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Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 47
We haven't had a new post since before December 25, so obligatory Yuletide link to this hilarious story of Frederick the Great babysitting his bratty little brother, with bonus Fritz/Fredersdorf!
1764-1772 Foreign policy: Britain
This installment is just going to be British foreign policy as it relates to Denmark, Sweden, Russia, and Poland. Mostly because trying to get a comprehensive grip on British foreign policy during the run-up to the American Revolution would have added months to this already months-long endeavor.
Britain's take on foreign policy in this period is that they're looking for a "system": a grouping of alliances based on common interests that will oppose Britain's enemies, balance-of-power style. Traditionally, this was Britain + the Netherlands + Austria against France and whoever's allied with France. But thanks to the Diplomatic Revolution, Austria is now allied with France, and after the Seven Years' War, Austria's not too happy with Britain for taking Fritz's side. Plus it's not the 17th century any more, and the Netherlands are no longer a major power.
So Britain's on a quest for an alliance to oppose the "Family Compact" system of alliances presented by France and Spain, both ruled by Bourbons.
They find that Panin has this nice "Northern Accord" in the making, meant to consist of Russia, Britain, Prussia, and Denmark, so they try to get in on the action.
However, they don't have a lot of luck, especially since they're not willing to offer subsidies. To quote one historian:
All secretaries of state in the sixties…were firmly convinced that any state with a proper sense of its dignity and interest ought to jump at the chance of a British alliance, without any financial inducements. Foreign powers, alas, were curiously obtuse about this.
In July 1766, Pitt takes office, determined to prove his predecessors were incompetent by quickly concluding a league with Prussia and Russia.
But Fritz is still pissed off about the subsidies, and over in Russia, Panin is making "devastating comments on the ineptitude of British policy" which the recently replaced British ambassador passes on to his government "with evident Schadenfreude."
Worse, Catherine's main interest is in an ally against the Turks, and the Brits trade too much with the Turks for that to be in their main economic interests.
And Fritz is, as we've seen, currently only interested in being friends with Russia (and maybe eventually Austria, especially when Russia gets out of control).
So the Brits turn to Denmark and Sweden, which previously had not been super important.
Denmark wants subsidies to replace their missing French subsidies, but Britain (as Fritz found out) doesn't give subsidies in peacetime. They're only willing to pay bribes (like to voting Swedes). Remember that they've just spent a lot of money on the Seven Years' War, and attempts to recoup their expenses result in raising taxes, which results in the American Revolution.
Failing subsidies, Bernstorff wants that guarantee of Schleswig-Holstein claims, but going to war with Sweden and/or Russia over Danish territory would be political suicide for a British politician.
But Sweden might prove to be the stepping stone to an alliance with Russia. Panin makes it clear more than once that if Britain concludes an alliance with Sweden, Russia would be willing to join it.
But things don't go very well in Sweden either! The British diplomat there, Goodricke, whom we've mentioned before, is actually energetic and opinionated. He does his research and stays on top of things not just in Sweden but in Denmark. And he's full of a ton of ideas about how to work the complicated Hat-Cap party system in Sweden, which mostly come down to "collaborate with Osterman, the Russian ambassador, but that means we have to carry our share of the bribery burden."
Unfortunately, what he gets from his "reluctant to spend money in peacetime" government is enough money to be a burden on taxpayers, but not enough to actually sway foreign policy. The British government specifically tells Goodricke to tell Osterman the money is just a favor to Russia, a gesture of goodwill, not an actual policy.
Goodricke is facepalming madly and writing frantic letters back home. He takes so much initiative that he gets used to being scolded and almost takes it in stride. Michael Roberts, who wrote a 500-page book about Goodricke's 15 years in Sweden, presents him as a less obnoxious Broglie: a guy who thought he knew better than the ministers at home, arguably did, and really just wanted to be running the foreign affairs department.
To no avail. When Gustav's coup comes, Goodricke is caught flat-footed, without money or instructions. The result of the coup is that bribing the Caps to vote a certain way no longer works, because the king is making the decision, and Sweden no longer has potential to be useful to Britain.
In that same year, the Polish Partition takes place, and France has been powerless to stop it. This causes Britain to suddenly realize they've been barking up the wrong foreign policy tree: France-Spain is no longer the power duo it once was, and the major diplomatic "system" in Europe with which Britain has to contend is Russia-Austria-Prussia. They are completely unprepared for this.
There are a few ministers in both Britain and France who realize that the only way to deal with this system is by doing a 180 on their worldview: a Anglo-French alliance. That's the only thing that can stop Fritz and Catherine (since the Vienna triumvirate decided "If you can't beat them, join them"). Some noises and overtures are made in this direction, but the tradition of mutual hatred between Britian and France is too strong.
Instead, Britain shrugs off the Polish Partition, ends up at war with France over the American Revolution, and watches Prussia and Russia continue partitioning Poland in the 1790s (sometimes with Austria). (There's an entire book called British Public Opinion and the First Partition of Poland that I've been eyeing, but I haven't yet bought it.)
How ineffectual the British foreign ministry was during the 1760s and early 1770s is debated. Some historians say it was bad, so bad. Others are like, "Come on, I'm not saying the department was being run by geniuses, but it wasn't *that* bad."
Given that Roberts, who's of the "SO BAD" school of thought, uses as evidence the fact that British envoys don't get any insights into big picture foreign policy, like the ambassador to Russia knows nothing about the policy in Sweden, even if he asks, whereas French and Russian diplomats get elaborate instructions…I'm kind of leaning toward "not great, but not super terrible either." I mean, yes, the French diplomats got elaborate instructions. Elaborate, contradictory, impossible, SECRET instructions from their different bosses that made their lives *impossible*...at least there seems to have been *one* British foreign policy at a time for a single diplomat?
Re: 1764-1772 Foreign policy: Britain: Yankee tax dodgers addendum
The fates of Corsica and Poland made a considerable impression in the thirteen colonies. Enthusiasm for the Corsican patriot Paoli and his resistance to French occupation peaked in late 1768-9. In part, this was generic sympathy with fellow victims of despotism, as Americans saw it, but there was also outrage, to quote a toast of the 'Sons of Liberty of Boston' at the 'infamous attack from France, while shamefully neglected by every power in Europe'. Some feared that because Britain was now so weak, America would go the same way and be partitioned at the hands of a Bourbon coalition. The progressive military retreat from areas beyond the Appalachians was symbolized by the abandonment of Forts Bute and Panmure on the Mississippi in 1768, and Fort Chartres in 1772, for reasons of cost. This was not encouraging for those colonists who saw their future within a dynamic and growing empire, and who wished to forestall French and Spanish claims to these regions. To them, the British Empire was already collapsing, long before the Revolution; indeed, it was this sense of imperial collapse which prompted them to rebel, not the other way around. Others, particularly those who opposed western expansion, thought that the Polish experience was an argument against independence from Britain, which would simply deliver them into the maw of her European rivals. All were sobered by events in Poland. Indeed, the Partition would have an important afterlife in America, resurfacing during the constitutional debates of 1787, when it was advanced as an argument against a weak central government in an age of predatory great powers. James Madison, for example, claimed that 'Germany and Poland are witness to the danger' of a weak executive influenced by outside powers. Americans had seen the Polish Commonwealth all but destroyed; a weak state had been dismembered in full view of Europe, and without the British ministry lifting a finger.
(Corsica is something I'm still looking for a good resource on; it looks like absolutely fascinating stuff was going on in this period with Paoli, and I've checked out Boswell's essay on Corsica, but I'm still looking for something written more recently.)
Re: 1764-1772 Foreign policy: Britain
Agh. I can't decide if "too little instructions" is worse than "multiple elaborate contradictory instructions".
Re: 1764-1772 Foreign policy: Britain
Heeee.
Also, idk, I think "SO BAD" does not necessarily contradict "but the French were even worse??" :)