Detach him from Austria; that will be well!" Which was reckoned magnanimous, at least public-spirited, in Friedrich; considering what Saxony's behavior to him had already been. "By all means, his Polish Majesty for Kaiser; do our utmost, Excellencies Valori, Courten and Company!" answers Friedrich,--and for his own part, I observe, is intensely busy upon Army matters, looking after the main chance.
And so Valori is to go to Dresden, and manage this cloud or cobwebbery department of the thing; namely, persuade his Polish Majesty to stand for the Kaisership: "Baiern, Pfalz, Koln, Brandenburg, there are four votes, Sire; your own is five: sure of carrying it, your Polish Majesty; backed by the Most Christian King, and his Allies and resources!" And Polish Majesty does, for his own share, very much desire to be Kaiser. But none of us yet knows how he is tied up by Austria, Anti-Friedrich, Anti-French considerations; and can only "accept if it is offered me:" thrice-willing to accept, if it will fall into my mouth; which, on those terms, it has so little chance of doing!--Saxony and its mysterious affairs and intentions having been, to Friedrich, a riddle and trouble and astonishment, during all this Campaign, readers ought to know the fact well;--and no reader could stand the details of such a fact. Here, in condensed form, are some scraps of Excerpt;which enable us to go with Valori on this Dresden Mission, and look for ourselves:--1. FRIEDRICH'S POSITION TOWARDS SAXONY.
"... By known Treaty, the Polish Majesty is bound to assist the Hungarian with 12,000 men, 'whenever invaded in her own dominions.'
Polish Majesty had 20,000 in the field for that object lately,--part of them, 8,000 of them, hired by Britannic subsidy, as he alleges. The question now is, Will Saxony assist Austria in invading Silesia, with or without Britannic subsidy?
Friedrich hopes that this is impossible! Friedrich is deeply unaware of the humor he has raised against himself in the Saxon Court-circles; how the Polish Majesty regards that Moravian Foray;with what a perfect hatred little Bruhl regards him, Friedrich;and to what pitch of humor, owing to those Moravian-Foray starvings, marchings about and inhuman treatment of the poor Saxon Army, not to mention other offences and afflictive considerations, Bruhl has raised the simple Polish Majesty against Friedrich.
These things, as they gradually unfolded themselves to Friedrich, were very surprising. And proved very disadvantageous at the present juncture and for a long time afterwards. To Friedrich disadvantageous and surprising; and to Saxony, in the end, ruinous;poor Saxony having got its back broken by them, and never stood up in the world since! Ruined by this wretched little Bruhl;and reduced, from the first place in Northern Teutschland, to a second or third, or no real place at all."2. THERE IS A, "UNION OF WARSAW" (8th January, 1745);AND STILL MORE SPECIALLY A "TREATY OF WARSAW"(8th January-18th May, 1745).
"January 8th, 1745, before the Old Dessauer got ranked in Schlesien against Traun, there had concluded itself at Warsaw, by way of counterpoise to the 'Frankfurt Union,' a 'Union of Warsaw,' called also 'Quadruple Alliance of Warsaw;' the Parties to which were Polish Majesty, Hungarian ditto, Prime-Movers, and the two Sea-Powers as Purseholders; stipulating, to the effect: 'We Four will hold together in affairs of the Reich VERSUS that dangerous Frankfurt Union; we will'--do a variety of salutary things; and as one practical thing, 'There shall be, this Season, 30,000 Saxons conjoined to the Austrian Force, for which we Sea-Powers will furnish subsidy.'--This was the one practical point stipulated, January 8th; and farther than this the Sea-Powers did not go, now or afterwards, in that affair.
"But there was then proposed by the Polish and Hungarian Majesties, in the form of Secret Articles, an ulterior Project; with which the Sea-Powers, expressing mere disbelief and even abhorrence of it, refused to have any concern now or henceforth. Polish Majesty, in hopes it would have been better taken, had given his 30,000soldiers at a rate of subsidy miraculously low, only 150,000 pounds for the whole: but the Sea-Powers were inexorable, perhaps almost repented of their 150,000 pounds; and would hear nothing farther of secret Articles and delirious Projects.
"So that the 'Union of Warsaw' had to retire to its pigeon-hole, content with producing those 30,000 Saxons for the immediate occasion; and there had to be concocted between the Polish and Hungarian Majesties themselves what is now, in the modern Pamphlets, called a 'TREATY of Warsaw,'--much different from the innocent, 'UNION of Warsaw;' though it is merely the specifying and fixing down of what had been shadowed out as secret codicils in said 'Union,' when the Sea-Power parties obstinately recoiled.
Treaty of Warsaw let us continue to call it; though its actual birth-place was Leipzig (in the profoundest secrecy, 18th May, 1745), above four months after it had tried to be born at Warsaw, and failed as aforesaid. Warsaw Union is not worth speaking of;but this other is a Treaty highly remarkable to the reader,--and to Friedrich was almost infinitely so, when he came to get wind of it long after.
