CHAP. XLV.] DISASTROUS RETREAT OF BELLEISLE. 105 reconciled himself with Austria by reciprocal declarations, without any regular treaty. George II. guaranteed the preliminaries of Breslau by an Act signed at Kensington, June 24th, 1742; and in the following November, Great Britain, Prussia, and the States-General entered into a defensive alliance by the Treaty of Westminster.1 In consequence of these arrangements the French, under BelleIsle, deprived of the co-operation of the Saxons, were forced by the manœuvres of Charles of Lorraine to shut themselves up in Prague, where they were blockaded by the Austrians under Count Königseck. Prague was bombarded by the Austrians on August 19th; but the approach of Maillebois with the French army of Westphalia compelled them to raise the siege and attack Maillebois, whom they drove with considerable loss into Bavaria. Here, however, he obtained some compensation for his failure in Bohemia. Having joined Field-Marshal Seckendorf, who had quitted the Austrian service for that of Charles VII., their united forces succeeded in expelling the Austrians and Hungarians from Bavaria before the close of the year 1642. After Maillebois's retreat the Austrians had again blockaded Prague. But Belle-Isle succeeded in escaping with 16,000 men on the night of December 15th, and after unspeakable sufferings, during a ten days' march in a rigorous season, he arrived, though with great loss, at Eger, on the frontier of the Upper Palatinate. Hence he reached France early in 1743, with only 12,000 men, the remnants of 60,000 with whom he had begun the campaign. The small garrison which he had left in Prague obtained an honourable capitulation, December 26th. The fortunes of Maria Theresa in other quarters had been as favourable as she might reasonably have anticipated. In Italy, the King of Sardinia had been detached from the confederacy of her enemies. Alarmed by the arrival of large Spanish armies in Italy, Charles Emanuel signed a convention, February 1st, 1742, by which he agreed to aid the Queen of Hungary in defending the duchies of Milan, Parma, and Piacenza; reserving, however, to some future time his own pretensions to the Milanese. Towards the end of 1741, 15,000 Spaniards entered the Tuscan ports, and, in January, 1742, further reinforcements landed in the Gulf of Spezia. The Spanish fleet which conveyed them was accompanied by a French one; an English fleet, under Admiral Haddock, Rousset, Ibid. p. 45; Wenck, t. i. 2 Ibid. p. 85; Wenck, Ibid. p. 672. 1 P. 640. 2 106 ITALIAN CAMPAIGN, 1742. [CHAP. XLV. was also in those waters; but the French admiral, having given Haddock notice that if the Spaniards were attacked he should assist them, the English admiral, who did not feel himself a match for both, retired into Port Mahon. It is said, however, that his object in not attacking the Spaniards was to make the King of Sardinia feel his danger and alter his politics. The Spaniards under Montemar were joined by some Neapolitan troops under the Duke of Castropignano. The Spaniards had for their allies Naples and Modena; all the other Italian potentates had declared their neutrality, and among them even Maria Theresa's husband, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, with the view of preserving his dominions. The Italian campaign of 1742 proved, however, altogether unimportant. The English fleet, appearing before Naples, compelled. Don Carlos, by a threat of bombardment, to declare his neutrality (August 20th). The Infant Don Philip and the Count de Glime, having entered Provence with 15,000 Spaniards, endeavoured to penetrate into Piedmont by way of Nice; but being repulsed, they entered Savoy by St. Jean Maurienne, and occupied Chambéry early in September. At the beginning of the following month, however, on the approach of the King of Sardinia and General Schulenburg, they hastily evacuated Savoy. The Spaniards and Neapolitans in Lombardy were repulsed by the Austrians, who entered the Modenese, and drove the Spaniards into the Pontifical States. In the north of Europe, the attack of Sweden upon Russia, undertaken in an evil hour, at the instigation of the French, had resulted only in disaster to the Swedes. But in order to explain this, we must for a moment interrupt the narrative, and briefly advert to the history of the Swedish nation. The treaties by which the great Northern War had been concluded seemed to have placed the Scandinavian kingdoms in a position to enjoy a long period of tranquillity. This was really the case with Denmark, where the wise and paternal government of Frederick IV., who died in 1730, and of his successor, Christian VI., was, during many years, almost solely occupied with the care of preserving the peace and increasing and consolidating the national prosperity. Sweden, however, adopted a different line of policy. She could not digest the losses inflicted upon her by the Treaty of Nystädt, and the war in which the question of the Austrian Succession had embroiled Europe seemed to present a favourable opportunity to avenge her injuries. Unfortunately, however, the form of government which had 1 Coxe, Spanish Bourbons, vol. iii. p. 321. CHAP. XLV.] RETROSPECT OF SWEDISH HISTORY. 107 been adopted in Sweden since the revolution of 1719,' rendered her peculiarly unfit for such an enterprise. The new constitution had been principally the work of Count Arved Horn, one of the chiefs of the old nobility. Horn wished to put an end to the arbitrary absoluteness with which Charles XI. and Charles XII. had reigned; but he introduced in its stead only the abuse of popular freedom clothed in legal forms. King Frederick I., the husband of Ulrica Eleanora, who was also reigning Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, had neither talent nor resolution to oppose these innovations, but tamely submitted to all the dictates of the oligarchy. It was not he that governed, but the Council, or rather that member of it who, as President of the Chancery, stood at the head of the Ministry. The Council itself, however, whose members were elected by a deputation from which the fourth estate, or that of the peasants, was excluded, was under the control of the Secret Committee of the Diet. To this committee, from which it received its instructions, and which had the power of retaining it or dismissing it from office, the Council was obliged to give an account of its proceedings from one Diet to another. The real power of the State, therefore, was vested in the Secret Committee, which consisted of 100 members; of whom fifty belonged to the Order of the Nobles, twenty-five to the clergy, and twenty-five to the burgher class. The Order of the Peasants was here also excluded. Such a constitution, of course, threw the chief power into the hands of the nobility. This class, the majority of which consisted, as in Poland, of impoverished families with lofty pretensions, whilst it thus tyrannized at once over king and people, was itself the slave of its passions and the sport of faction. The heads of the different parties sold themselves to foreign Powers, which sought either to retain Sweden in a state of weakness or to make her the tool of their own interests. The two chief factions were led by Counts Horn and Gyllenborg. Till the year 1734, Gyllenborg's faction had inclined to Russia, that of Horn to France; but at the Diet of that year they changed sides, and in June, 1735, Gyllenborg persuaded the Secret Committee to conclude a Treaty of Subsidies with the Court of Versailles." Count Horn, however, having shortly after brought about, through his intrigues, an alliance with Russia, France refused to ratify. The poorer nobility, a numerous body, whose chance of bettering themselves lay only in war, and many of whom served in the French army, were loud in their complaints of the King's love of 1 See Vol. III. p. 531. 2 Rousset, Recueil, t. xviii. Suppl. p. 302. 108 THE HATS AND NIGHTCAPS. [CHAP. XLV. peace, and now added their weight to the Gyllenborg party. It was the policy of the Court of Versailles to foment the hatred of the Swedes against Russia, with the view of producing a war, which seemed to be the surest means of re-establishing the royal authority. Since the late revolution, Sweden had become. almost a nullity, because the least warlike movement required the convocation of the States of the kingdom; and hence, under this system of government, the alliance of Sweden was almost useless to France. Great Britain, on the contrary, together with Denmark and Russia, favoured a state of things which seemed to insure the maintenance of peace-an assumption, however, which the sequel proved to be erroneous. 1 After a few years Count Horn was driven from office by the Secret Committee, composed almost wholly of members of the Gyllenborg faction; but the war and peace factions, or the partisans of France and Russia, continued to exist; and in their disputes at the Diet of 1738 they reciprocally bestowed upon each other the nicknames of Hats and Nightcaps. The conquest of Livonia was the object of the Hats, or war party, who, in November, 1738, effected a treaty with France for an alliance of ten years, during three consecutive years of which France was to furnish an annual subsidy of 300,000 crowns. A brutal act on the part of the Russian Government envenomed the hostility of the Hats against that Power. The more extended political relations which had sprung up in the eighteenth century, chiefly through Peter the Great and the appearance of Russia as a firstrate Power, now embraced Europe through its whole extent. Nations which had formerly been almost ignorant of one another's existence, or, at all events, profoundly indifferent to one another's policy, now found themselves brought into contact by common interests and sympathies. The vast extent of the Russian Empire, touching Sweden on the north and Turkey on the south, had united the Scandinavian and the Osmanli against a common aggressor; and the Swedish Government had perceived that the aid and friendship of the Sublime Porte would be of essential service to it in any contest with Russia. In January, 1737, a Treaty of Commerce had been concluded with the Porte; and in the following year Major Malcolm Sinclair was despatched to Constantinople to negotiate a Treaty of Alliance and Subsidies. These negotiations had excited the jealousy and suspicion of the Russian Government, which was then at war with the Porte. 1 Wenck, Cod. jur. g. rec. t. ii. p. 1. 2 Ibid. t. i. p. 471. CHAP. XLV.J MURDER OF A SWEDISH ENVOY. 109 In order to learn the object of them it was determined to waylay and murder Sinclair, and to seize his despatches, and the consent of the King of Poland's Ministry, as well as of the Cabinet of Vienna, was obtained to any act of violence which might be perpetrated on Sinclair during his journey. On his return from Constantinople, in June, 1738, he was tracked and pursued through Poland by some Russian officers; but it was not till he had reached Silesia that they found a convenient opportunity to attack him. The Austrian magistrates at Breslau gave them a warrant to pursue him; he was overtaken near Grüneberg, dragged from his carriage into a neighbouring wood, where he was shot and his despatches seized. These, after they had been duly read by the Russian officials, were transmitted to Gyllenborg, who then filled the post of Swedish Vice-Chancellor, by the Hamburg post, in a well-sealed and apparently original packet. One Couturier, however, who had accompanied Sinclair on his journey, and who, on his arrival at Dresden, had, at the instance of the Russian Ambassador in that capital, been confined for a short period at Sonnenstein, on his arrival at Stockholm, in August, related all that had happened.' The Russian Empress Anna, in a circular to the foreign ministers, disclaimed all knowledge of this barbarous violation of international law; the murderers of Sinclair were banished into Siberia, probably in order that they might not betray the real secret; and they were not released till the accession of Elizabeth. But the fate of Sinclair roused in Sweden a cry for vengeance which re-echoed through the Kingdom. The Hats seized the occasion to lash the old national hatred of the Swedes against the Russians into fury. Towards the end of 1739 a defensive alliance was concluded with the Porte; preparations were made for an attack upon Russia, and troops were despatched into Finnland; but the Peace of Belgrade, which enabled Russia to march 80,000 men to Finnland, and the earnest dissuasions of France from a war from which Sweden could derive no advantage, induced the Swedish Government to postpone the hour of vengeance. The breaking out of the war of the Austrian Succession seemed to offer a favourable opportunity for attacking Russia. France, as we have said, in order to divert the Russian forces, now exhorted the Swedish Government to avail themselves of it; and, by encouraging the plans of the Princess Elizabeth against the government of the infant Czar Ivan, and the Regent Anna, his Hermann, Gesch. Russlands, B. iv. S. 600 f. |