Catherine the Great

Russia’s surprising 1770 successes—the advance of Russian armies to the Black Sea and the Danube, the presence of a Russian fleet in the Mediterranean, and the total destruction of the Turkish fleet at Chesme—struck Europe with an astonishment heavily freighted with alarm. The rapid expansion of Russian power began to worry her friends as well as her enemies. One of these was Catherine’s ally Frederick of Prussia, who took little pleasure in imagining Catherine’s permanent domination of all of Poland. Neither Prussia nor Austria liked the prospect of Russia reaching deep into the Balkans or the idea of a Russian seizure of Constantinople. On the other hand, neither Frederick nor Maria Theresa saw how to prevent Russia from achieving these goals. Thus, although Frederick congratulated Catherine (“I cannot keep writing to you for every victory; I shall wait till there are half a dozen”), the last thing he desired was a wider war, which might bring in France and Austria against Russia and, therefore, require the participation of Prussia as Catherine’s ally in the fighting. In the 1764 treaty, Prussia had pledged to come to Catherine’s aid if Russia were attacked. In the present war, Turkey was clearly the aggressor, and, as a result, Prussia was already sending financial subsidies to Russia. But now Austria, alarmed by Russian penetration of the Balkans, was threatening to ally herself with the Turks. If this led to war, Russia would demand that Prussia fulfill her further treaty obligation, and he, Frederick, would have to fight Austria for the third time in his life. By now, Frederick had had enough of war. At fifty-five, he had already fought two wars against Austria to add Silesia to his kingdom; now the province was his and he had no wish to fight for it again. He preferred diplomacy. Poland’s independence was tottering; the Russian ambassador was already the de facto ruler of the kingdom, and it was only a matter of time before Catherine swallowed the country completely. To prevent this and do it peacefully, Frederick scrambled to find a solution that might satisfy all three of Poland’s powerful neighbors. Suppose Prussia, Austria, and Russia could be appeased by each taking an area of the crumbling state? If Catherine would consent to take only the eastern, predominantly Orthodox, part of Poland, and Frederick took only what he wanted in the Protestant northwest, then Austria might be satisfied with the extensive Catholic-populated territory in the south. He was certain that if the three powers could agree on this plan, no one else in Europe could resist such a combination of power—not the Turks or the French, and certainly not the Poles.

At the heart of this cynical appeal to Poland’s neighbors to cooperate in joint aggrandizement was the territorial prize Frederick wanted for himself. East Prussia was physically separated from the rest of his Hohenzollern possessions. For years, Frederick had hoped to remedy this flaw by acquiring the Polish Baltic coastal territories that split his country. In the autumn of 1770, Frederick’s diplomatic scheming was assisted by the presence of his younger brother, Prince Henry of Prussia, who was making a state visit to St. Petersburg. A short man with an inexpressive demeanor, he had come to the Russian capital reluctantly at the request of his brother to promote Frederick’s plan for dividing up Poland. Henry was as little interested in ceremonial pomp as his brother, but his eye was as sharp and his perceptions as keen. Catherine plied him with banquets, concerts, and balls. Henry moved uncomfortably in the luxury of Catherine’s court; he was punctual and meticulous, but he did not enjoy himself. Nor did his stolid demeanor and curt Prussian bow please many in the Russian court. But with Catherine, a fellow German, he got on well.