Frederick the Great: King of Prussia by Tim Blanning

Author:Tim Blanning [Blanning, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biographies & Memoirs, Historical, Europe, Germany, Leaders & Notable People, Royalty, History, Western
ISBN: 9781400068128
Google: Hz_TCwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B014NZGRW2
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2016-03-28T22:00:00+00:00

JOSEPH II

Frederick’s skepticism turned out to be entirely justified. The mediators’ final prediction was soon proved to be completely wrong. Far from opposing any Austrian designs, Catherine was now looking for an alliance to promote a joint partition of the Ottoman Empire. She knew that would not be possible during Maria Theresa’s lifetime but could afford to wait for her death. It came on 29 November 1780. Less than a month later, Joseph told his ambassador in St. Petersburg: “Russia with us, and we with Russia, can achieve anything we like, but without each other we find it very difficult to achieve anything important and worthwhile.”136 With both partners so eager, consummation was not long delayed: by an exchange of letters in May 1781 the alliance was sealed.137 The most important provision obliged the two powers to come to each other’s aid with equal forces—but only if the attack came from the Turks. Any other aggressor required only modest assistance: 10,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry plus appropriate artillery, or a cash subsidy of 400,000 rubles if the theater of operations was too remote for direct intervention. The Italian and Asiatic possessions of Austria and Russia, respectively, were excluded altogether.138 It is very likely that this alliance would have happened anyway, but Frederick had certainly helped to alienate Catherine and push her towards Joseph by his sharp practice over the Polish frontiers following the partition, his consistent underestimate of both her ability and her determination, and his incorrigible habit of making offensive remarks about female sovereigns’ sex lives.139

It was not long before Catherine moved to take advantage of her obviously lopsided alliance with Austria. With Britain, France, Spain and the Dutch Republic all fully committed to the war over America, she enjoyed complete freedom of action. In April 1783 the annexation of the Crimea was announced. This was the biggest staging-post so far on what was looking increasingly like a road map ending in Constantinople. She had advertised her intention in 1779 when her younger grandson was christened “Constantine” and a commemorative medal was struck depicting Hagia Sophia on one side and the Black Sea surmounted by a star on the other.140 The Crimea was an acquisition of colossal importance, among other things confirming and accelerating the redirection of Russian commerce from north to south. Yet the Austrians went away empty-handed, for Joseph rejected Kaunitz’s advice to annex the Danubian principalities.141

Poor Frederick was left out in the cold. Of course he had seen this latest diplomatic revolution coming. An early signal that the Russian weathercock was swinging southwards was a visit Joseph paid to Catherine in the summer of 1780, which turned out to be “a public as well as a private triumph for both rulers.”142 Frederick did his best to keep his alliance intact by joining Catherine’s anti-British “Armed Neutrality” in May 1781, or in other words at exactly the same time that she was dropping him in favor of Joseph.143 Two months later he told Finckenstein that the Austro-Russian negotiations had been broken off without result and went on believing that for the next year.

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