Introduction:
As we saw in the first article, the Seven Years’ War – when it began in 1756 – ended up consuming Europe, North America, India and South East Asia. It involved, in one capacity or another, dozens of nations – both large and small, powerful and weak – across the world. The French, the British, the Prussians, the Russians, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Mughals, various Native American tribes, various smaller German Kingdoms – everyone was drawn in. But, in this war, 4 nations played the most significant parts and these 4 nations are our focus over the next two articles: the Bourbon Kingdom of France, the Kingdom of Great Britain (not to be confused with the modern United Kingdom), the Kingdom of Prussia and the Russian Empire.
In the previous article, we explored the objectives, strategies and aims of the “Principal Nations”, that is Britain and France. In this article, we will explore the British and French Allies’ (Prussia and Russia respectively) objectives for the war and how they intended to fight it, given that they commanded, like the British and the French, forces with marked differences in fighting style combined with the obvious advantages and disadvantages of how their militaries were organised. Over the coming articles, we will focus on other nations and other theatres of war – but for now, our focus remains squarely on Europe and – the centre of attention early in the war – North America.
The Kingdom of Prussia and the Empire of Russia:
The goals of Prussia and Russia can best be understood by first understanding the political outcome of the Seven Years War. The war would turn Europe on its head. Before the war, Prussia and Russia were regarded as second-rate powers and inferior in every way to the might of France and Austria. Despite the fact that France allied herself with the Russians, this thinking still dominated the minds of her commanders and leaders until the war was concluded. This was because the European Heads of State believed that there were only 3 nations in Europe at the time that could claim the moniker of “Great Power”. A “Great Power” for the European nations was equal to what we in the 21st Century call a Superpower – in military practice there is no difference between Britain in the 18th or 19th Centuries and America today.
These 3 nations were; Great Britain, France and Habsburg Austria. The Russian Empire was considered too peripheral to Europe and too politically divided to ever be able to claim this moniker. The Kingdom of Prussia was deemed too weak, far too badly led and without the skill required to command a military force of any serious capability to ever be able to claim this moniker. In a sense, it can be argued that the Prussians and Russians went to war to reverse this image and to claim their place on the European stage – and this would be a partially sound assessment. However, there are many nuances left still to explore.
As we saw in the previous article, the Seven Years War for Britain and France was a war over their colonial possessions, beginning first in North America but eventually spreading to all corners of their new Empires. By contrast, the war for Prussia and Russia was a European War. Prussia found itself surrounded by a coalition set on destroying it – Russia to the East, Austria to the South, and France to the West. As if that were not enough, King Frederick II of Prussia, harboured ambitions of expanding the might and territorial extent of the Kingdom of Prussia. For Prussia, then, it was a war of survival while simultaneously being a war of expansion.
For Russia, things were much simpler. Since the reign of Peter I, known also as Peter the Great, in the late 1600s, Russia had been expanding West – towards Europe. Under Peter, the Russian Empire reached the Pacific Ocean in the East, the Caucasus Mountains in the South (modern-day Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan) and the Baltic Sea in the North West (modern day Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). Now, Russia was ruled by Elizaveta Petrovna – one of the most beloved leaders in Russian history – and she was not about to give up on her father’s goals of expanding further into Europe. After the War of the Austrian Succession ended in 1748, the Russians found that those who had been their enemies in that war, the Austrians, harboured a deep hatred for the Prussians after they lost multiple provinces to them. A hatred the Russians shared. They entered into a secret treaty with the Austrians – should Prussia attack either Russia or Austria, the other nation would leap to the defence of the victim. In the end, when war began in 1756 with the Prussian invasion of France, Russia cared for little apart from the expansion of the Russian Empire, the annexation of East Prussia into Poland (a client state of the Russian Empire) and the total destruction of the Kingdom of Prussia.
Their Strategies for War:
It should not come as a surprise that the Prussian strategy for the war was predicated on countering the massive French Army. They knew they would be unable to meet the French in open battle. They also knew they would be unable to defend successfully against a French thrust. They had neither the men nor the materiel for this. But what they did have was British money. William Pitt, the then Prime Minister, had agreed to subsidise the Prussian Army with a whopping 100,000 pounds in 1756 (equivalent to 30 million USD or 27 million GBP in 2023) with which Frederick II could raise and train a modern army. His goal was to use this army to strike straight at France and paralyse them into indecision. Strangely enough, his strategy and tactics were influenced directly by the French. Frederick had spent the interregnum between the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War studying French tactics and strategy and had decided to fight fire with fire.
For the Seven Years War, he decided to settle on an entirely offensive war plan, made up of quick thrusts, withdrawals and manoeuvres designed to out-pace the large French Army. He believed in “short and lively wars”, where he would quickly take territory, hold it and force the enemy to sue for a peace that favoured the Prussians and allowed them to hold on to what they had captured. This he did quite successfully when he took Silesia from Austria in the War of the Austrian Succession – the reason that the Austrians developed a burning hatred for the Prussians. And it was this strategy again that he would call on. For the defence of Prussia against the inevitable Russian and Austrian onslaught, he raised smaller armies but mostly he relied on the Kingdom of Hanover, who was also being subsidised by the British. This strategy would see Prussia force France into conceding far more land than they had imagined they would lose in Europe.
For Russia, the strategy – like their objective – was simple. Some military historians focused on Russia may say that their strategy has always been simple. They would simply march across Europe with their massive army and swallow up Prussia – or at least, they planned to. With the Austrians attacking from the South and the Imperial Russian Army coming from the East, they imagined it would be impossible for the Prussians to resist. And they were right. The Imperial Russian Army succeeded in taking Berlin and much of East Prussia. By 1762, it looked as if the Russians had successfully beaten the Prussians in the East, despite Prussian successes in the West. However, in 1762, Elisaveta Petrovna – the Empress of Russia – would die and the new Tsar – Peter III – would undo everything she’d worked so hard to achieve. But more on that, very, very soon.
Sources:
Col. Holabird (tr.), General Baron Antoine Henri de Jomini, Treatise On Grand Military Operations: Or A Critical And Military History Of The Wars Of Frederick The Great – Vol. I (Normanby; 2013).
Adam Storring, “‘The Age of Louis XIV’: Frederick the Great and French Ways of War”, in German History, 38:1, pp. 24-46
H. M. Scott, The Emergence of the Eastern Powers; 1756-1775 (Cambridge University Press; 2009)
M. Persson, “Mediating the Enemy: Prussian representations of Austria, France and Sweden during the Seven Years War”, in German History, 32:2, 181-200
Daniel Baugh, The Global Seven Years War 1754–1763; Britain and France in a Great Power Contest (Routledge; 2021)
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