The land that will eventually become Germany is subject to fire and flames as a British-Prussian alliance faces off against a French-Austrian-Russian alliance. Since 1714 the ruling monarch of Britain had been the prince-elector of Hanover, a small but powerful German state. The first two kings of Britain’s Hanoverian dynasty, George I and George II, viewed themselves as German, but there would be a break with this trend with the new king, George III. Meanwhile, Frederick II of Prussia was in the process of spinning plates having to fight off Russians, Austrians, and Swedes from his land, and this post we’ll see one of those plates fall and smash when a Russo-Austrian force took Berlin.
Lead up to Berlin
Last time, we saw Frederick II himself defeat a much larger Austrian army through a mixture of stealth and tactics which ended up saving the Prussian army. Despite the initial successes at the start of the Seven Years’ War by 1760 the Prussian army had been increasingly pressed by a four-way alliance of France, Sweden, Russia, and Austria. This was so much so that it was believed by contemporaries that if the Prussians had lost at Liegnitz, which we discussed last time, then this would be the end of the Prussian army. The unexpected victory also put the fear of God in the Austro-Russian alliance as this gave the Prussians some breathing room to build upon the victory at Liegnitz. It was a French military attaché to the Russian army called Marc-Rene de Montalembert who proposed the solution to the military impasse the alliance was now in – strike at Berlin.
It made logical sense. Russian victories over the last few years, including taking the fortified Prussian city of Konigsberg, which had left the path open to Berlin. The alliance also knew that is was possible to take Berlin as Austrian troops had succeeded in raiding the Prussian capital as far back as 1757. This raid was a minor one, but it had demonstrated that Berlin could be taken. It was also seen as a way to quickly end the war. The alliance was held together by a mutual desire to see the curbing of Prussian power, but also one did not want the others to benefit too much from this. While Russia and Austria wanted to see Prussia dismantled the French court just wanted to see Prussia humbled, it serving as a counterweight to Austro-Russian power, and the Swedes just wanted some quick landgrabs. Furthermore, Frederick the Great had the ability to bounce back after defeats so there was a belief that after Liegnitz the Prussian army could return with vengeance. Frederick also acknowledged his position, writing to his brother Frederick commented that ‘Given my present situation, my only motto can be conquer or die‘. He had to act or face the alliance regrouping to wipe out the Prussians once again. This was made worse by the British parliament. Now that French America had been conquered the British wanted out of the war and viewed Frederick’s defeats evidence that they should sign their own peace treaty.
The Siege of Berlin
The Russians and Austrians had decided that taking Berlin would be the best course of reaction, the two sides coordinating to ensure they could take the city. Under Count von Lacy a corps of 18,000 would cross the Oder, take position at Gruden, and cover fire at Berlin. Meanwhile, the Russian Zakhar Chernyshev would go straight for Berlin, but he would give control of a 7,000 strong army to the German-born Russian general Gottlieb Heinrich Tottleban (it was not unusual that nationals from one area would lead armies for another). Berlin itself was lightly defended, only having a 2,000 man garrison, but that quickly expanded to 18,000 when Prussian generals retreated to prop up the city. Tottleben’s initial raid failed to take the city on October 5, however, the Prussians could not breathe a sigh of relief. By October 9 Chernyshev arrived with a further 10,000 troops alongside Lacy’s forces. Relying on Cossacks and light cavalry it was difficult to take a city, but they could quickly manoeuvre and bring in troops. The Prussians surrendered to the Russians with almost no fight, preferring to choose the Russians over the Austrians as the Austrians were the ‘hated enemy’.
The occupation of Berlin was not just to shatter the confidence of Frederick and the Prussian army but to also benefit the occupiers. Early on in the war the Prussians had occupied Saxony and since then had been using Saxon resources, including the treasury, to fund the war effort. Tsarina Elizabeth had gave orders to destroy the city’s strategic installations and supply depots, but also to spare the civilian population from the brunt of the occupation. Elizabeth and her advisors, ironically, looked to Frederick’s occupation of Saxony to justify the exploitation of Berlin – sparing of civilians being an obvious way to sustain the occupation itself. Tottleben organised a ransom with local authorities, and he was willing to negotiate down the original ransom from 4 million Taler to 1.5 million. However, the war had been expensive so only 60,000 Taler could be found in the treasury, and through the wider ransom they could only get 2.5 million Taler. This does not mean that the occupation was not without bloodiness. Vengeful Saxons burnt Charlottenburg, and Lacy personally ordered the destruction of several key buildings. Again, ironically, doing this would cost Russian lives as the explosions from destroying these buildings would kill several Russian soldiers in the blast. After three days the occupation came to an end with both armies taking loot and prisoners with them.
History Rhyming – Berlin 1945
Berlin would be occupied twice more in its history and one of those times was at the end of the Second World War when Russians once more occupied Berlin. After four years of genocidal fighting the Soviet Union managed to pushback the German invading forces until they managed to push all the way into Berlin itself. Like Frederick the Great’s Prussia the Nazi German state was militaristic where by the 1940s the entire economy and society had been diverted to the military and genocide of Jews, (and others the Nazis deemed to be inferior). This new alliance also aimed to break apart Prussia – Prussia had overseen the unification of Germany and had remained a key political entity in German society, one that Allied leaders blamed for plunging the world into war. Then, in April 1945, the Soviets were in Berlin, but here is where history stops rhyming. While the 1760 occupation was part of a continued campaign, in 1945 it was the final defeat of a murderous state.
After Berlin
The occupation of Berlin undermined the Prussian cause, especially in the eyes of the British, but they were far from out of the fight. Frederick began marching his army north to retake his capital, something that made the ever cautious Russian general Saltykov, who was overseeing the Russian armies, to flee back over the Oder to avoid fighting Frederick. By the time that the Russian army had organised itself November was on them with the winter preventing future campaigns. As Franz Szabo points out, to the allies the Russians in 1760 were a disappointment. In 1760 Russia had lost 2,581 men – most of this from disease and desertion. The Russian court would be so mad at this that Tottleben would be declared a Prussian spy and sentenced to death – his negotiations with the Berlin elite seen as evidence of this – but he would be pardoned. Meanwhile, the Prussians fought back. Along the Elbe Austrian general Daun would reinforce his troops so much that his position was seen as being unassailable. However, on November 9 he would be defeated at Torgau – Frederick managed to flank Daun’s forces and smash them. Berlin was simply another part of the back-and-forth in the Seven Years’ War.
The Two Georges and Hanoverian Britain
While the Prussians were scrambling to retake Berlin a major political event happened in Britain – King George II died. On October 25 1760 the man who had ruled Britain, and through a personal union Hanover, for thirty years died of a heart related issue while going to the bathroom leaving his 22-year old grandson, also called George, as king. George II’s son, Frederick, had unexpectedly died in 1751. George III has gone down in history as the ‘Mad King’ whose illness would define a significant part of his 59 year reign, as well as the eventual loss of the Thirteen Colonies which became the United States. We will discuss these issues in later posts, but for now we need to discuss why Britain and Hanover were in a personal union, and why George III becoming king was a turning point in British history.
In 1689 the Glorious Revolution saw James II and VII deposed and chased out of the British Isles leaving England and Scotland (and by default Ireland) without a king. The English parliament, which the Scottish parliament also accepted, to give the crown to his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange, who had ousted James. James was Catholic and had made moves to emancipate Catholics in Britain so the English parliament invited Protestant William and Mary, who were already planning an invasion, to take the crown. From there the English parliament passed a ‘Bill of Rights’ defining new laws about the English monarchy including the power of the monarch and, most importantly, that an English monarch could not be Catholic. Mary died childless so her sister Anne inherited the throne, but she too would be heirless after the death of her son in 1700. The English parliament was so fearful that the Scottish would decide to bring back the exiled James and his supporters, the Jacobites, that the English would put pressure on the Scots to sign the Act of Union in 1707 uniting the two states as the Kingdom of Great Britain. This was not the only reason for the Union but it was a significant factor in why the English wanted it. With an heirless queen parliament traced back the family tree to find a non-Catholic which brought them to Hanover whose electress, Sophia, was Anne’s next non-Catholic heir. Sophia died leaving her throne to her son George so when Anne died he became the British king.
The Britain that George I inherited was very different to Hanover. While he did not have absolute power in Hanover, the sovereign had far more power in Hanover than they did in Britain whose parliament over the last century had proceeded to replace the power of the crown. It would be during George I’s reign that the institute of ‘prime minister’ emerged and over the 1700s would gain increasing power as a position. When the Hanoverians came to power Britain was only 7 years old with only a fledgling idea of what it meant to be ‘British’. In 1715 a Spanish-backed rising by the Jacobites would try and replace the new Hanoverians, and in 1745 a much wider Jacobite Uprising would call for the dissolution of the Act of Union when they took Edinburgh. Besides the English-Scottish divide there was also regional differences and the more pressing issue of majority Catholic Ireland. For centuries the kings of England had been the Lords, and later Kings, of Ireland, which by the 1700s had Protestant settler colonies around Dublin and Northern Ireland. The Hanoverians thus inherited a disunited kingdom where they held less power, an increasingly powerful parliament, a rival dynasty backed by the French and Spanish, and to top it off George I could not speak English.
From George to George and Forging Britain
Things had somewhat changed by the time George III inherited the throne. The British union had managed to survive for fifty years, but it was still far from anything that we could consider a ‘nation’. The cultural destruction of the Highland clans in Scotland was one part of a way to not only pacify the Highlands but also replacing a culture that was independent from the prevailing Lowland-English cultures. After all, this was in response to Highland clans backing the Jacobites in 1745 who, as mentioned, had tried to dissolve the union. George III would be mocked, in public and private, for using Scottish words – something he got from his mentor Lord Bute whose brief tenure as prime minister would face anti-Scottish xenophobia. However, George III would be a turning point in the history of Britain. He was the first king of Britain to be born in a united Britain and saw himself as at least English if not fully British. He loathed his ancestral home describing Hanover as ‘that horrid Electorate that has always lived Upon the very vitals of this poor Country.’ George I and II had both waged war in Europe to defend Hanover, something that alienated the British parliament, so this was a radical departure from the new king.
George III’s reign saw the troubled clashes in society about what power should look like and what Britain should be. Linda Colley has described the world George III grew up in where ‘he had grown up in a much safer and a much grander political world than his forbears, exposed to new circumstances and new ideas‘. Colley also describes this period as ‘The revival of the monarchy’ not in the sense of the monarch taking the centre stage in politics, if anything monarchical power was retreating, but rather appearing more to the public. Taking inspiration from the Stuart monarchs George became a patron of the arts and was a fervent architect. Often overlooked by his later illness, to contemporaries George and Queen Charlotte liked to present themselves as humble gardeners in Windsor Palace. The centre of London political life, the cafes, were awash with conversation about the new king – Samuel Johnson wrote ‘We are very pleased…of him we are much inclined to hope great things‘ and Fanny Burney commented ‘The King reads admirably with ease, feeling, and force… I was very much surprised at its effect‘. Not only that, George III in the media over the next forty years would in cartoons be represented as Britain itself!
This was not without controversy and argument. Britain was meant to be the union between Scotland and England and it was under George III that we got the first Scottish prime minister – Lord Bute. However, the British press and House of Commons would accuse Bute of trying to turn Britain into a despotism with his Scottishness highlighted to show how he was unfit for rule. In Linda Colley’s view George had hoped to ‘restore’ the monarchy to its former power, but the increasing democratisation of society meant there would be no return to absolutism. Easier access to print with a wider literate middle-class meant that the king could now be criticised – most famously before the American Revolution from critic John Wilkes. As Colley argues these criticisms did help normalise the British monarchy, the monarchy humanising them enough to turn the monarchs into figureheads for the nation. Although George would try and intervene with his royal prerogative, infamously in the 1800s blocking Catholic emancipation. Now, more than ever, we will see the emergence of a British identity, a parliamentary monarchy, and a print culture, but it will remain fragile and up for debate.
Other Events:
The last quarter of 1760 would see other events happen. Here are some of them:
- In November and December the last French forces in Detroit would surrender to the British, and their indigenous allies would do a hatchet burying ceremony seeking peace with the British.
- On December 6 the British would lay siege to the French fortress of Pondicherry in India.
- That same month the British government in Jamaica would ban the practice of obeah in response to Tacky’s War that broke out earlier in the year.
- Sometime around the end of October the famous Japanese painter Hokusai was born.
Bibliography:
- Franz Szabo, The Seven Years War in Europe, 1756-1763, (London: Routledge, 2013)
- Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947, (Cambridge, MA: Belknap University Press, 2006)
- Herbert Redman, Frederick the Great and the Seven Years’ War, 1756-1763, (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2014)
- House of History, ‘Prussia’s Seven Years’ Wars (1756-1763)’, YouTube.com, (10/06/2023), [Accessed 20/05/2024]
- Christopher Hibbert, George III: A Personal History, (London: Penguin, 1998)
- Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837, (London: Pimlico, 1994)
Thank you for reading.
Lewis Twiby's Past and Present 