Queen, by allowing her name to precede his in the documents, and by promising to further the election of her son Joseph as Emperor. But he insisted on the restoration of Glatz by the Austrians, and on the payment by the Saxons of his grinding taxes up to the very eve of peace.
On February 15, 1763, the Peace of Hubertusburg was signed. After seven campaigns and an incalculable loss of blood and treasure, Austria and Prussia agreed to return to their situation before the outbreak of the war.
CHAPTER X
FREDERICK AND PRUSSIA AFTER THE WAR
The monarch who had borne the burden of seven campaigns—a burden of which his ten great battles formed but a trifling fraction—might well have been pardoned for appropriating to himself some share in the repose which his labours had won for Prussia. Even if it is difficult to couple the thought of Frederick with that of repose, it might at least be expected that after a triumph of defence hardly surpassed in human history he would delight his army by praising their achievements and his people by accepting their plaudits. Relaxation for himself and courtesy towards others were, however, equally distasteful to the King. He slunk into his capital by back streets and thus frustrated the preparations of the citizens to express their loyalty and joy. Yet in the darkest moments of the war he had been devising plans for the improvement of Prussia and he hardly waited for the peace to be signed before plunging into a rapid career of reform. After Kunersdorf, while his despair was gradually giving place to hope and hope to confidence, he was not too absorbed in strategy to lay to heart the defects which he observed in the schooling of the peasants near the Spree. The weeks which passed while his envoy at Hubertusburg was harvesting the fruits of the war were spent by Frederick in planning reforms for the army which had proved its matchless quality through all the seven campaigns.
His first desire was to get rid of those helpers whose services he had accepted only because of pressing need. Twenty-one free battalions had been raised and had proved immensely serviceable. Now the King bade two-thirds of them go their ways without reward. His learned friend and servant, Colonel Guichard, upon whom in consequence of a dispute about the battle of Pharsalia he had inflicted the name Quintus Icilius, appealed to him to repay to his officers part at least of the money which they had spent from their own pockets in enlisting their men. “Thy officers have stolen like ravens,” replied the King; “they shall not have a farthing.” Still more ungenerous was his treatment of a section of his army whose only fault was their lack of noble birth. During the long war many students and schoolboys of the citizen class entered the army as volunteers and received commissions. In the hour of triumph they were ruthlessly sacrificed to Frederick’s principle that his officers, save perhaps among the garrison regiments, must belong to the caste of nobles. Prussians who had served him in his extremity must submit to be cashiered, while foreigners of rank were enlisted to atone for the dearth of natives whose pedigrees satisfied his requirements.
At the same time the army as a whole was wounded by harsh criticism and harsh reforms. This, like much of Frederick’s conduct, may be ascribed to the contempt for mankind which experience only increased, and to the almost inevitable effect upon himself of the unbridled absolutism described in the sixth chapter of this book. “Dogs, would ye live for ever?” he shrieked at his men in the crisis of one of his fights. He was forced to confess that, as his strength became less and the number of his subjects greater, he could not hope to look into all affairs of government with his own eyes. Yet he shrank more and more from creating an official or a system in anywise independent of his own immediate control. In 1763 he therefore appointed inspectors of cavalry and of infantry in every province and endowed them with wide powers of supervision of the officers and all that they did. This measure, it need hardly be said, roused the utmost bitterness among the regimental staff, which had hitherto enjoyed a great measure of independence on the sole condition that the King was satisfied with the results of its work. It was the more distasteful for the very reason which made it acceptable to Frederick—that the new inspectors were appointed at the royal pleasure without regard to seniority. The chief officer of a regiment, who had been wont to rule it like a patriarch, was now subjected to the control of a rival, perhaps his junior, who did not resign his own command and could favour it as he pleased.