The agricultural sector of the region was big but not strong; probably the serfdom was the reason why more advanced economic forms could not start spinning, the domestic consumption was quite weak.
The “Magnificent Age” - Catherine II TL
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31. The war. #7. Diplomacy. October 1771 - April 1772.
31. The war. #7. Diplomacy. October 1771 - April 1772.
“What will France say, what will Spain, England say, when we now suddenly get so closely connected with those whom we so much wanted to deter and whose behavior was declared unfair?”
Maria Theresa
“To talk about war, you don't have to be in such sad circumstances as our regions of Bohemia and Moravia.”
Joseph II
“The Vienna Court is aware of the injustice of the cause, but it was to reduce the injustice that he considered it his duty to take part in it, thinking that it was the only way to put its boundaries.”
Austrian Ambassador to French Foreign Minister
“Years, Your Majesty, are minutes in politics, and when they want to count correctly in this science, it is necessary to count for centuries.”
Austrian Ambassador to Frederick II
“Really, Duke, you should do a favor to the Turks, to us, and to all mankind, by persuading Porte to be more accommodating.”
Russian Ambassador to French Foreign Minister
“Poles think that not only Europe, but also three other parts of the world are interested in their feuds.”
Russian Ambassador in the PLC to Panin
“It is clear that success in having all types of turmoil in Poland can only be favorable to us; we can leave things in the position they are now and postpone peace as long as it is able to serve us or at least is not able to harm us.”
Panin to Russian Ambassador in the PLC
“The eloquence of Your Majesty and the power of your imagination took you to the best pages of Plutarch and ancient history; but all this cannot be the subject of our conversation; please descend to the history of Poland and to the history of Count Poniatowski.”
Russian Ambassador to Stanislaw-August
“We still got the undeniable right to demand satisfaction for the fact that the Poles raised weapons against us and caused our war with the Ottoman Porte.”
Panin to Russian Ambassador in Vienna
“Damn it, gentlemen, I see you have a great appetite, your share is as great as mine and the Russian one together; you really have a great appetite!”
Frederick II to Austrian Ambassador
“In politics, there is a general rule: if there is no irrefutable evidence, it is better to express yourself succinctly and not to go into details.”
“Prince Kaunitz wants to become the master of the negotiations, confident that the superiority of the genius he assumes in himself will make the Russians do whatever he wants.”
Frederick II
“- And why should we agree to his demand?
- Because his fortified camp is on your territory and not other way around.”
Konofalsky, ‘Inquisitor’
Russian - Ottoman talks. In October 1771, with the fighting season being over, Russia and the Porte agreed upon 6 months ceasefire [1] with the intention to start the peace talks. Which was more or less a doomed effort because the Ottomans were, quite openly, not ready to any concessions beyond allowing Russia to fortify Azov and, to comply with a precondition set by Catherine, to release the Russian Ambassador, Obreskov, whom they kept imprisoned since the war was declared. The Ottomans were also willing to give Russia the Kabarda, which was quite nice of them, taking of the account that they did not have any control over this area except for its recognition of the Sultan, in his Caliph capacity, as a spiritual leader.
The Turkish unyielding position was based upon the rather optimistic reliance upon the treaty with Austria by which the Court of Vienna promised to support their interests. The Russian willingness to give back Walachia and most of Moldavia was interpreted as a weakness so the Ottoman part of the negotiations consisted mostly of repeating the same things time and again: it is impossible to agree with leaving the Tatars under Russian rule and it is impossible to allow Russian navigation on the Black Sea.
Catherine found herself in a rather difficult position. On one hand, she wanted to make peace to have a free hand in the PLC vs. Prussia and Austria but, OTOH she was unwilling to just give away most of the gains already achieved in this war. From the “outside” she was diplomatically pressured by Prussia and Austria to make peace with the Ottomans and proceed with the “Polish issue” and agreement to start negotiations was a way to somewhat relieve that pressure. However, it was clear that, before agreeing to the meaningful concessions, the Ottomans would have to be put into a desperate (or seemingly desperate) situation. Which meant that the 1772 campaign must deliver the very serious blows and to bring the Russian troops closer to the Ottoman “sensitive areas”. And so far she kept getting the letters from Rumyantsev full of complaints about the slow arrival of the reinforcements and supplies, all of which could endanger the next year campaign, perhaps even making it impossible. But by that time Catherine knew the Fieldmarshal well enough to be unduly worried. Rumyantsev was not inventing the problems but he tended to exaggerate them in a futile hope to have his army in a perfect condition before fighting starts. He would continue complaining and bemoaning until receiving the polite but firm order to start an offensive after which all the problems would be forgotten until his troops are achieving a major strategic success after which the old song about the inadequate means would be repeated, etc. 1771 was spent mostly in preparations and while the necessary human and material resources had been coming slowly (what was done fast in the Russian Empire?), they were coming and there will be six more months for getting more. So in April 1772 Fieldmarshal will get his orders to march and, contrary to his reports, will be quite ready. So the whole circus with the talks is going to be just a time gaining game. Of course, the Ottomans will also use it for the same purpose but they were even less organized than their Russian counterparts.
Of course, it would be nice if the Ottomans were willing to change their position and, not to miss such a chance, Obreskov was made one of two Russian negotiators. But the chief one was chosen with the purpose to demonstrate that the Russian side does not really care for the negotiations. Count Grigory Orlov was not a favorite anymore but Catherine still kept him at the court and even made a member of the Council: while in most cases his opinions could be ignored, sometimes he was coming with the useful ideas and was a convenient tool for passing Catherine’s own ideas to his colleagues. During this war he was on an extremely bellicose side with his project of sailing to Constantinople from Varna so he would do just fine. His instructions were rather strange for a chief negotiator: at any time he felt so, he could leave the process to Obreskov and either offer his services to Rumyantsev or to return to St. Petersburg. Catherine had little illusions about Orlov’s ability to get engaged in a serious diplomatic effort for a prolonged period of time but strongly believed in his ability to confuse the professional diplomats with his behavior. And Orlov acted just as expected. Even if his display of a luxury was not enough, his manners were clearly showing who supposed to be a boss. While in the Council he learned (not without a serious effort) not to interrupt the speakers, here he had a field day cutting into the middle of the endless speeches of the Ottoman representative and generally enjoying himself to a great frustration of poor Obreskov who treated the whole process seriously and sincerely tried to achieve some results.
Rumyantsev did not demonstrate any enthusiasm to have under his command a lieutenant-general who never fought above the captain’s rank and had rather peculiar notions about the subordination and other such trifles so Grigory Orlov departed for the capital where he was warmly congratulated for his valuable efforts.
Obreskov issued a deep sight of a relief and continued negotiations with his Ottoman counterpart who, by the mutual agreement, moved his residence to the other bank of the Danube for a better communications with his government. Now the process became an exchange of the lengthy letters going in the circles and getting nowhere except that the Ottomans were now agreeing on paying off some of the Russian military expenses. The assurances of the French and Austrian diplomats that Russian Empire will not be able to maintain its military effort for much longer and perhaps not even for the next year still had been trusted and there was also a very strong belief in an overwhelming power of the Austrian diplomacy.
Vienna. The Austrian Court put itself into the midst of both the Polish and Ottoman affairs in a pursuit of the theory of a “balance of power” promoted by its Chancellor, Wenzel Anton, Prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg (picture below, on the left) who seriously imagined himself the greatest powerbroker in Europe (picture below, his self-image on the right).
He was, indeed, very instrumental in creating the system, which would dominate western part of the continental Europe if not the miserable French and mediocre Austrian performance in the 7YW but still retained some power after it, mostly for as long as France had money to waste on the foreign affairs. Being State Chancellor of the Hapsburg Monarchy since 1753, he did not miss an opportunity to create a whole school of the diplomats fully dedicated to his “system” of maintaining the power balance in Europe and even seriously considering it a science. The system was based upon a premise that, at the moment, Europe is in a “balanced state” and none of the continental powers must be allowed to get stronger without that increase of the strength being matched by the equal increases of other powers. What amounts to the “equality” should be exclusively up to him (as Europe’s supreme mind) to decide. There was, of course, a small problem: besides his self-identified mental supremacy the Hapsburg Empire had very little in the terms of the means of enforcing anything on anybody. It was permanently out of money and its military force, besides demonstrating its inability to be a tool capable of delivering a decisive blow even in the seemingly perfect circumstances, had been spread over the huge space from Belgium to Italy and Hungary.
So the only remaining tool was a very complicated diplomacy backed by the reputation and a pure bluff: to achieve a desirable goal Austria had to get friendly with somebody against somebody else. In this specific case, with Prussia against Russian Empire. However, there were problems. Kaunitz’s “system” assumed that the “friend at the moment” is going to act in the Austrian interests doing Kaunitz’s bidding but it would be too naive to expect this from Frederick. Not that the fact of him being the Russian ally was an obstacle, the Old Fritz tended to consider these pieces of paper rather as the vague recommendations, but Frederick’s own interests were not exactly the same as the Habsburgs’ ones. Speaking of which, there was no uniform opinion in Vienna on what should be the their interests under the present circumstances. There was a general consensus among the ruling “triumvirate” [2] (Joseph, Maria Theresa, Kaunitz) that Russia must not be allowed to gain too much from the Ottomans because this will result in the terrible consequences in some unidentified future. Any attempts to point to the Austrian diplomats that in a foreseen future some of these apocalyptic fears are simply detached from a reality had been countered by an unbeatable argument that in a science of diplomacy one has to count by the centuries [3]. Even a seemingly harmless clause about a free trade on the Black Sea would disrupt the balance because “free trade on the Black Sea is equal to Peru.”
But this was inevitably bringing to the front affairs in the PLC making situation even more complicated. If the Russians are going to be victorious and denied the acquisitions at the Ottoman expense, why would they agree to a peace which brings them nothing? A war with Russia is not possible and the threats did not work: instead of being scared Catherine is increasing size of her army. Obviously, Russia should be somehow compensated and the obvious place to get this compensation from is going to be the PLC. But the PLC being “European”, should not Austria and Prussia get the equal shares with Russia to compensate for its growth and thus preserve the European balance (an option, Austria is getting back Silesia to balance for the Prussian expansion in Poland)? The obvious answer was “yes” but it was bringing the next obvious questions: should the PLC be compensated elsewhere for its territorial losses? If “yes” then the only source for such a compensation would be the Ottoman Empire, with which Austria is presently in an alliance.
Maria Theresa, after agreeing for the Hapsburg participation in the “rebalancing act”, had the second thoughts and now was, again, against the whole affair so the further discussions were between the Emperor and his Chancellor.
Kaunitz returned to his favorite thought: let the Prussian king take what he wants from Poland, only to return Silesia to Austria. But if he disagrees, wouldn’t it be better to ask from him the German lands, Ansbach and Bayreuth ? Finally, if Prussia does not agree to this, it is more natural, more profitable for Austria to seek the spread of its possessions down the main river of the empire, along the Danube, to the Black Sea, to take Wallachia and the coastal part of Bessarabia, while the rest of the latter and Moldavia to give to Poland as a reward for the lands that it will cede to Russia and Prussia. The Ottomans, in Kaunitz’ opinion, could agree to this without a war; to get more it would be necessary to join Russia in a war against the Ottomans and this was extremely undesirable.
Emperor Joseph, reading the opinion of Kaunitz, was struck by the idea that Austria should receive land here or there only to maintain balance, in fact, will not acquire anything, and also risks acquiring much less Russia and Prussia, if not by the amount of land acquired, then by its value in the overall composition of the empire. Joseph declared himself against the chancellor's proposals, declared himself against division, and for the pure acquisition that Austria alone can make. To do this, according to Joseph, it was necessary to try to continue the war between Russia and Turkey: while it was unlikely that the Ottomans would be able to turn the tide, it was also unlikely that Russia during the next campaign would be able to cause the Ottoman Empire even a greater damage. Austria loses nothing from the continuation of the war, on the contrary, it benefits a lot: not only can it benefit from all the accidents of war, but the simultaneous weakening of both warring parties will give Austria the opportunity to demand greater benefits than those it could have demanded so far. Finally, the King of Prussia will continue to spend his money on subsidies to his ally; maybe he will quarrel with Russia and will get closer to Austria to simplify achievement of his goals. Now Austria cannot take part in the war, but in 1773 it will be able to put pressure on the weakest of the fighting states. Porta will either faithfully comply with its convention with Austria or not. In the first case, Austria will be richly rewarded for military costs, in the second case it will have free hands to act against it and take from it the lands it wants most. Therefore, it is necessary to do our best to make the Porte reject Russian proposals and the truce. In the PLC Austria must act as the King of Prussia. It is necessary now to occupy Krakow, Sendomir and Lemberg, on the other side, Częstochowa; at the same time, to announce that they intend to keep the Polish king on the throne and leave all Polish regions occupied by Austrian troops if Russia and Prussia do the same.
The old chancellor victoriously denied the emperor's opinion: it would be strange to expect that Russia would not receive any significant benefits in a further war and that Austria would not suffer large losses from this. Russia, Prussia and Turkey want a peace and the Turkish stubbornness is based exclusively on a hope of the Austrian help in providing it with the good peace conditions. If the Vienna court now opposes peace, the latter will be concluded with the complete exclusion of Austria. Austria, through its military demonstrations and strong tone, has achieved that Russia and Prussia are forced to reckon with it and invite to participate in the benefits they acquire. But now nothing more can be achieved with these demonstrations, when the Porte is even more constrained, and Russia and Prussia agree in everything. Military preparations, in addition to the useless expenditure of a lot of money, will only lead to the fact that Turkey and Prussia will win on the Austrian account: Russia will offer the better conditions to the Turks and will get even closer to Prussia. By preventing peace, Austria will incur the hatred of other powers and be a mere spectator, while Russia and Prussia will benefit from their agreement; by facilitating a truce, one can hope to participate in the congress and extract some benefits from the peace negotiations.
Joseph acknowledged himself to be defeated by chancellor’s “mathematical” arguments and switched to fantasizing about the possible acquisitions. Of course, Silesia would be the best outcome but, if not possible, then Belgrade with a part of Bosnia going to the Drina Gulf to protect the Austrian inner regions from a possible Ottoman attack.
Maria Theresa was glad to know that there is an agreement regarding the peace talks but still commented that “We wanted to act as Prussia and at the same time maintain a kind of honesty”, which resulted in a loss of the reputation. She kept having regular arguments with her son and finally decided to get a spiritual advice to calm down her consciousness. She was assured by the Jesuits that the laws governing the states and their rulers are not the same as the laws applicable to the private persons and in some cases Empress has to be guided by exclusively by the political interests. After which the consciousness did not bother her anymore and this part of a problem had been resolved.
Austrian Ambassador to the Porte was instructed to explain that the bad Ottoman performance is a reason why Austria is now favoring peace and that Austria, is true to its convention by which it was obliged by a force of arms or diplomatic means to provide the Sultan with a descent peace: after all, it spent a lot of money to move its troops from Italy and the Netherlands and scared Russia into an agreement not to annex the Danubian Principalities. It is impossible to go further without putting the House of Habsburg into a grave danger.
The Sultan’s answer was that if at the peace talks with the Austrian help the Porte will get back the principalities and the Tatars, then the Sultan will fully implement all conditions of the convention; otherwise the convention is broken but the Sultan will not ask to return the money.
As expected, Frederich rejected any idea regarding return of Silesia and with it all complicated Austrian schemas of the multi-level exchanges and Prussian involvement in negotiation with the Ottomans of Austrian behalf. “I only have gout in my legs; and such offers could be made to me if gout were in my head; it's about Poland, not about my possessions.” However, he found it rather amusing that the Austrians are ready to get piece of a territory from their Turkish friends.
Now, Joseph and Kaunitz came with another brilliant schema. In Poland Austrian share must be equal to those of Prussia and Russia while Russia should, by peace treaty, to get all the occupied Ottoman territories and to pass them to Austria. Austria will retain Moldavia and Walachia ending up with the borders from Prut to Danube and return Bessarabia to the Ottomans for which the Ottomans will give it Orsova and Belgrade. An underlying assumption was that Russia is so desperate to make a peace that it will agree to all Austrian conditions for the promise to help with obtaining it and, out of the gratitude, will again align itself with Austrian instead of Prussia. Rube Goldberg, in comparison, would pass as an example of a clear straightforward thinking.
While this part of the diplomatic activities was based upon rather complicated and questionable wishful thinking, three-side discussions regarding Poland were moving along but not without the problems because figuring out equality of the shares was a big problem and Catherine was not fully supportive of this notion. After all, Russia was fighting a war in the PLC over it reneging on the agreed upon issue, and not just by the confederates but by the government itself. So it would get territorial gain by the right of conquest while Prussia and Austria are planning to get territories for nothing. Some kind of an agreement would be probably needed but Russia will have to think exclusively about its own interests, not about the balance of power or pleasing anybody. She was not even fully committed to the notion of the partition but position of the King and his uncles was making it increasingly unavoidable.
Even after the failed abduction attempt Stanislaw-Ausgust kept playing a strange game being uncooperative with his only supporter, Catherine, and unwilling to do anything against the people who declared him deposed and tried to abduct or even kill him. With all that he and his government were assuming that the fight against the confederates is to be conducted exclusively by the Russian troops and that the Empress must support him financially. Withdrawal of the most of the Russian forces to the South-Eastern part of the PLC made the military situation a complete mess, especially when the Lithuanian Hetman Oginski [4] joined the confederates but there was no coherent effort to stop them.
The court in Warsaw had been busy with the hunting, the balls, theater and other entertainments, which did not prevent Stanislaw-August from claiming that without the Russian handouts he’ll die from starvation. The new Russian ambassador, Saldern, was quite blunt in explaining him the situation and Catherine’s position, warning that “If the king and his friends prefer to remain inaction and persist in their indifference, then it will not be the Empress’ fault if she take measures dictated by her dignity and interests of her empire” and that pacification of Poland is going to be at the hands of the foreign states, but nothing changed.
________
[1] Which means “until the next campaigning season”
[2] Or what would be the right term, taking into an account that one of its members was a woman?
[3] In OTL within a couple of decades the system crumpled so planning for the centuries ahead clearly did not work well.
[4] Michał Kazimierz Ogiński. Not to be confused with Michał Kleofas Ogiński who composed the famous polonaise. Made several improvements to the design of the pedal harp and wrote an article on this subject for “Encyclopedia” but making him hetman was a serious mistake: in OTL in 1771 his army of 4,000 was completely destroyed by Suvorov who had 900. Anyway, he joined the confederates because the French promised to make him a king of the PLC when Stanislaw-August is deposed. I have no idea how and if to incorporate this possibility into TTL.
“What will France say, what will Spain, England say, when we now suddenly get so closely connected with those whom we so much wanted to deter and whose behavior was declared unfair?”
Maria Theresa
“To talk about war, you don't have to be in such sad circumstances as our regions of Bohemia and Moravia.”
Joseph II
“The Vienna Court is aware of the injustice of the cause, but it was to reduce the injustice that he considered it his duty to take part in it, thinking that it was the only way to put its boundaries.”
Austrian Ambassador to French Foreign Minister
“Years, Your Majesty, are minutes in politics, and when they want to count correctly in this science, it is necessary to count for centuries.”
Austrian Ambassador to Frederick II
“Really, Duke, you should do a favor to the Turks, to us, and to all mankind, by persuading Porte to be more accommodating.”
Russian Ambassador to French Foreign Minister
“Poles think that not only Europe, but also three other parts of the world are interested in their feuds.”
Russian Ambassador in the PLC to Panin
“It is clear that success in having all types of turmoil in Poland can only be favorable to us; we can leave things in the position they are now and postpone peace as long as it is able to serve us or at least is not able to harm us.”
Panin to Russian Ambassador in the PLC
“The eloquence of Your Majesty and the power of your imagination took you to the best pages of Plutarch and ancient history; but all this cannot be the subject of our conversation; please descend to the history of Poland and to the history of Count Poniatowski.”
Russian Ambassador to Stanislaw-August
“We still got the undeniable right to demand satisfaction for the fact that the Poles raised weapons against us and caused our war with the Ottoman Porte.”
Panin to Russian Ambassador in Vienna
“Damn it, gentlemen, I see you have a great appetite, your share is as great as mine and the Russian one together; you really have a great appetite!”
Frederick II to Austrian Ambassador
“In politics, there is a general rule: if there is no irrefutable evidence, it is better to express yourself succinctly and not to go into details.”
“Prince Kaunitz wants to become the master of the negotiations, confident that the superiority of the genius he assumes in himself will make the Russians do whatever he wants.”
Frederick II
“- And why should we agree to his demand?
- Because his fortified camp is on your territory and not other way around.”
Konofalsky, ‘Inquisitor’
Russian - Ottoman talks. In October 1771, with the fighting season being over, Russia and the Porte agreed upon 6 months ceasefire [1] with the intention to start the peace talks. Which was more or less a doomed effort because the Ottomans were, quite openly, not ready to any concessions beyond allowing Russia to fortify Azov and, to comply with a precondition set by Catherine, to release the Russian Ambassador, Obreskov, whom they kept imprisoned since the war was declared. The Ottomans were also willing to give Russia the Kabarda, which was quite nice of them, taking of the account that they did not have any control over this area except for its recognition of the Sultan, in his Caliph capacity, as a spiritual leader.
The Turkish unyielding position was based upon the rather optimistic reliance upon the treaty with Austria by which the Court of Vienna promised to support their interests. The Russian willingness to give back Walachia and most of Moldavia was interpreted as a weakness so the Ottoman part of the negotiations consisted mostly of repeating the same things time and again: it is impossible to agree with leaving the Tatars under Russian rule and it is impossible to allow Russian navigation on the Black Sea.
Catherine found herself in a rather difficult position. On one hand, she wanted to make peace to have a free hand in the PLC vs. Prussia and Austria but, OTOH she was unwilling to just give away most of the gains already achieved in this war. From the “outside” she was diplomatically pressured by Prussia and Austria to make peace with the Ottomans and proceed with the “Polish issue” and agreement to start negotiations was a way to somewhat relieve that pressure. However, it was clear that, before agreeing to the meaningful concessions, the Ottomans would have to be put into a desperate (or seemingly desperate) situation. Which meant that the 1772 campaign must deliver the very serious blows and to bring the Russian troops closer to the Ottoman “sensitive areas”. And so far she kept getting the letters from Rumyantsev full of complaints about the slow arrival of the reinforcements and supplies, all of which could endanger the next year campaign, perhaps even making it impossible. But by that time Catherine knew the Fieldmarshal well enough to be unduly worried. Rumyantsev was not inventing the problems but he tended to exaggerate them in a futile hope to have his army in a perfect condition before fighting starts. He would continue complaining and bemoaning until receiving the polite but firm order to start an offensive after which all the problems would be forgotten until his troops are achieving a major strategic success after which the old song about the inadequate means would be repeated, etc. 1771 was spent mostly in preparations and while the necessary human and material resources had been coming slowly (what was done fast in the Russian Empire?), they were coming and there will be six more months for getting more. So in April 1772 Fieldmarshal will get his orders to march and, contrary to his reports, will be quite ready. So the whole circus with the talks is going to be just a time gaining game. Of course, the Ottomans will also use it for the same purpose but they were even less organized than their Russian counterparts.
Of course, it would be nice if the Ottomans were willing to change their position and, not to miss such a chance, Obreskov was made one of two Russian negotiators. But the chief one was chosen with the purpose to demonstrate that the Russian side does not really care for the negotiations. Count Grigory Orlov was not a favorite anymore but Catherine still kept him at the court and even made a member of the Council: while in most cases his opinions could be ignored, sometimes he was coming with the useful ideas and was a convenient tool for passing Catherine’s own ideas to his colleagues. During this war he was on an extremely bellicose side with his project of sailing to Constantinople from Varna so he would do just fine. His instructions were rather strange for a chief negotiator: at any time he felt so, he could leave the process to Obreskov and either offer his services to Rumyantsev or to return to St. Petersburg. Catherine had little illusions about Orlov’s ability to get engaged in a serious diplomatic effort for a prolonged period of time but strongly believed in his ability to confuse the professional diplomats with his behavior. And Orlov acted just as expected. Even if his display of a luxury was not enough, his manners were clearly showing who supposed to be a boss. While in the Council he learned (not without a serious effort) not to interrupt the speakers, here he had a field day cutting into the middle of the endless speeches of the Ottoman representative and generally enjoying himself to a great frustration of poor Obreskov who treated the whole process seriously and sincerely tried to achieve some results.
Rumyantsev did not demonstrate any enthusiasm to have under his command a lieutenant-general who never fought above the captain’s rank and had rather peculiar notions about the subordination and other such trifles so Grigory Orlov departed for the capital where he was warmly congratulated for his valuable efforts.
Obreskov issued a deep sight of a relief and continued negotiations with his Ottoman counterpart who, by the mutual agreement, moved his residence to the other bank of the Danube for a better communications with his government. Now the process became an exchange of the lengthy letters going in the circles and getting nowhere except that the Ottomans were now agreeing on paying off some of the Russian military expenses. The assurances of the French and Austrian diplomats that Russian Empire will not be able to maintain its military effort for much longer and perhaps not even for the next year still had been trusted and there was also a very strong belief in an overwhelming power of the Austrian diplomacy.
Vienna. The Austrian Court put itself into the midst of both the Polish and Ottoman affairs in a pursuit of the theory of a “balance of power” promoted by its Chancellor, Wenzel Anton, Prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg (picture below, on the left) who seriously imagined himself the greatest powerbroker in Europe (picture below, his self-image on the right).
He was, indeed, very instrumental in creating the system, which would dominate western part of the continental Europe if not the miserable French and mediocre Austrian performance in the 7YW but still retained some power after it, mostly for as long as France had money to waste on the foreign affairs. Being State Chancellor of the Hapsburg Monarchy since 1753, he did not miss an opportunity to create a whole school of the diplomats fully dedicated to his “system” of maintaining the power balance in Europe and even seriously considering it a science. The system was based upon a premise that, at the moment, Europe is in a “balanced state” and none of the continental powers must be allowed to get stronger without that increase of the strength being matched by the equal increases of other powers. What amounts to the “equality” should be exclusively up to him (as Europe’s supreme mind) to decide. There was, of course, a small problem: besides his self-identified mental supremacy the Hapsburg Empire had very little in the terms of the means of enforcing anything on anybody. It was permanently out of money and its military force, besides demonstrating its inability to be a tool capable of delivering a decisive blow even in the seemingly perfect circumstances, had been spread over the huge space from Belgium to Italy and Hungary.
So the only remaining tool was a very complicated diplomacy backed by the reputation and a pure bluff: to achieve a desirable goal Austria had to get friendly with somebody against somebody else. In this specific case, with Prussia against Russian Empire. However, there were problems. Kaunitz’s “system” assumed that the “friend at the moment” is going to act in the Austrian interests doing Kaunitz’s bidding but it would be too naive to expect this from Frederick. Not that the fact of him being the Russian ally was an obstacle, the Old Fritz tended to consider these pieces of paper rather as the vague recommendations, but Frederick’s own interests were not exactly the same as the Habsburgs’ ones. Speaking of which, there was no uniform opinion in Vienna on what should be the their interests under the present circumstances. There was a general consensus among the ruling “triumvirate” [2] (Joseph, Maria Theresa, Kaunitz) that Russia must not be allowed to gain too much from the Ottomans because this will result in the terrible consequences in some unidentified future. Any attempts to point to the Austrian diplomats that in a foreseen future some of these apocalyptic fears are simply detached from a reality had been countered by an unbeatable argument that in a science of diplomacy one has to count by the centuries [3]. Even a seemingly harmless clause about a free trade on the Black Sea would disrupt the balance because “free trade on the Black Sea is equal to Peru.”
But this was inevitably bringing to the front affairs in the PLC making situation even more complicated. If the Russians are going to be victorious and denied the acquisitions at the Ottoman expense, why would they agree to a peace which brings them nothing? A war with Russia is not possible and the threats did not work: instead of being scared Catherine is increasing size of her army. Obviously, Russia should be somehow compensated and the obvious place to get this compensation from is going to be the PLC. But the PLC being “European”, should not Austria and Prussia get the equal shares with Russia to compensate for its growth and thus preserve the European balance (an option, Austria is getting back Silesia to balance for the Prussian expansion in Poland)? The obvious answer was “yes” but it was bringing the next obvious questions: should the PLC be compensated elsewhere for its territorial losses? If “yes” then the only source for such a compensation would be the Ottoman Empire, with which Austria is presently in an alliance.
Maria Theresa, after agreeing for the Hapsburg participation in the “rebalancing act”, had the second thoughts and now was, again, against the whole affair so the further discussions were between the Emperor and his Chancellor.
Kaunitz returned to his favorite thought: let the Prussian king take what he wants from Poland, only to return Silesia to Austria. But if he disagrees, wouldn’t it be better to ask from him the German lands, Ansbach and Bayreuth ? Finally, if Prussia does not agree to this, it is more natural, more profitable for Austria to seek the spread of its possessions down the main river of the empire, along the Danube, to the Black Sea, to take Wallachia and the coastal part of Bessarabia, while the rest of the latter and Moldavia to give to Poland as a reward for the lands that it will cede to Russia and Prussia. The Ottomans, in Kaunitz’ opinion, could agree to this without a war; to get more it would be necessary to join Russia in a war against the Ottomans and this was extremely undesirable.
Emperor Joseph, reading the opinion of Kaunitz, was struck by the idea that Austria should receive land here or there only to maintain balance, in fact, will not acquire anything, and also risks acquiring much less Russia and Prussia, if not by the amount of land acquired, then by its value in the overall composition of the empire. Joseph declared himself against the chancellor's proposals, declared himself against division, and for the pure acquisition that Austria alone can make. To do this, according to Joseph, it was necessary to try to continue the war between Russia and Turkey: while it was unlikely that the Ottomans would be able to turn the tide, it was also unlikely that Russia during the next campaign would be able to cause the Ottoman Empire even a greater damage. Austria loses nothing from the continuation of the war, on the contrary, it benefits a lot: not only can it benefit from all the accidents of war, but the simultaneous weakening of both warring parties will give Austria the opportunity to demand greater benefits than those it could have demanded so far. Finally, the King of Prussia will continue to spend his money on subsidies to his ally; maybe he will quarrel with Russia and will get closer to Austria to simplify achievement of his goals. Now Austria cannot take part in the war, but in 1773 it will be able to put pressure on the weakest of the fighting states. Porta will either faithfully comply with its convention with Austria or not. In the first case, Austria will be richly rewarded for military costs, in the second case it will have free hands to act against it and take from it the lands it wants most. Therefore, it is necessary to do our best to make the Porte reject Russian proposals and the truce. In the PLC Austria must act as the King of Prussia. It is necessary now to occupy Krakow, Sendomir and Lemberg, on the other side, Częstochowa; at the same time, to announce that they intend to keep the Polish king on the throne and leave all Polish regions occupied by Austrian troops if Russia and Prussia do the same.
The old chancellor victoriously denied the emperor's opinion: it would be strange to expect that Russia would not receive any significant benefits in a further war and that Austria would not suffer large losses from this. Russia, Prussia and Turkey want a peace and the Turkish stubbornness is based exclusively on a hope of the Austrian help in providing it with the good peace conditions. If the Vienna court now opposes peace, the latter will be concluded with the complete exclusion of Austria. Austria, through its military demonstrations and strong tone, has achieved that Russia and Prussia are forced to reckon with it and invite to participate in the benefits they acquire. But now nothing more can be achieved with these demonstrations, when the Porte is even more constrained, and Russia and Prussia agree in everything. Military preparations, in addition to the useless expenditure of a lot of money, will only lead to the fact that Turkey and Prussia will win on the Austrian account: Russia will offer the better conditions to the Turks and will get even closer to Prussia. By preventing peace, Austria will incur the hatred of other powers and be a mere spectator, while Russia and Prussia will benefit from their agreement; by facilitating a truce, one can hope to participate in the congress and extract some benefits from the peace negotiations.
Joseph acknowledged himself to be defeated by chancellor’s “mathematical” arguments and switched to fantasizing about the possible acquisitions. Of course, Silesia would be the best outcome but, if not possible, then Belgrade with a part of Bosnia going to the Drina Gulf to protect the Austrian inner regions from a possible Ottoman attack.
Maria Theresa was glad to know that there is an agreement regarding the peace talks but still commented that “We wanted to act as Prussia and at the same time maintain a kind of honesty”, which resulted in a loss of the reputation. She kept having regular arguments with her son and finally decided to get a spiritual advice to calm down her consciousness. She was assured by the Jesuits that the laws governing the states and their rulers are not the same as the laws applicable to the private persons and in some cases Empress has to be guided by exclusively by the political interests. After which the consciousness did not bother her anymore and this part of a problem had been resolved.
Austrian Ambassador to the Porte was instructed to explain that the bad Ottoman performance is a reason why Austria is now favoring peace and that Austria, is true to its convention by which it was obliged by a force of arms or diplomatic means to provide the Sultan with a descent peace: after all, it spent a lot of money to move its troops from Italy and the Netherlands and scared Russia into an agreement not to annex the Danubian Principalities. It is impossible to go further without putting the House of Habsburg into a grave danger.
The Sultan’s answer was that if at the peace talks with the Austrian help the Porte will get back the principalities and the Tatars, then the Sultan will fully implement all conditions of the convention; otherwise the convention is broken but the Sultan will not ask to return the money.
As expected, Frederich rejected any idea regarding return of Silesia and with it all complicated Austrian schemas of the multi-level exchanges and Prussian involvement in negotiation with the Ottomans of Austrian behalf. “I only have gout in my legs; and such offers could be made to me if gout were in my head; it's about Poland, not about my possessions.” However, he found it rather amusing that the Austrians are ready to get piece of a territory from their Turkish friends.
Now, Joseph and Kaunitz came with another brilliant schema. In Poland Austrian share must be equal to those of Prussia and Russia while Russia should, by peace treaty, to get all the occupied Ottoman territories and to pass them to Austria. Austria will retain Moldavia and Walachia ending up with the borders from Prut to Danube and return Bessarabia to the Ottomans for which the Ottomans will give it Orsova and Belgrade. An underlying assumption was that Russia is so desperate to make a peace that it will agree to all Austrian conditions for the promise to help with obtaining it and, out of the gratitude, will again align itself with Austrian instead of Prussia. Rube Goldberg, in comparison, would pass as an example of a clear straightforward thinking.
While this part of the diplomatic activities was based upon rather complicated and questionable wishful thinking, three-side discussions regarding Poland were moving along but not without the problems because figuring out equality of the shares was a big problem and Catherine was not fully supportive of this notion. After all, Russia was fighting a war in the PLC over it reneging on the agreed upon issue, and not just by the confederates but by the government itself. So it would get territorial gain by the right of conquest while Prussia and Austria are planning to get territories for nothing. Some kind of an agreement would be probably needed but Russia will have to think exclusively about its own interests, not about the balance of power or pleasing anybody. She was not even fully committed to the notion of the partition but position of the King and his uncles was making it increasingly unavoidable.
Even after the failed abduction attempt Stanislaw-Ausgust kept playing a strange game being uncooperative with his only supporter, Catherine, and unwilling to do anything against the people who declared him deposed and tried to abduct or even kill him. With all that he and his government were assuming that the fight against the confederates is to be conducted exclusively by the Russian troops and that the Empress must support him financially. Withdrawal of the most of the Russian forces to the South-Eastern part of the PLC made the military situation a complete mess, especially when the Lithuanian Hetman Oginski [4] joined the confederates but there was no coherent effort to stop them.
The court in Warsaw had been busy with the hunting, the balls, theater and other entertainments, which did not prevent Stanislaw-August from claiming that without the Russian handouts he’ll die from starvation. The new Russian ambassador, Saldern, was quite blunt in explaining him the situation and Catherine’s position, warning that “If the king and his friends prefer to remain inaction and persist in their indifference, then it will not be the Empress’ fault if she take measures dictated by her dignity and interests of her empire” and that pacification of Poland is going to be at the hands of the foreign states, but nothing changed.
________
[1] Which means “until the next campaigning season”
[2] Or what would be the right term, taking into an account that one of its members was a woman?
[3] In OTL within a couple of decades the system crumpled so planning for the centuries ahead clearly did not work well.
[4] Michał Kazimierz Ogiński. Not to be confused with Michał Kleofas Ogiński who composed the famous polonaise. Made several improvements to the design of the pedal harp and wrote an article on this subject for “Encyclopedia” but making him hetman was a serious mistake: in OTL in 1771 his army of 4,000 was completely destroyed by Suvorov who had 900. Anyway, he joined the confederates because the French promised to make him a king of the PLC when Stanislaw-August is deposed. I have no idea how and if to incorporate this possibility into TTL.
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Yeah lower the price of portuguese wine for world utopia
And this is why, in good consciousness, I would execute them all
Amorality is the death of us
Thanks for noticing. GT manages to translate words in the numerous ways and I’m missing some of its intellectual exploits.
AFAIK, you are not a ruler of anything, even of the Brazilian subcontinental colony, so the exceptions do not apply to you. 😜
Yet!
Just watch me!
You're always welcome, my fellow Alex
All around the world indeed! Austria is at the center of Europe and not far from the center of the globe!
And at the center of Kaunitz is his utterly brilliant strategic mind.
This is more brutal to Kaunitz than Mohacs was to the fortunes of Hungary.
Sorry. This is the best of his portraits I could find (so far) and realistic style (*) often looks brutal…
(*) You’ll probably agree that it fits well description in the previous chapter most of which had been stolen from a prominent historian, so it has to be realistic.
Fair. In all fairness I wasn't saying it was bad to rhetorically bludgeon the guy. I was simply noting how it was, non-judgmentally.
Whether I was saying his mental center was in his stomach, or referring to his brain metaphorically as his "mental center", is in the eye of the beholder.
Fair. Perhaps, with how badly Kaunitz misreads some things suggesting he doesn't necessarily have the ability to see reality, the fact that hasn't happened yet wouldn't actually matter.