Frederick the Great

by Nancy Mitford

  Clouds seemed to be gathering in Europe. Maria Theresa openly longed for revenge. The Empress Elizabeth of Russia, secure internally and no longer troubled with a Swedish war, was known to be inimical to Frederick, who might interfere with her designs on Poland. France and England were fighting an undeclared war, and it was essential to Prussia to be allied to one or the other. The King was flirting with England but, unsuspected by him, the French were flirting with Austria.

  The next Frenchman to arrive at Berlin was the Duc de Nivernais, Gisors’s father-in-law; he was sent by Louis XV to find out Frederick’s intentions as to renewing the Franco-Prussian alliance. There had been a good deal of unsatisfactory correspondence on the subject between Berlin and Versailles and the silly old French Foreign Minister, Rouillé, had considerably annoyed Frederick by advising him to invade Hanover and seize George II’s treasury. Louis XV was furious with Rouillé, but the harm had been done and Frederick said the French ministers seemed to have lost their wits. He never guessed that the French were even now putting the finishing touches to a treaty with Maria Theresa, the famous Renversement des Alliances. Although Nivernais was the great friend of Mme de Pompadour, whose cherished scheme this was, it is probable that he knew nothing of the Renversement, which was against all his political principles. He arrived in Berlin on 1 January 1756 and was immediately informed, to his surprise and dismay, that Frederick and George II had just signed the Treaty of Westminster by which Frederick guaranteed the neutrality of Hanover and the English his possession of Silesia. He told Nivernais that it was a purely defensive German* arrangement against the Russians and that he wished to renew his treaty with France as soon as possible. Nivernais passed on all this to Versailles.

  The negotiations took time, and meanwhile Frederick delighted in the company of Nivernais, a soldier (he had been with Belle-Isle in Prague), a member of the Académie française and a man of the world. He was a Mancini and had the brains and charm of that famous family. Frederick wrote and told Maupertuis that if Nivernais were his subject he would not send him on foreign missions, but keep him always at his side. It was sad to have met only to lose him again so soon. He impressed the King by talking Greek to d’Argens, Frederick trying to follow with a dictionary. No foreign nobleman since Maurice de Saxe had been so well received by the King: he was the only ambassador who ever stayed at Sans Souci. He was allowed to dine with the King’s brothers, which was against the rules for diplomats, and they too did all they could to please him. Prince Henry, having heard that the Duke did not care for large dinners and having asked forty people to meet him, divided them up into tables of eight. Frederick spoke much of Gisors, and amused Nivernais by asking if his marriage had been consummated.

  Nivernais wrote an account of life at Potsdam. Musical himself, he enjoys the concerts and says the King plays very well but that his own compositions are poor. His old music master Quantz doesn’t mind what he says to him and is rather severe—he coughs every time he hears a mistake and this exasperates the King. Supper is more amusing than dinner, with Frederick displaying his lively wit—brilliant, teasing and aggressive; he never turns it against Nivernais. He has a most beautiful speaking voice. He is very particular that the Queen be respectfully treated but he hardly ever sees her. However, Prince Henry is not allowed to follow this example with his wife, much as he would like to do so. Nivernais does not name the company at Sans Souci, but it must have been down to the scrapings of the barrel, with d’Argens the only amusing person there. Though Milord Maréchal had left Versailles, Frederick had sent him to govern his principality of Neuchâtel. Maupertuis had been like a bear with a sore head ever since Akakia and was now in his native Saint-Malo. Algarotti too was at home, in Italy, writing lively letters to Frederick and sending him seeds for his garden. Nivernais gave a pen-portrait of Frederick to his brother-in-law Maurepas:

  Impetuous, vain, presumptuous, scornful, restless, but also attentive, kind and easy to get on with. A friend of truth and reason. He prefers great ideas to others—likes glory and reputation but cares not a rap what his people think of him . . . He knows himself very well but the funny thing is that he is modest about what is good in him and boastful about his shortcomings. Well aware of his faults, but more anxious to conceal than to correct them. Beautiful speaking voice . . . I think that, both as a matter of principle and character, he is against war. He’ll never allow himself to be attacked, as much from vanity as from prudence—he will find out what his enemies are planning and attack them suddenly before they are quite ready. Woe to them if they are not strong, and woe to him if a well-organized league should force him into a sustained effort of great length.

  Nivernais strongly advised his government to renew the treaty with Frederick. He said that if they did so they would find that the Treaty of Westminster had little importance, but that if they refused Frederick would be thrown into the English camp. The advice was not heeded. Nivernais was recalled and the Marquis de Valory sent back to Berlin. Frederick told the Duke that Valory, old friend as he was, could never replace him. All the same, when he saw Valory he hugged and kissed him, saying that Nivernais must forgive two old comrades who had hardly expected to meet again. Like the Duke, Valory, who knew Frederick so well, thought he was playing a straightforward game this time; that the Treaty of Westminster was against the Russians and that Frederick ought to be allowed to renew his treaty with France. They both blamed the incompetent French minister who had replaced Tyrconnel and each said that if the other had been at Berlin the Treaty of Westminster would never have been signed. But the initiative had already been taken by Louis XV. When Maria Theresa’s Ambassador to Versailles, Kaunitz, suggested a Franco-Austrian alliance the French King realized that, once he got used to it, this astonishing idea suited him very well. Frederick had twice proved a treacherous ally and had twice made a separate peace; Louis XV disliked and distrusted him. He preferred the noble Roman Catholic matron to the mocking Voltairean sodomite whose disobliging remarks about his person, his mode of life, his mistress and his army had not failed to be repeated to him. The diplomatic tables were now turned on Frederick with a vengeance.

  Frederick wrote to Milord Maréchal, of Maria Theresa: ‘She appoints fasts and prayers; the venerabile has been exposed at Vienna—doubtless God will now think twice before attacking Austria.’ But in his Histoire de la Guerre de Sept Ans an unwilling admiration of his lifelong enemy is apparent.

  She succeeded in putting an order and economy in her country’s finances which her ancestors had never achieved and her revenues exceeded those of her father even when he had owned Naples, Parma, Silesia and Serbia. She insisted on improved discipline in the army and supervised it herself; she had a particular talent for bestowing favours and for rewarding the officers in such a way that they were filled with enthusiasm. She established a military academy in Vienna and found clever professors of warfare, so that the army reached an excellence it had never known under her ancestors. This woman’s achievements were those of a great man.

  Maria Theresa had not wasted time after the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. She had the feminine capacity for getting things done; and she had also found a first-class minister with whom she could work. Count (later Prince) von Kaunitz, having prepared the ground, as Ambassador to Louis XV, for the Renversement des Alliances, became Maria Theresa’s Chancellor. They formed a strong team (Frederick used to say there were only two statesmen in Europe, Kaunitz and Pitt). The Empress was soon dominated by him; he treated her in a most cavalier fashion. If she spoke out of turn at a Cabinet meeting he would leave the room; when she ventured a remark on his immoral private life he said he was there to speak of her affairs, not his. She loved fresh air, he dreaded it; and all windows had to be shut when he was there. The Emperor disliked both him and his pro-French policy—indeed the Renversement was almost equally unpopular in Vienna and in Paris—but there was nothing to be done when the Empress and her Chancellor had made up their minds. Kaunitz’s guiding idea was to re-esta
blish the Austrian domination of Germany, which had weakened under Charles VI and was now threatened by the rising power of Prussia. As Maria Theresa was obsessed by her despair at the loss of Silesia, he had no difficulty in persuading her that the treaties by which she had given it up counted for nothing.

  On 17 May 1756 the Treaty of Versailles between Louis XV and Maria Theresa was signed. France was to help Austria to retake Silesia, and in return would receive various towns in the Low Countries and the Rhineland. To begin with the Empress had every reason to congratulate herself on her new ally. In the early months of 1756 the French had beaten the English wherever they met them. They massed in Normandy as though to invade; the English were so short of troops that they begged Holland for the loan of 6,000 men; but the Dutch were themselves frightened of the French and refused. England was going through one of her periodical phases of government by mediocrity and not until the following December did the pressure of public opinion force George II to send for Pitt, a man he dreaded worse than defeat. After that the foreign policy was stabilized, summed up by the new Prime Minister: ‘We shall win America on the continent of Europe’—in other words, keep the Europeans fighting among themselves for as long as possible. This was to be done by subsidizing Frederick and giving him some Hanoverian troops. As soon as it became obvious that France and Austria were going to fall upon tiny Prussia, there was the usual rush of jackals to break up the quarry. The Empress Elizabeth joined the coalition and was to receive East Prussia. Like Louis XV she hated Frederick, whose bawdy jokes about her and her lovers were repeated all over Europe. Sweden, whose Queen, Ulrica, was Frederick’s sister but whose Senate was paid by France, put in for Pomerania. The Empresses Maria Theresa and Elizabeth made no secret of intense military preparations and it became evident that Prussia, with a population of five millions, would soon be obliged to fight countries whose joint populations were about a hundred millions.

  Even the intrepid Frederick began to feel anxious. In July he learnt that the attack had been put off until the following spring when Austrian preparations would be complete. He summoned a meeting of his three most trusted generals, Schwerin and Retzaw, of his father’s generation, and Winterfeldt, his own contemporary and his chief confidant in military affairs. He set forth all he knew about the intentions of the French King and the two Empresses, and asked for advice. The old men said, ‘Remain on the defensive!’ Then Winterfeldt produced proof that Augustus III was going to join forces with the Austrians, who had promised him Magdeburg in the event of victory. Now Berlin was only thirty miles from the Saxon frontier—with Saxony in enemy hands it would be impossible to defend the homeland, Brandenburg. The old generals said Frederick should attack and Winterfeldt said, ‘If we have to wait until every little prince in the Empire does us the justice to admit that we are not the aggressors we shall lose the war.’ Prince Henry, who was entirely opposed to the war since it brought a rupture with his beloved France, blamed Winterfeldt for this preventive policy, but Frederick had already made up his mind to attack. The English, who had lost Minorca and were anxious for the Prussians to make a diversion in Europe, sent a message to the effect that nobody could blame H.M. if he forestalled his enemies.

  Sir Andrew Mitchell was now at Berlin as English Minister. None had ever been so much liked and he became one of Frederick’s greatest friends. Sir Andrew was a heart-broken Scotch widower, the last sort of person one would expect to be charmed by the wayward and fantastic King, of whom he said, ‘Such a mixture of delicate honour and caprice never dwelt in one breast.’ For the next seven years they were hardly separated; Frederick took him to the wars as he used to take Valory, and behaved better to him. We never hear of his teasing Mitchell. At the Minister’s suggestion Frederick sent a note to Maria Theresa asking to be told whether the massing of troops on his frontiers portended war. He begged that the reply might be straightforward and not as from an oracle. It came on 26 August and was utterly evasive. Two days later, calling God as his witness that, had he wanted this war, he would have attacked in the spring of 1756 with the advantage of surprise, Frederick sent an ultimatum to Augustus III demanding his neutrality and marched on Dresden.

  To his wife: ‘Madame, a rush of business has prevented me from writing until now; this letter is to take my leave of you, wishing you health and contentment during the troubled times ahead. I am, etc . . .’

  He did not see her again for seven years.

  *The word Germany in its modern sense, that is, excluding the Habsburg hereditary lands, was first used in the Treaty of Westminster.

  16. The Seven Years’ War

  When Frederick crossed the Saxon border he heard that Augustus, his Minister Count von Brühl and his army had taken themselves off to the mountains near Pirna, a few miles south-east of Dresden on the road to Prague. The position was on a curiously formed peak like a sugar-loaf, which made a formidable redoubt, and although the Saxons only numbered 18,000 they would have been difficult to dislodge. Winterfeldt, who went there to see if Augustus could not be induced to resume neutrality, thought an assault was feasible (and so, later, did Napoleon, who blamed Frederick for not having tried it), but Frederick did not want to fight the Saxons. In the back of his mind there was always a hope that one day he would possess their beautiful land; so, instead of finishing them off and plunging straight into an unprepared Austria, he wasted precious time starving out the Saxon army. Augustus was allowed food for his own table; in despair at having left his art collection he collapsed into a dressing-gown or Polish robe, bombarded Maria Theresa with demands to be rescued and proclaimed to all Europe that his intentions had been pure.

  In Dresden Frederick set about procuring the documents which proved that Augustus’s intentions, so far from being pure, had been to join with Maria Theresa in attacking Prussia. The palace guards were replaced by Prussians who prepared to break into the archives. The Queen in person arrived and stood before the door but she was pushed aside, whether roughly or not was a matter of opinion; the door was burst open and several packing-cases labelled to Warsaw were removed. The documents were duly there and Frederick published them. But the proceeding was unwise: his enemies said the publication was a forgery; and he had infuriated crowned heads everywhere by his treatment of the Queen. She, ‘small, dark, ugly beyond painting and malicious beyond expression’ (Hanbury Williams), was particularly well-connected—daughter of the Emperor Joseph, sister-in-law of the Emperor Charles VII, first cousin of Maria Theresa, mother of the Queen of Spain and of the Dauphine of France. When Marie Josèphe, the Dauphine, was told how her mother had been treated she rushed unannounced into her father-in-law’s room, an unheard-of proceeding, and implored him to help her parents. The result was that Louis XV, who loved Marie Josèphe, sent an army, known as La Dauphine, of 100,000 men to Germany instead of the 24,000 he had promised. Furthermore, Frederick could hardly now keep the title, to which he always aspired, of the champion of German princes against the Emperor.

  Maria Theresa ordered Browne, her marshal of Irish descent, to go and save Augustus and his army. Frederick marched to meet him and defeated him at Lobositz, about half-way between Prague and Dresden, with light casualties on both sides. Frederick saw that the Austrian fire-power had greatly improved in the eleven years since he had last fought against them and that their army had up-to-date equipment. In spite of Lobositz, Browne nearly rescued the Saxons; he himself led a small force to the mountains in a dashing and clever attempt to do so. He failed because the Saxons made no effort to co-operate. So Augustus was obliged to sign a treaty with Frederick. He and Brühl were allowed to go to Warsaw; the Saxon officers were put on parole, which most of them broke, never again to fight against Frederick; and the men, with eighty big guns, were taken into the Prussian army—it is hardly surprising that they proved to be its most unsatisfactory element.

  Saxony was now administered and its revenues collected by Prussians. Frederick bled it white during the years to come, though not whiter than Brühl h
ad on behalf of his master. Augustus III spent even more wildly on pictures, diamonds and baubles of every kind than his father; also Poland, far from bringing in revenue, cost a great deal of money. Hanbury Williams, who had been minister at Dresden some years before, said that Saxony writhed under taxation. Frederick at least was ashamed of himself. In 1760 he wrote to Algarotti, who knew Saxony well: ‘I spared that beautiful country as far as possible but now it is utterly devastated. Miserable madmen that we are: with only a moment to live we make that moment as harsh as we can; amusing ourselves with the destruction of the masterpieces of industry and of time, we leave an odious memory of our ravages and the calamities which they cause.’ The Saxons have never forgiven Frederick for the harm he did them. Dresden suffered as much damage from Prussian bombardments as during the great British air raid in 1945—the difference is that in the eighteenth century a town could be rebuilt as beautiful as ever; now it cannot.