Part 13

A defensive alliance, be it known, is an alliance which only begins to be in force when one or another party to it is attacked by a given other power or group of powers. But one speaks in strategy of an offensive defensive; and it would appear that something of the kind may also occur in the diplomatic sphere; indeed, if it were not for the conciliatory title, it might sometimes be very hard to distinguish a defensive alliance from its reprehensible opposite. In politics, as also in life, the name is mostly a sort of _concession au publique_, and deals only superficially with the fact it represents. An attack may be of sheer necessity; but then it is not an attack at all, it is a defence. And if an attack is advantageous to the members of the defensive alliance, why, then it becomes as good as impossible to draw the psychological line where the _casus fœderis_ ceases to be a contingency which everybody would unite in avoiding, and turns into something devoutly to be wished. Thus it becomes a question of sensibility, and has to be left to the feeling of the allies, when one of them shall and will feel itself attacked; and accordingly, to invoke the _casus fœderis_ it is only necessary to drive your opponent to do the attacking--in other words, to force him into the rôle of formal aggressor, which is scarcely very difficult, and may be, under some circumstances, very easy. Things will inevitably so shape themselves, when one of the parties to the defensive alliance is a power like the Muscovite kingdom, a power whose instinct to expand has something elemental and irresponsible about it, like the stretching and the appetite of a giant; a power which, knowing itself ultimately unconquerable, is at all times clumsily eager for the fray. Now, as for this defensive alliance between Austria and Russia, aimed at Prussia: the Empress Maria Theresa had repeatedly and solemnly renounced Silesia, and she was much too god-fearing a woman even to think of breaking the compacts of Dresden, Breslau, and Aix-la-Chapelle. But for that very reason she needed to find a way of getting back Silesia which should be morally possible; and this she secured by the alliance with Russia. For if Frederick were to attack, he would lose his right to the province. Which was now for the good Maria Theresa the _casus fœderis_--a danger or a desirability? Let us call it a tempting danger, or a troubling desire. But what Russia understood by the word “defensive” is clear from the fact that in 1753 it was formally announced in the council of state in Saint Petersburg, and made the basis of a protocol, that it would also be permissible to attack Prussia in case an ally of Russia attacked her first. A corollary perhaps rather alcoholic in origin, but it makes the question wherein a defensive alliance differs, except in name, from another, to a certain extent legitimate.

Well, and did Frederick know of these things? Oh, yes, one thing and another did come to his ears in the course of these years, if more by way of a trickle than in a steady stream. He had to put them together and make sense of them himself. The system of espionage was just then at the height of its flower, blossoming rather more luxuriantly than it does today; and Frederick was its greatest supporter, considering it to be of the highest importance to maintain spies everywhere, in all the important places. He called them his “_Kujons_” (rascals) or “_Pfaffen_” (parsons), and never could have too many of them--especially since they did not cost very much. Brühl had set up a whole office in Dresden just for deciphering the Prussian dispatches; so we may consider it in the light of a retort on Frederick’s part that he kept a “_Kujon_” there in his pay, to post him in events important for the King to know. This famous _filou_, named Menzel, a book-keeper by occupation, had access to the files which contained the secret documents of the government of Saxony, and for years made copies of the diplomatic correspondence between Russia and Vienna, which, together with the replies sent by the wriggling Brühl, he punctually dispatched to Potsdam. From these documents Frederick gleaned precisely the dealings which Saxony had with Vienna and Saint Petersburg at the beginning and toward the middle of the fifties. He learned how Brühl wriggled and twisted in order both to preserve and to betray the neutrality of Saxony; how Russia was persuaded to come in; how they egged her on, in her clumsy enthusiasm, to bring things to a point; how a god-fearing empress set to work to find a valid, an ethical excuse for action. He learned--if he had not known before--what sort of thing a defensive alliance might be, when directed against himself; and, supposing that he, on his side, was not god-fearing and peaceably disposed, not at all inclined to rest on the laurels of Hohenfriedberg, but, on the contrary, cherishing all sorts of schemes and treacheries--then, here in these very papers, he himself possessed the moral possibility which the good Empress-queen was to reap from his offensive. As you see, the real inwardness of things was somewhat complicated, though it was, on Frederick’s side, more downright, more contemptuous, less involved, than it was with Maria Theresa and the man who, as Frederick said, had fifteen hundred wigs and no head.

I pass over the numerous provocations, intrigues, and crises of the second class, which occupied the political world during these years of peace, without lying on the direct line of the march of events. As early as the spring of ’49, the eager Bestuchev had come very near to springing the mine--on the score of the antagonism between France and England. The Duke of Newcastle, then the head of the English Foreign Office, was working for an alliance directed against France, which should include, besides the sea powers, Russia, Austria, Saxony, and a few other German states--all very much to Bestuchev’s mind, for here the prospect beckoned him of involving Sweden and Prussia in a general conflict. He set to work in Sweden, where he thought to bring about a change in the succession, and wean the country from French and Prussian influence, drawing it within the sphere of Russian control. He hoped in this way to force Prussia to act in a military sense. And when he demanded from England, Austria, and Saxony a declaration that he might count on their support in his Swedish undertakings, the whole world expected an immediate catastrophe. But Frederick maliciously drew his neck out of the noose. He invoked the French interest in behalf of Sweden, he mildly warned the London uncle; and as he gave emphasis to his diplomacy by calling up his reserves, England and Austria found it expedient to dissociate themselves from Russia. Moreover, Denmark was won over to the Prussian-Swedish-French _entente_; there was even talk that Turkey would come in. In short, the hostile combination was sprung, Bestuchev was isolated and obliged to put off the execution of his plans to a better time.

But the initiative now passed to an Austrian statesman, with a name famous in history, who at this stage of developments stepped full length into the picture: lean and stiff, in a peruke powdered with excessive care, the curls of which were arranged to hide the wrinkles on his forehead; with a long, calm, blue-eyed, almost English face, and a huge diamond order in his velvet coat. His name was Kaunitz, Wenzel Anton Count Kaunitz; Maria Theresa, who early recognized his great talents, later made him a prince. He was an oddity, such as the eighteenth century brought forth in numbers. Excessively hypochondriac--another peculiarity fashionable in that time--he abominated fresh air, and never went out of doors, so that he was as white as a cellar plant. In his pocket he carried a whole little arsenal of dental instruments, which he brought out after a meal--even when he dined out--and began to rummage about in his mouth with a lot of rags and lancets and little mirrors. Until one time the French ambassador said: “_Levons-nous; le prince veut être seul._” After that Kaunitz left off going into society. Goodness knows how many other maggots he had in his brain; but as a politician he was shrewd, far-sighted, judicial, and with an enormous gift for sticking to a plan once formed. And he had just one thought in his head: Prussia must be thrown by the heels, if the illustrious house of Austria were to continue in existence. That was a good and right thought, from his point of view, but it had in itself nothing original about it. What was original, original and really magnificent, was the method which Kaunitz, and Kaunitz alone, evolved in order to put his thought into execution.

Kaunitz comprehended that to checkmate Prussia and crowd her to the wall it was necessary not only to break up the Franco-Prussian alliance, but actually to draw France over to the Austrian side. If genius consists in essential independence of thought, that was a conception worthy of the name. All the world over, it was an impossible idea that France and Austria should ever walk hand in hand. Sooner would fire and water mix. The mutual jealousy of the two houses had left its mark on the whole history of Europe--not merely since the days of the great Richelieu. But, granted that this was so, Kaunitz could not see why it should be so for ever. “Much is not dared”--so ran his device--“Much is not dared because it seems hard, much seems hard only because it is not dared.” He acted upon this motto. If France decided to join the Saint Petersburg offensive-and-defensive alliance, she brought Sweden over with her; Saxony too would not hesitate to turn on Frederick, so soon as she risked nothing by the act; and if the Versailles government no longer stirred up the German princes against the house of Austria, the German states were pretty certain to be loyal. By a general understanding such as that, everybody stood to win. If France were instrumental in the recovery of Silesia, she would be allowed as a reward some enlargement in Flanders. East Prussia would fall to Russia, Magdeburg to Saxon Poland; if Sweden cared in the least about Pomerania, she would be a fool to stand aside. Anyhow, Sweden had no choice, she was bound by French money. If hope and hatred once moved them all to strike this monstrous alliance, then Frederick was surrounded, hopelessly and helplessly, and a coalition formed such as the world had never seen before: a glorious coalition, which history could not but christen with the name of Wenzel Anton Kaunitz.

These ideas did not spring full-grown in one day from the head of their originator. Like all good things they had deep beginnings. Even at the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, which Kaunitz concluded for Austria, he offered Brabant and Flanders to Versailles, on condition that his country recovered Silesia by means of French assistance. But France declined. Considering her position with regard to England, she found the Prussian alliance too valuable to be weakened by such undertakings. Since that date Kaunitz had industriously fed and fostered the mistrust of the bad man at Potsdam in all the courts of Europe. From 1747 to 1748 he was consul in London, where he plied George II with intercepted Prussian dispatches and a thousand insinuations against his nephew. But in the year 1751 he came to Paris, and there began the golden age of his career as an intriguer.

He lived in the Palais Bourbon like a private gentleman of quality, with several women whom he gave entertainment; but he received very little. However, with the two important persons, the monarch and the Poisson person, he was on the best of terms; it was he who brought his liege lady in Vienna to the point of those _princesse et cousine_ letters which were probably the hardest sacrifice ever legitimacy laid upon the altar of politics. Kaunitz pursued his aims with a tact and persistence truly admirable. He knew that at bottom the Most Christian King, despite the alliance still in force, abominated Frederick. Louis was bigoted and lazy; coddled, self-indulgent, uxorious; naturally his active, soldierly, free-thinking, Protestant cousin of Brandenburg was an offence to him. The alliance existed for reasons of state, of course; it was directed against England, and threatened Hanover, the English possession on the continent. But as for personal or dynastic sympathies, they were nil, there was no basis for them; and setting the political aside, a friendship between two old, aristocratic houses like Bourbon and Habsburg was more humanly fitting than the one that obtained between Versailles and the upstart breed of the Potsdam drill-sergeant. And the creature had written scurrilous lampoons against our marquise, and government by mistresses, and our all-highest and laziest Majesty’s sacred person: Kaunitz hinted very skilfully, and now and then was in a position to produce a bit of new evidence. What audacity, what ingratitude this king displayed! What immemorial disloyalty! For never, unless with France’s help, could he have got Silesia for himself, and how had he shown his gratitude? By leaving her in the lurch and crawling off into the woods with his prey. But that is the way little states always behave when the big ones fall out among themselves. To whose use and behoof, when you think of it, had France and Austria been at each others’ throats all these centuries? _Cui bono?_--to speak Latin. Had either one of them gained anything? No, they had only weakened each other; the gainers had been the small and middle-sized states, who otherwise would have had to do as they were told, and who now were fishing in troubled waters. It was this Prussian land-grabber who had won; thanks to the discord between France and Austria, he had gained a position for which nature had not intended him. Kaunitz was not so radical as to assert that an understanding between his own country and France was conceivable, possible, perhaps even necessary. Only it was amusing to imagine how things would be if such an understanding were to come within the range of possibilities. It would be like heaven, that was all. Everybody’s cares and troubles would vanish, you would wish for a thing and it would fall into your lap. Poor Silesia--it would not take long to wrench it from the clutches of the bad man. And if France also dreamed dreams--Flemish dreams--be sure Austria would find an opportunity to show herself grateful. What else? Nothing else, probably--save that, yes, France and Austria united would simply be able to do anything they wanted to. Strengthened on both sides, in splendid equilibrium, without occasion for jealousy, they would hold sway in Europe, and every foreign will would have to bow the knee in face of their united front. So would it be if a concord between them were possible. But such was not the case; unfortunately, not at all. Tradition compelled them to work against each other, to the end that neither of them got anything; and so it must be, to all eternity. Habits were strong, bad habits were the strongest. Stronger than all else was prejudice, and reason must bow before it.--Or must it?

This was the sort of thing that Kaunitz dropped into every ear which stayed still long enough to listen. He trotted out his theory on every occasion, turned it this side and that, showed it in various lights. First people laughed, then they stopped to think. It was daring, it was amusing--after a while they wondered if perhaps it might not be more than a joke. Gradually it became the _dernier cri_, a political mode, _très chic_ as a topic of conversation in boudoirs and coffee-houses. The erstwhile Poisson was enchanted with it--and the Empress had written her such a charming letter! But there were sound ministerial reasons for not repudiating the alliance with Prussia; and Kaunitz’s paradoxes could not so soon have taken on even a half-way tangible form, had not the man against whom they were directed advantaged all his labours.

Frederick probably felt that a cooler breeze had begun to blow from Versailles; and the French attitude seemed the more foolish to him in that an English-French conflict was looming large and black on the horizon. They would surely come to blows on the subject of the French-Canadian border-line; the rivalry of the two maritime powers was pressing to a warlike issue; and as Frederick’s treaty with France could not possibly extend to a Prussian guarantee of the French possessions in America, he felt that France might reasonably be solicitous about his friendship. What was it Versailles wanted? If it was a land war, if it wanted to attack England in Hanover, then surely Prussia’s help was more important than this new flirtation with Vienna--a joke which would soon be played out when the war with England was once on. For ever since the days of Louis XIV Austria’s place, and Holland’s too, had been on the English side in a French and English war. And as for Russia, England did not spare her guineas when she set out to bribe the Muscovite navy “against the common foe.” And the common foe--Frederick might flatter himself that he was the man. England had in him a not quite comfortable neighbour on the continent, and she did well to take precautions against a Prussian attack on her electorate of Hanover. But while she set her diplomacy to work, what did France do? France did nothing at all, whereas there were three things at least which she should have done. She should have stirred up Turkey, to hold the two empires in check. She should have come to an understanding with Frederick on the subject of Hanover. And, lastly, she should have brought England to hear reason, by attacking Hanover. Frederick had been expecting for months that the Duke of Nivernais would come to Potsdam to negotiate. But he did not come. Obviously, Kaunitz was at the bottom of that. Frederick thought the petticoat government at Versailles was showing itself pitiably hare-brained and silly. England was sending a fleet to America; she was capturing French ships and King George was threatening in parliament; but Louis and his one-time Poisson seemed bent on repose. The only step Louis took was to instruct his foreign minister, Rouillé, to make the following proposal to the Prussian ambassador: “Write to your sovereign that he ought to assist us against Hanover. There will be a lot of plunder. The King of England’s treasury is well filled. The King need only help himself.” It was brazen. But it shows incidentally what sort of repute King Frederick enjoyed in Europe and particularly at the court of Versailles. He sent back the reply that if they had proposals like that to make they would do better to employ a Mandrin as go-between (Mandrin being a notorious highway robber). He hoped that in future M. Rouillé would make a distinction between the persons with whom he had to deal. A haughty, virtuous answer--and one that would certainly make a good impression in England.

Frederick had chosen between England and France. He saw the latter vacillating, feeble, lacking in confidence. And he felt that he was being undermined in Paris by Prince Kaunitz. He gave France up. He was convinced that if he attacked Hanover he would have England, Austria, and Russia against him. On the other hand, if he cast in his lot with England, in the first place the French would not come to Germany, and in the second he would have the money-bags on his side in all future contingencies. An understanding with Russia would thereby be achieved, and who knew if it might not in the future be possible to prize Russia loose from Austria, and by thus isolating Maria Theresa wean her from her hope of regaining Silesia? Here was the reasoning that underlay Frederick’s humourless retort to M. Rouillé. And England heard it. Could she win over Hanover’s dangerous neighbour, and thus secure her continental communications for her naval war with France? England took steps. And soon the _rapprochement_ came about. By the middle of January 1756 a convention was signed at Westminster, according to which Prussia and England vowed mutual peace and friendship, and, in particular, bound themselves to act to prevent any armed power from marching into or through Germany. That was all.

Really it was not much. England certainly had no intention of falling out with Russia and Austria on Frederick’s account. And, on his side, Frederick perhaps did not believe that an understanding with England must necessarily mean a break with France. But France was beside herself. Yes, Kaunitz was right. This man was an out and out wretch. He openly put himself on the side of France’s enemies. But they would show him.... They showed him. Kaunitz had meanwhile taken the helm of foreign affairs at Vienna and was represented at Paris through Count Starhemberg. He could at once report the most gratifying progress in his French enterprise. It was at this time that our marquise showed how well she could preside at a real council of state. In the boudoir of her château of Babiole there took place those very private negotiations between her, Count Starhemberg, and the Abbé Bernis, her protégé, which, on May the first, resulted in a contract of defence and neutrality between France and Austria: the Treaty of Versailles, which was the answer to the Convention of Westminster, and which, as a matter of fact, was so well seasoned that somebody called it a blank declaration of war for the Austrian chancellor. In it was the statement that France and Austria would stand together, that in case of need one of them would place twenty-four thousand men at the disposition of the other; and there were also included all sorts of things about subsidies to Austria. It was not set down that Austria would cede territory in the Netherlands to France as soon as Austria by France’s help had got back Silesia; but they continually treated of it, and the Marquise so understood it.

And if it were only France that was outraged! But Russia was outraged too. “What?” Elizabeth cried; “have we taken so much money from England only to have her patronize this man who has made a mock of me all over Europe for the sake of a few harmless little fancies?” Russia turned her back on England. With furious haste she set herself to get into touch once more with France. Furiously she proffered Austria a plain and blunt offensive alliance against Prussia. They could hardly hold her back. Kaunitz, who had not quite yet got France where he wanted her, had to preach patience to Saint Petersburg, and advise discretion, “lest the desperate King of Prussia fall on us prematurely.”