It was never an easy fit. George I and later his son, George II, greatly preferred their little electorate with its smiling, obedient population of three-quarters of a million people, and no outspoken, interfering Parliament. George I never learned to speak English, and both he and his son frequently went home to Hanover and remained for long periods.
The electorate was always an easy prey for its continental neighbors. Defending Hanover from aggressive neighbors was almost impossible for England, a maritime power lacking a large army. Most Englishmen were convinced that Hanover was a millstone around England’s neck and that Great Britain’s larger interests were regularly sacrificed to those of the electorate. There was no escape, however; Hanover had to be protected. Since only the army of a continental ally could do this, England had entered into long-term alliances with Austria and Russia. For many decades, this arrangement had worked.
In 1755, fear of rising Prussian belligerence stirred King George II to worry that his brother-in-law, Frederick II of Prussia (Frederick’s wife, Sophia, was George’s sister), might be tempted to invade Hanover as he had already invaded Silesia. It was to deter such a Prussian adventure that England had proposed renewal of the treaty with Russia which Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams had come to St. Petersburg to negotiate. When Count Bestuzhev signed the treaty for Russia in September 1755, Sir Charles was exuberant.
Hanbury-Williams’s self-congratulation was premature. News that England and Russia were about to sign a new treaty had alarmed the king of Prussia, who, it was said, feared Russia more than he feared God. Appalled by the prospect of fifty-five thousand Russians poised to march against him from the north, he instructed his diplomats to come to terms immediately with Great Britain. They did so by reviving an agreement presumed defunct. Before negotiating with Russia, England had first attempted to ensure the integrity of Hanover by negotiating directly with Prussia. Frederick had rejected this proposal, but now he hastily resurrected and accepted it. On January 16, 1756, Great Britain and Prussia mutually pledged that neither would invade or threaten the other’s territories. Instead, should any aggressor disturb “the tranquillity of Germany”—a phrase vague enough to cover both Hanover and Prussia—they would unite to oppose the invader. The potential “invaders” were France and Russia.
This treaty led to a diplomatic earthquake. Allying herself with Prussia cost England her alliance with Austria, as well as implementation of her new treaty with Russia. And when word of the Anglo-Prussian treaty reached Versailles in February 1756, France repudiated her own alliance with Prussia, clearing the way for a French rapprochement with her historic antagonist, Austria. On May 1, Austrian and French diplomats signed the Convention of Versailles, by which France agreed to come to Austria’s aid should Austria be attacked.
Six months earlier, these reversals would have been unthinkable; now they were reality. Frederick had overturned his own alliances, forcing other powers to realign theirs; when they did, a new diplomatic structure rose up in Europe. Once these arrangements were made, Frederick was ready to act. On August 30, 1756, his superbly trained, well-equipped Prussian army marched into Saxony. The Prussians quickly overwhelmed their neighbor, and then incorporated the entire Saxon army into their own ranks. Saxony was an Austrian satellite, and the Franco- Austrian treaty, the ink scarcely dry on its pages, now inexorably brought Louis XV to Maria Theresa’s aid. And once Russia’s longtime ally Austria was involved, Empress Elizabeth joined Austria and France against Prussia. This maneuvering had not improved Hanover’s security, however. Freed from the threat of seizure by Prussia, the electorate now stood exposed to danger from both France and Austria.
When Count Bestuzhev sent a note to the British embassy informing Hanbury-Williams of Russia’s adherence to the new anti- Prussian alliance between France and Austria, the ambassador was stunned. The newly signed treaty with England, which he had just negotiated with Bestuzhev, had to be set aside, although it was never formally repudiated.* Hanbury-Williams found himself in the topsy-turvy position of being expected by London to further the interests of Britain’s new ally, Frederick of Prussia, whom he had originally been sent to Russia to undermine. In this way, the grand reversal of alliances among the European powers was mirrored in miniature by the reversal Hanbury-Williams was forced to make in his own objectives and efforts in St. Petersburg.
The Englishman did his best. He became a diplomatic acrobat. Frederick had no envoy in St. Petersburg; Hanbury-Williams secretly offered to take on the role himself. By using the diplomatic pouch destined for his colleague the British ambassador in Berlin, he would endeavor to keep the Prussian king informed of what was happening in the Russian capital. He would also attempt, through his St. Petersburg connections, to ensure that no serious Russian military effort would be made in the coming war. The most important of these connections, now that Bestuzhev was lost to him, was Catherine. He and the grand duchess had shared an intimate correspondence and many sparkling conversations; he had given her thousands of pounds; he boasted to the Prussians that she was his “dear friend”; he suggested that he could use her to delay any Russian advance.
The ambassador was betraying his confidante. Catherine knew that the Anglo-Russian treaty was moribund, but she did not know that her friend was secretly assisting Russia’s enemy, and that he had used her name as a potential ally in this intrigue. He was deluding everyone, including himself. In January 1757, Catherine expressed her true feelings in a letter to Bestuzhev: “I have heard with pleasure that our army will soon … [march]. I beg you to urge our mutual friend [Stepan Apraksin] when he has beaten the King of Prussia, to force him back to his old frontiers so that we may not have to be perpetually on guard.”
The truth was that, before his departure, Apraksin had frequently visited the grand duchess and had explained to her that the poor state of the Russian army made a winter campaign against Prussia inadvisable and that it would be better to delay his campaign. These conversations were not the stuff of treason; Apraksin had had similar conversations with the empress, with Bestuzhev, and even with foreign ambassadors. The difference was that Catherine had been commanded by the empress to avoid involvement in political and diplomatic affairs. Perhaps the grand duchess had ignored this command and discussed the matter with Hanbury-Williams, but, if so, she did it unaware that she was speaking not just to her intimate English friend but to someone who would pass along her words to the king of Prussia.
32
Poniatowski
STANISLAUS PONIATOWSKI, the young Polish nobleman to whom Catherine had been introduced on the night she met Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams, was one of the adornments of the European aristocracy. His mother was a daughter of the Czartoryskis, one of Poland’s great families. She had married a Poniatowski, and Stanislaus was her youngest son. The young man was adored by his mother and patronized by her brothers, his uncles, two of the most powerful men in Poland. Politically, the family hoped, with Russian support, to end the rule of the elected king, Augustus III, a Saxon, and establish a native Polish dynasty.*
At eighteen, Stanislaus had begun touring the capitals of Europe, accompanied by a retinue of servants. He carryied with him an impressive portfolio of introductions. In Paris, he was presented to Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour; in London to George II. He had already met Charles Hanbury-Williams, and when the diplomat was appointed English ambassador to Russia, he invited Stanislaus to accompany him as his secretary. The young man’s mother and uncles were pleased; the offer provided the Czartoryskis a means of strengthening their own diplomatic footing in St. Petersburg, and simultaneously gave Stanislaus a chance to begin his public career. Once in the Russian capital, Hanbury-Williams gave his young secretary complete confidence: “He let me read the most secret despatches and code and decode them,” said Stanislaus. Sir Charles rented a mansion on the bank of the Neva River to use as an embassy, and the two men lived together, sharing a view across the water of the Peter and Paul Fortress and its golden four-hundred-foot cathedral spire.
Stanislaus Poniatowski, three years younger than Catherine, could not compete in male beauty with Sergei Saltykov. He was short, his face heart-shaped, his eyes shortsighted and hazel. He had prominent eyebrows and a tapering chin, but he spoke six languages, his charm and conversation made him welcome everywhere, and, at twenty-three, he was a model of the young, sophisticated European aristocrat. He was the first of this type to stand before Catherine, and he
