Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/624

 588 FRANCE [HISTORY. 1755-56 The &quot;Al liance des trols Cotil lons.&quot; The Seven Years War. Europe. In this France undertook an ultra -conservative line of policy, in union with her old antagonist ; she ceased to lead, or even to sympathize with, the advancing states of Europe ; it was the old world she would support, the new order of things could no longer count on her. And, beside all this abandonment of traditional policy, in itself no little risk, the new alliance made with Austria was, on the face of it, a political blunder ; there was nothing to be gained by it, and much to be lost. For the essential points to which the whole care of France should have been given were across the sea, in Canada and in India ; and here she was allying herself with the most inland of European powers, excepting Poland, which could scarcely be reckoned as a power at all, and bending all her energies to attack England by a march across north-western Germany into Hanover ; hither went her strength, while the English were left to carry out unmolested the plans on which their future greatness hung. Had the new coalition been successful, Austria would doubtless have crushed Prussia, but what advantages could France have reaped from the war? Her position in it was that of quite an inferior and secondary power; the contest would exhaust her already diminished strength, and teach the world how low she had fallen ; and if she failed, it would be little less than ruin to her. Eng land, however, having (early in 1756) signed a treaty of neutrality with Prussia, France delayed no longer. On Mayday 1756 the &quot;Alliance des trois Cotillons,&quot; &quot;of the three petticoats,&quot; as it was styled, the coalition of Madame de Pompadour with Maria Theresa and Elizabeth empress of Russia, was formally undertaken, to the vast delight of the French court and nobles, which longed for the pleasures of a great military promenade in such good society, assuming that the French people would, as usual, bear the cost, and leave to them the excitement and the glory. It did not turn out so amusing as they had expected. This treaty of Versailles was immediately followed by a declaration of war on the part of England ; arid Pitt before very long had smoothed over all difficulties which lay in the way of an offensive and defensive alliance with Prussia. The elder Pitt was regarded with as much fear and hatred by the court of Madame de Pompadour as the younger Pitt was by the republicans forty years later in the days of the Terror. The allies were chiefly tied by circumstances and mutual convenience to occupy different portions of the field of war, England grappling with France, and Prussia with the Austrians. At the beginning the French navy had no small share of success. During the peace great attention had been paid to it, and the growing importance of her commerce had reared for France no despicable school of mariners. At the outset of the war a great expedition commanded by Mar shal Richelieu, who has the bad distinction of having done inors than any other man to debauch and corrupt that apt pupil the king, set sail from Toulon harbour, and directed its course for Minorca, which was occupied by the English in force. Richelieu took Port Mahon and invested St Philippe, on which the English had expended vast toil, hop ing to make of it a second Gibraltar, a second point of in fluence in the Mediterranean. A relieving force of seven teen ships, commanded by Admiral Byng, son of the first Lord Torrington, was handled so ill that it was defeated and driven off by the French fleet under La Galissonniere, and shortly afterwards the fort of St Philippe was carried by assault in a very brilliant manner by Richelieu. With it the French became masters of Minorca, and Richelieu returned in glory to Paris. Very different was the reception of Byng in England. There the news of the fall of Minorca had created terrible excitement ; the ministry fell, and Pitt took the reins of power in his hands. He and the old Whigs at his back were known to be anxious for vigorous measures, and for a hearty co-operation with Prussia. Byng was sacri- ficed to the resentment of the people ; his incapacity and vacillation in the presence of the enemy were regarded as signs of treason, and he was shot as a traitor. The war, thus favourably begun by France, ought to have been carried on by the same lines ; her chief strength should have been directed to the sea. If fortune favoured her still in the maritime struggle, she might fairly have hoped to win her cause in Canada and India. But the unlucky likings of Madame de Pompadour for Kaunitz and the Austrian alliance threw the country off its right course, and embarked it on a harassing and perilous Continental struggle. At first, though Spain, Poland, and Holland remained neu tral, almost all the rest of Europe, Russia, the elector of Saxony, the German diet, and Sweden, declared for Austria; and after that Frederick s sudden invasion of Saxony in autumn 1756 showed that the war was really- begun, Louis XV. in January 1757 declared war on him, and openly joined the league for his destruction. Hesse and Brunswick alone supported Frederick. For this France willingly abandoned her success on the sea. She had seen Pitt s first effort, the attack on Rochefort, fail ignomini- ously ; she had driven off another fleet which threatened St Malo and Havre; she had news of successes in both Canada and India ; still, rather than make these omens of fortune her own, she turned aside to invade Hanover, and plunged into the larger war, in which she could never hope to win any real profit for herself. While Frederick was attempting in vain to crush the Austrians by reducing Bo hemia, whence he was obliged to retreat after the disas trous battle of Kolin (18th June 1757), the French army, 80,000 strong, and commanded by Marshal D Estrees, crossed the Rhine, and directed its course towards the Weser. The English and their allies were commanded by the victor of Culloden, the unwieldy duke of Cumber- land, who posted them behind the Weser at Hastenbeck ; here D Estrees overtook and defeated him (26th July 1757). The victory was, however, not complete enough to please the French court, with whom D Estre es was not popular. He was removed, and the duke of Richelieu taking his place pushed the English before him to the Elbe ; at Stade the duke of Cumberland was compelled to surrender his army, and to sign the shameful convention of Kloster-Zeven, (8th Sept. 1757), which permitted the defeated Germans to return home. Home also went the duke of Cumberland, shorn of his honours as the saviour of the Hanoverian cause : him, however, the English did not shoot, as they had shot poor Byng. Marshal Richelieu having thus dis posed of his antagonists, deemed that his work was done ; it only remained for him to make the most of his conquest in the way of pillage; so instead of marching on Brand enburg, which was almost bare of troops, he contented himself with extorting a fine fortune from the Westphal- ians and Hanoverians, with which he built himself a splendid palace at Paris, the Pavilion de Hanovre. This was but a poor result, considering that it was believed that, had he pushed forward, he might have brought the war to an end in one campaign. His selfish indifference to the duties of high generalship wrought the ruin of his cause. While he lingered in Westphalia, the English began to recover from their panic ; and Frederick, returning with incredible swiftness out of Saxony, arrested the course of disaster. The French army under Richelieu had been told off to overcome the Anglo-Hanoverian resistance ; another army, under the prince of Soubise and the duke of Saxe- Hildburghausen, who commanded the troops of the Ger man circles, was slowly moving towards Berlin, hoping toco- operate with Richelieu s victorious forces. Their progress, however, was rudely interrupted at Rosbach, on the 5th of November 1757, by Frederick, who caught and utterly 1756-. The