Read Online Flight of the Eagle: The Grand Strategies That Brought America From Colonial Dependence to World Leadership by Conrad Black - Free Book Online
Authors: Conrad Black
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de Conflans, came to grips on November 20 in tempestuous weather in Quiberon Bay. A wild action ensued, in which there was no effort to coordinate between different ships in each command, and in the melee and the succeeding grounding of French ships in the Vilaine River, the British lost two ships and 300 men and the French ultimately 17 ships and 2,500 men. The French navy was in no position to conduct invasion barges across the Channel, even had the weather allowed, and Quiberon Bay was a victory on the scale of Drake’s, and of Howe’s and Nelson’s to come. Pitt’s strategy was triumphant, and Choiseul’s, as designs based on the invasion of Britain inevitably are, was a complete failure.
The continental campaign had not gone well for the Anglo-Prussian alliance, however. Hanover was safe enough, but Frederick’s bellicosity had caught up with him. The Russians won some victories on the Eastern Front, the Austrians forced the surrender of a Prussian corps at Maxen (13,000 men), and at Kunersdorf on August 12, in the greatest defeat of his career, Frederick lost half his army (21,000 men) to the Russians, who, not for the last time in the history of these countries, had been completely underestimated. The Austrians occupied Dresden, and Saxony, Frederick’s initial prize in the war, was largely lost. Frederick contemplated abdication and even suicide and began frenzied importuning of Pitt to convene a peace conference. Prince Louis of Brunswick, the Dutch regent and a presentable neutral, but the brother of the British ally Prince Ferdinand, duly invited the combatants to parlay, but the Austrians and Russians were not interested. Nor, really, were the French. No one, including the British banker of Frederick’s military impetuosities (and his brother-in-law George II), much cared what happened to the Prussians.
The odd Anglo-Prussian alliance, with Pitt everywhere victorious and Frederick on the ropes, surged and staggered into 1760. Pitt was running out of French colonies to attack, but France had the largest army in Europe, and in the same measure that the British were determined to keep continental and especially French armies out of England, they had no land war capacity to do more in France than amphibious pin-pricks along the coast, which were almost always costly failures anyway. It was a stand-off, a shark and a lion. But a general peace could not be had until the Austrians and Russians wearied of the war with Prussia, which had Frederick, in a frenetic war of maneuver, endlessly showing the prowess of his well-trained troops, marching all about his frontiers repelling intruders at every hand. His opponents finally had a coordinated plan: The Austrians would again try to take Silesia and advance from Saxony, the Russians would attack from East Prussia, and whichever column encountered Frederick was to try to tie him up while the others made for Berlin.
The endless scrambling around the edges of a gradually imploding Prussia continued all year. Frederick, though outnumbered, ejected the Austrians from Silesia yet again. The Russians, with an Austrian contingent, briefly occupied Berlin in October, but withdrew as Frederick hastily returned. The Russian empress, Elizabeth, would be the only Russian leader to occupy Berlin until Joseph Stalin arrived at the Potsdam Conference in Frederick’s palace in 1945, at the head of the 360 divisions of the Red Army (Chapter 11). The year of relentless warfare in Germany ended with the Battle of Torgau on November 2, west of Dresden, which was effectively a draw between the Austrians and Frederick’s smaller army. Frederick’s resourcefulness was starting to wear down his enemies, but even now, no serious peace discussions took place. The war in India also continued well for the British, and France had no capacity at all to resupply its forces there.
11. THE END OF THE SEVEN YEARS’ WAR
Military fatigue and diplomatic confusion settled and thickened until
The continental campaign had not gone well for the Anglo-Prussian alliance, however. Hanover was safe enough, but Frederick’s bellicosity had caught up with him. The Russians won some victories on the Eastern Front, the Austrians forced the surrender of a Prussian corps at Maxen (13,000 men), and at Kunersdorf on August 12, in the greatest defeat of his career, Frederick lost half his army (21,000 men) to the Russians, who, not for the last time in the history of these countries, had been completely underestimated. The Austrians occupied Dresden, and Saxony, Frederick’s initial prize in the war, was largely lost. Frederick contemplated abdication and even suicide and began frenzied importuning of Pitt to convene a peace conference. Prince Louis of Brunswick, the Dutch regent and a presentable neutral, but the brother of the British ally Prince Ferdinand, duly invited the combatants to parlay, but the Austrians and Russians were not interested. Nor, really, were the French. No one, including the British banker of Frederick’s military impetuosities (and his brother-in-law George II), much cared what happened to the Prussians.
The odd Anglo-Prussian alliance, with Pitt everywhere victorious and Frederick on the ropes, surged and staggered into 1760. Pitt was running out of French colonies to attack, but France had the largest army in Europe, and in the same measure that the British were determined to keep continental and especially French armies out of England, they had no land war capacity to do more in France than amphibious pin-pricks along the coast, which were almost always costly failures anyway. It was a stand-off, a shark and a lion. But a general peace could not be had until the Austrians and Russians wearied of the war with Prussia, which had Frederick, in a frenetic war of maneuver, endlessly showing the prowess of his well-trained troops, marching all about his frontiers repelling intruders at every hand. His opponents finally had a coordinated plan: The Austrians would again try to take Silesia and advance from Saxony, the Russians would attack from East Prussia, and whichever column encountered Frederick was to try to tie him up while the others made for Berlin.
The endless scrambling around the edges of a gradually imploding Prussia continued all year. Frederick, though outnumbered, ejected the Austrians from Silesia yet again. The Russians, with an Austrian contingent, briefly occupied Berlin in October, but withdrew as Frederick hastily returned. The Russian empress, Elizabeth, would be the only Russian leader to occupy Berlin until Joseph Stalin arrived at the Potsdam Conference in Frederick’s palace in 1945, at the head of the 360 divisions of the Red Army (Chapter 11). The year of relentless warfare in Germany ended with the Battle of Torgau on November 2, west of Dresden, which was effectively a draw between the Austrians and Frederick’s smaller army. Frederick’s resourcefulness was starting to wear down his enemies, but even now, no serious peace discussions took place. The war in India also continued well for the British, and France had no capacity at all to resupply its forces there.
11. THE END OF THE SEVEN YEARS’ WAR
Military fatigue and diplomatic confusion settled and thickened until
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