Bernstorff on causes of SYW

A Comment on the Underlying Causes
of the Seven Years War by the
Danish Foreign Minister Count Bernstorff

Johann Hartwig Ernst, Count von Bernstorff was a Hanoverian who at the time of the Seven Years War was Danish Foreign Minister. Before settling at Copenhagen in 1751 he had already won fame for his services to Denmark over many years, particularly at the Imperial Diet. He had also been Danish Ambassador to France for six years. He eventually gained such eminence that Frederick the Great is reputed to have said: "Denmark has her fleet and her Bernstorff." In 1757 the Duke of Cumberland and the French Marshal Duc de Richelieu both appealed to Count Bernstorff to arrange an armistice after the French had defeated Cumberland at Hastenbeck. The result was the Treaty of Klosterzeven, which was intended to give satisfaction to both sides. Bernstorff later said that the failure of this treaty was the greatest disappointment he suffered during all his years in the service of the King of Denmark. He had a gift for getting to the roots of political problems, and the following comment he made in 1759 on the underlying causes of the Seven Years War is an example of this.

Source of the German text: G. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, "König Friedrich der Grosse in seinen Briefen und Erlassen," München 1913

German Text

Dieser Krieg ist entbrannt nicht um ein mittelmässiges oder vorübergehendes Interesse, nicht um ein paar Waffenplätze oder kleine Provinzen mehr oder weniger, sondern um sein oder nichtsein der neuen Monarchie, die der König von Preussen mit einer Kunst und einer Schlagfertigkeit in die Höhe gebracht hat, welche die eine Hälfte von Europa überrascht und die andere getäuscht haben. Der Krieg ist entstanden, um zu entscheiden, ob diese neue Monarchie, zusammengesetzt aus verschiedenen Bestandteilen, noch ohne die ganze, für sie notwendige Festigkeit und Ausdehnung, aber ganz und gar militärisch und mit der ganzen Begehrlichkeit eines jugendlichen mageren Körpers, bestehen wird; ob das Reich zwei Häupter haben und der Norden Deutschlands einen Fürst behalten soll, der aus seinen Staaten ein Lager und aus seinem Volk ein Heer gemacht hat und der, wofernman ihm Musse lässt,seine Staatsgrenzen abzurunden und zu befestigen, als Schiedsrichter der grossen europäischen Angelegenheiten dastehen und für das Gleichgewicht zwischen den Mächten den Ausschlag geben würde.

English Text

This war is not about some average or temporary interest, or about one or two fortresses or small provinces, rather it is about the continued existence or not of the new monarchy which the King of Prussia has built up with a skill and quick-wittedness that has surprised the one half of Europe and fooled the other. The war is about deciding whether the new monarchy, which is put together from various compnents and as yet lacks the required stability and development but instead is wholly military and has all the desires of a young lean body, will prevail; if the Reich is to have two heads, and if the north of Germany will keep a prince who has turned his territories into a camp and his people into an army and who, given the opportunity, will round off and fortify his borders, stand as the umpire in great European affairs and tip the scales in the balance between the powers.