European Reactions

Abstract

The decisions which had been put off throughout the first two months of 1778, would have to be made in March. The French cabinet would have to give the Austrians an unequivocal answer to their ever more insistent demands for support and Frederick would have to make up his mind as to whether or not he would attempt to deprive Joseph of his share of Bavaria, as it was now clear that the latter would not relinquish it voluntarily. In Berlin the month opened with a bout of suspicion on the part of the king, a condition to which he was succumbing more frequently as he grew old. He convinced himself that the Saxons were plotting treachery and that if it really should come to war they would support Austria. This would create the gravest difficulties and must by all means be prevented.¹ Nor was the King happy about the degree of enthusiasm for his cause displayed by the other German states. Not even the Duke of Zweibrücken would have stirred had he not been pushed and goaded by Goertz. ² There was a still better reason for the King’s displeasure, although he would not have notification of it for over a fortnight. His hopes for Russian support were rapidly coming to naught. On the third the Prussian ambassador to Russia, Solms, had an interview with the chancellor, Count Panin. Solms put his case strongly, asserting that the Austrians did not have the right to seize as much as a single village of Bavaria and that not since the time of the Völkerwanderungen had there been a comparably despotic usurpation.