The Greatest Story in the World, Period 3 by Horace G. Hutchinson

It is likely that until the latter half of the eighteenth century the / people of Europe did not even begin to realise the full meaning of / the great New World which Columbus had discovered for them in the / West. Spain regarded it as a Tom Tiddler's ground where she would go / and pick up gold. France and possibly England too had their foolish / dreams. They expected enormous things from that vast continent of / which the western limits were only gradually revealed to them. They / expected enormous results which never were, nor ever could be / realised. But they had no idea whatever of the yet more enormous / effect which the finding of the new continent really was to have on / the story. All that was hidden from their eyes.

The settlement between the nations agreed at Aix-la-Chapelle was / called a "Peace," but it was a settlement that left one of the States / of Europe in a situation which did not promise that the peace would / last long. That State was Prussia. We have seen her establishing / herself and gaining strength. She had taken Silesia from Austria, / and Austria had agreed to that loss in the terms of the peace, but / yet longed for an opportunity to regain the loss. France and Spain / were knit together in an alliance known as the Family Compact, / because the rulers of both countries were of the Bourbon family. / Austria, under Maria Theresa, joined {128} their family alliance, and / brought in Saxony with her, for Saxony was no less jealous of the / power of Prussia than Austria herself. Russia, under the Tsarina / Elizabeth, was anxious about the growing strength of this Teutonic / State on her border; and on her side she brought Sweden into the / large conspiracy which had for its object the break up of the power / of Prussia and a partition between the conspirators of the Prussian / territories.

It was a conspiracy which came to the knowledge of Frederick, the / Prussian king.

For many years the interests of England and of France had been in / conflict both West and East, in America and in India. The opposition / was approaching the point at which war must result from it. Now, in / the European position just indicated, England saw the opportunity of / getting a strong helper against France. She allied herself with / Frederick, who had carried the States of Brunswick and of / Hesse-Cassel with him; and together they declared war upon nearly all / Europe. France, Austria, Spain, Russia, Sweden, and Saxony were / against them.

It has the sound of a combination of overwhelming force as opposed to / the English and the Prussian kings, even though the immense power of / Russia was then only in its infancy. England was not likely to send / very large armies to the Continent, and an English force of 50,000 / retreated before the French and was disbanded very early in the war. / But Frederick had a genius for the creation and organisation of / armies, and had occupied it, during the eight years following the / Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in making the Prussian army the finest / military machine which the modern world had seen.

[Sidenote: The Seven Years' War]

The war which ensued, known as the Seven Years' War from the time / that it lasted, is most remarkable for its dramatic changes of / fortune. Frederick began {129} by a victory in Saxony, yet more than / once he was so heavily defeated that he almost gave up the fight in / despair. It is said that he thought of suicide. England, when the / elder Pitt was Prime Minister, gave assistance in form of large / subsidies of money rather than large forces of men or arms, and / without these subsidies Frederick must have given in. A mixed force / of English and Hanoverians did indeed fight under the Duke of / Brunswick and drove back the French from their attacks on Hanover in / 1758 and again in 1759, but except for this last success everything / went heavily against Frederick in the fourth year of the war. In the / year following, contingents of Russian and Austrian armies were / actually occupying Berlin when he fell upon the main Austrian force / at Torgau on the Elbe. The victory that he there gained, over heavy / odds, turned the tide of the fighting in his favour when it was at / its lowest ebb.

Still the struggle continued, with Frederick and his war-weary troops / chiefly on the defensive, exhausted. And to that exhaustion and to / his encircling foes he would in all likelihood have been compelled to / own defeat, had it not been for the death at the beginning of 1762 of / one of his chief enemies, the Tsarina of Russia, and the accession of / a Tsar who was his friend. Russia, from a foe became an ally and / carried Sweden with her. England, however, had become tired of the / war and made alliance with France and Spain by the Peace of Paris in / 1763, and in the same year the protagonists, or chief fighters, / Prussia and Austria, themselves came to terms. Prussia retained / Silesia. The final result of the seven years' fighting, with these / singular alternations of victories and defeats, was to leave the map / of Europe practically unchanged. From that point of view all the / bloodshed had been for nothing.