By the end of 1761, the bluecoat armies no longer had possession of Saxony and held only Breslau, Neisse, and some other strips even in Silesia (the rest was by then controlled by the Austrians and Russians). The Swedes and Russians held much of Pomerania and East Prussia had been long been before sacrificed on the twin alters of necessity and reluctant acceptance. The Prussian army had been reduced to most desperate straits, thanks to the combination of the severed money subsidy from the English and reduced territory from which to draw new recruits. There would only be some 60,000 men for the new campaign: about 30,000 with the king himself, Prince Henry with 25,000 in what little remained of Saxony, and the remaining 5,000 or so confronting the Swedes and Russians in the area of Pomerania.
Frederick was on the brink of the abyss. He rightly felt that nothing short of a miracle could stave off the defeat and the next campaign must surely be the finale. Then, out of the blue, the “miracle” happened.46 In late 1761, the ailing Czarina Elizabeth collapsed and—on December 29—died. In the end, Elizabeth was deserted by a number of her courtiers, who looked past the dying Czarina and fixed their gaze upon the Prussophile, the man who would be Peter III. This included even Vorontsov, a childhood friend of the woman’s, who abandoned her abruptly.47 The upshot was, gone was one of Frederick’s most irreconcilable foes. Her nephew, Peter, became the new Czar; he, it must be remembered, was an ardent admirer of the Prussian king and all things Prussian. This Peter III at once recalled Buturlin with his army from the front and Poland and immediately informed the British representative he wished to negotiate peace with Frederick.
Peter was child-like, rather a simpleton, but at this crucial moment, he became the Prussian monarch’s best friend on the political scene. Peter cheerfully handed back to the Prussians all of the conquests that had been bought dearly with Russian blood, including Colberg and East Prussia, and immediately ordered his armies to cease and desist from fighting Prussians. This although the two countries did not actually sign a formal peace until May 15, 1762, in the Treaty of St. Petersburg. Sweden took the opportunity to close out its wholly unfortunate little war with Prussia as well; subsequently, the two powers signed a Treaty of Hamburg (May 22, 1762), which resulted in no territorial changes. The whole character of the war had changed; in one fell swoop.
The defection of the two northern powers significantly altered the coming Campaign 1762 from those that had gone before. For the first time, Frederick did not have to bother with sending troops to a Northern or Eastern Front; he was free to concentrate against the French and the Austrians, who, besides the Imperialist army, were the last of the field armies confronting the Prussians.
To operate against Frederick in Silesia, was Marshal Daun, who had, due entirely to the reductions in the field armies because of finances, only 80,000 men with him. Frederick faced the new year with the comfort that peace was on the way as both sides were exhausted and tired of the fighting. With new revenue from the reclaimed provinces swelling his treasury, the king again had a large army. Nearly 120,000 men strong, of which 70,000 would be with Frederick’s army, Prince Henry would have 40,000 more in Saxony, and a reserve of 10,000 men.
PART VIII. 1762: THE LAST CAMPAIGN
Chapter Fifty
Operations in Silesia Commence
The Campaign of 1762 was certainly to be of a much different kind than the previous couple had been. If 1760 had seen the monarch largely reacting to the moves of the enemy, and 1761 had seen Frederick almost entirely abandon the offensive to perforce go on the defense, 1762 was to see a reversal of these rôles. The king then reverted more to the Frederick of old, after a fashion. No longer did he undertake missions resembling any of his earlier escapades in the realm of military strategy and invention, it is true, but that was partly because his army overall was weaker in strength and quality compared to those that had been before. This fact was borne out by statistics. A count of the royal army, from December 22, 1761, showed a total of just 98,657 men available for field armies for the new campaign.1 We should note, this was prior to the demise of Czarina Elizabeth. After her untimely departure from the scene, circumstances in short order would allow for more “cannon fodder” for the Prussian king and his enterprises for the coming campaign.
Still, Frederick could quickly sense the changing circumstances of the whole war following the passing of his hated, consummate foe, Elizabeth. As soon as he heard the news “he did not bother to disguise his delight. ‘The beast is dead,’” exclaimed the jubilant king, on January 19.2 With a nod towards those with certain sensibilities, why not? Elizabeth had been an even more virulent opponent of the king than Maria Theresa had been in this conflict. Elizabeth could not even claim theft of any of her territory by her despised opponent, unlike Maria Theresa and the on-going chronic “problem” of Silesia. And yet her bitterness against the Prussian monarch was endangering the very survival of the Prussian state. Frederick had to be relieved by this new wrinkle in international politics. The demise of Elizabeth would have profound consequences for European politics as a whole. The chief reason was that her successor, Peter, was just as big an admirer of Frederick’s as she had been an enemy to him. This was the new so-called “Miracle of the House of Brandenburg,” that ultimately saved Prussia from final defeat in the Seven Years’ War and kept Frederick from being relegated to an “also-ran.3 Like in being the “new” Margrave of Brandenburg, or the ruler formerly known as the “King of Prussia.” Not to mention the chief reason why we can still refer to this particular monarch as Frederick “the Great.”
Even so, the newly encouraged Prussian monarch had no way of dissecting the motives/moves of Elizabeth’s unpredictable successor, Peter III, until after the Russian leader had made them. The same situation held true for the Austrians. Frederick’s favorite minister, von Finckenstein, “wrote to him on 27 January that the Emperor Peter III had halted hostilities.”4 Not that the Prussian king was waiting on events. Frederick had already ordered all Russian POWs, such as those held at Cüstrin fortress and Magdeburg, to be set at liberty, in anticipation of peace with his Northern neighbor. The former captives were fed, clothed, and started on their way toward home, compliments of the king. All of this was done as an out of pocket expense, by a normally frugal king. He must have calculated that the “return on his investment” would be both timely and rewarding. In a similar vein, the clever monarch also “was [busy] dispensing expensive gifts to the czar’s favorites.”5 In essence, Frederick was fully aware that the outcome of the war, even of the survival of the Prussian state at this stage, rested largely with Peter and the Russians. Especially with the utter state of general exhaustion much of Western Europe was in as a consequence of the long Seven Years’ War.
Almost as an aside, Sweden too was “reconsidering” her position as one of Frederick’s enemies. She would presently bail out of the war altogether, as we have observed. Sweden had been bled white psychologically, and, less so, physically, and all of this with no gain for Swedish arms. So, December 11, 1761, a government committee in Stockholm postulated it was imperative that Sweden had to get out of the fighting just as soon as she could. The consequences of not withdrawing from the war were too great by this point. Sweden’s treasury was running perilously low, and the population clearly no longer supported the war effort. By the by, Sweden’s resolve to fight on had been faltering even before the death of Czarina Elizabeth; the latter incident was merely the proverbial final straw that broke the camel’s back.6
Over in what was left of the enemy camp, meanwhile, these new developments were not greeted quite so warmly. The “Allies,” or rather what was left of them, were now effectively reduced to France, Austria, and the troubled states of the German Reich. Austrian campaign plans were put into virtual limbo for a while by the demise of Elizabeth, which occurred nearly simultaneously as organizing for the new campaign would be starting. As early as January 20, the powers that be met to discuss the shape of those plans of campaign, but, at that point, there was n
o definitive word from the Russians as to their next move; which communication would be in transit soon. So the meeting adjourned with nothing settled. Weeks of vacillation followed at the Austrian headquarters, and anxiety mounted as March was nearing with nary a reliable word as to Peter III’s intentions, other than rumors. Winter by then was drawing to a finish, and Maria Theresa & Company decided they could wait no longer on the slow machinations of the Russians. Communications with that Eastern neighbor were looking more ominous, and increasingly erratic, in any case.
Meanwhile, the Prussian king was trying all in his power to win over the good offices of the new czar into an active military alliance, such as in bestowing a diamond-encrusted Prussian Order of the Black Eagle upon the largely gullible, hero-worshipping Peter III. This was delivered directly to St. Petersburg by the person of Colonel Bernhard Wilhelm von der Goltz, for the person of Czar Peter, along with “enthusiastic” congratulations from the Hohenzollerns on becoming the new tsar (czar).7 The Prussians had initially been in communication with the powers that be in St. Petersburg through the good offices of Mr. Robert Keith, the English ambassador to the Russian court. Through Keith, the king was to learn, indirectly, of what he considered to be duplicity on the part of the English Lord Bute. The latter was urging peace to be forced, by coercion if no other avenues existed, between Prussia and Austria. In line with this, there would be no subsidy money dispensed to the Prussian king from the auspices of the British government for 1762. Surely, Bute felt that withholding the susidy money would help bring Frederick “in line” with a concillatory tone to the peace table sooner than otherwise.8 Admittedly, there was a one time single payment of £670,000 offered—and “reluctantly” accepted by—Frederick, which was given through the auspices of both Lord Bute and his government. When that particular subsidy money was canceled on April 20, 1762, the king is reported to have said that Lord “Bute was ‘a man [fit] to be broken on the wheel.’”9 Peter had, in the meantime over in faraway Russia, taken to heart undoing what he thought were the injustices of Elizabeth. He abolished virtual “torture chambers” in Russia, the dreaded secret chancellery. He also recalled (without hesitation, and against the advice of his ministers) quite a number of prisoners who had been exiled by the late Empress, like Marshal Burchard Christoph Münnich,10 and abruptly altered the uniforms of his own army to emulate Prussian styles, while still looking for other ways to make over the Russian army in the pattern of Frederick the Great’s army.11 Peter even donned the uniform of a Prussian general, and was apparently appointed a “genuine” Lt.-General in the Prussian military by Frederick, who was still unsure at this point whether Peter’s moves/motives were genuine.12 The king need not have worried. Meanwhile, Peter’s favorite, Colonel Andreii Gudowitz, duly arrived at Prussian headquarters at Breslau with offers of peace.13 Historians still dispute what then transpired between the king and the Russian representative, but the general consensus appears to be that Peter was trying to enlist Prussian help for a new war he was trying to provoke with Denmark. This was an enterprise that was none too popular among the Russian military as a whole. The requested aid was to help the czar retrieve some territories.14 Specifically, in this case, the “province of Holstein, his ancestral duchy.”15 Meanwhile, March 16, 1762, Prussian and Russian representatives from the two powers met at Stargard, arranging an armistice that would lead first to peace, and then an alliance, by and by. In very short order.16
As for the king, he very quickly realized that the hero worship of Peter with regard to himself and his army was a key advantage that could be played up in the coming campaign. Frederick would play his trump card like a fiddle more than once in this final campaign. Like the monarch himself had more than once postulated, in a rhetorical, as well as cynical, sense of the words, “If I have an advantage, am I to use it or not?”
Meanwhile, the Allied Command was still in turmoil. There was much going back and forth, uncertainty, on what to do. Finally, the whitecoats could postpone their campaign planning no longer. This Austrian plan of campaign for 1762, needless to say, would depend a great deal on what the new tsar would do about Russia’s involvement in the war. It was a foregone conclusion that he would end the alliance with the Habsburgs, even though advisers like minister Vorontsov did their best to point out to the new czar that the interests of Russia would best be served by keeping to the alliance with Austria and, at the least, swap East Prussia later on for more desirable territory in Poland. This was a policy favored by the new Austrian representative, Florimund Claudius Mercy d’Argenteau, as well. As it turned out, Prussia was prepared to accept the Russian annexation of East Prussia, provided “that Frederick was compensated elsewhere.”17 As it worked out, this qualifier would not be necessary, and the ancestral lands of the kingdom remained Prussian. Matters would turn out even more favorable than the Prussian monarch could have hoped.
The upshot was, February 29, the Russian ambassador to Austria, Prince Alexander Golitsyn, was told to advise Vienna that Russia would henceforth be abandoning the war and giving up all claims to the territory they had conquered from the Prussians. These missives from the new Russian leadership were already referring to “Our friend, the king of Prussia,”18 which must have been positively nauseous to the Austrians. The same feeling could be said of the majority of the Russians. Most of them harbored few illusions about working with those generally despised people from Northern Germany, the Prussians. Conversely, most Russians would rather be friends/allies of the Austrians, instead. Czar Peter’s views were strictly in the minority as it worked out. Left unsaid was that most of the Russian commanders likely resented the new “makeover” of their army in the tradition of one of their greatest former, and potential future, enemies. Thinking commanders had to suspect that any future Russian expansion and/or adventures into Poland and Germany would be vigorously opposed by these same Prussians.19
The Austrian court, apparently, offered to lend Peter the very assistance that he was requesting from the Prussians—military help versus Denmark.20 Only in this case, the offer was summarily snubbed. Again, left unsaid was the likelihood that any such enterprise would have to await the successful conclusion of the war against Prussia. Really, though, there was no other viable option for Peter to pursue in this matter. He thoroughly detested the French, and the states of the German Reich lacked either the means, motive or opportunity in any case to help the Russians. They would be way too busy trying to keep the bluecoats from overrunning them.
We should also note that Peter kept a chest full of toy soldiers which was never far from his side apparently. He would frequently indulge in playing with his toy soldiers. An entertaining, harmless indulgence, but the situation at least did hint of the new leader’s preoccupation with warfare and its trappings, particularly of his ongoing fascination with the Prussian army and its enticing militarism.
Nor was this the only consideration at the start of the new campaign. Economics continued to play a large part in the persecution of the war, as did simple geography. For the bluecoats, for the first time in years, there was no worry for an Eastern or a Northern Front. This factor alone had to greatly lessen the burden on Frederick and his staff. In addition, prisoners formerly held by the two northern powers of Sweden and Russia had been (or were being) repatriated to the Prussian ranks, more or less, and the recruiters went back to work, especially in East Prussia, to try to flesh out the depleted East Prussian regiments. In fact, “as of March 6, 1762, there were again recruits and remounts from East Prussia.”21 This was an encouraging development, but, in practical terms, the effect of the new replacements could not have been a factor in the Campaign of 1762 until near the end, if at all.
Moreover, the king, even as early as 1761, was doing his best to increase the size of the Prussian army regiments to their “natural” large size of some 1,800 men for the infantry.22 Ultimately, the bluecoat strength for 1762 was to be augmented by an additional 60,000 men not available in December of 1761. An honest evaluation wou
ld leave us the impression that this factor of increasing the number of men Frederick had access to was just as important, if not more so, than in just Russia abandoning the Allied cause. Most especially when we factor in that a sizable proportion of those returning men had to be seasoned veterans with much training invested in them. On this subject, of particular value to the overall war effort would be the pool of experienced veteran officers who would soon be making their way home to the Prussian colors. With the corresponding increase in available talent the king could draw upon.
For Austria, on the other hand, the strain of prolonged war was more telling than ever. At about the same time as the bluecoat army would be expanding, that of Prussia’s greatest enemy was about to contract. To put the matter plainly, the Habsburg Empire was exhausted. The fatigue and financial difficulties were so profound that there was serious discussion in Vienna even about trimming the size of the Austrian field army. There had been a number of small options explored at some length. In the end, little choice existed in the matter. For the campaign at hand, Austria was prepared to reduce the army to approximately 177,407.23 This represented a reduction of some 20,000 enlisted men and 500 invaluable officers24 from the main army. Of particular concern was the fact that a host of the light troop formations among those 20,000 had been sacrificed on the altar of saving money; this cut would result in an immediate distinct disadvantage on the battlefield versus the bluecoats in this respect. A hard choice, indeed. Quite naturally, the Austrian generals were vehemently opposed to the forced reduction of the army. And most especially when there still remained a war to win. Laudon made the insightful statement that the light troops “which it had been proposed to disband, should be at once increased to their full strength and sent back into Silesia.”25 Laudon’s suggestion was thoroughly ignored. Even at that, the troubled nation still was facing a substantial shortfall in its financial projections26 for the new campaign year.
Frederick the Great and the Seven Years' War Page 100
