62. Diplomacy
“Diplomacy is a continuation of a war by different means”
not exactly what Clausewitz wrote
“DIPLOMACY: the longest way from one point to another”
Adrien Decourcelle
“A diplomat is a person who is paid a lot to think for a long time before saying nothing.”
Eisenhower
“Diplomacy without weapons is like music without instruments.”
Frederick the Great
[
Before we proceed:
By the reason of its own a malicious Supreme Artificial Intellect (or just a byproduct of a sloppy software development) which is hiding somewhere inside of my i-pad arbitrarily changing what I wrote and deleting the pieces of sentences or even the whole paragraphs decided that it will be much more intriguing to cut off the end of the last sentence in a previous chapter making it into enigmatic “Fall of Fredericia was the last straw for Frederick IV”. Of course, with a benefit of a hindsight, I must to admit that this leaves me with a wider than intended range of the options:
“… and he got himself a brand new mistress”
“… and he ordered a mass execution of <the military commanders/his ministers/all newspaper publishers, etc>.”
“… and he decided to take a nap.”
“… he lost his mind and decided that he is Napoleon.” [1]
“…
and he abolished the Sound Dues.” [2]
But prior to the artificial improvement the text was just “
Fall of Fredericia was the last straw for Frederick IV and he got a stroke”
]
Dealing with Frederick
“Are we going to treat him, or let him live?”
Overheard medical conversation
If Frederick IV could be congratulated for doing something right as a ruler, it was an extremely fortunate timing of his stroke. Probably there were some other good deeds but in the terms of benefitting
both Denmark and its neighbors, this was a master stroke [3], which made happy
almost everybody with the exception of the members of the von Reventlow family to which his current mistress belonged [4]. Of course, having a stroke did not necessary mean an instantaneous death even in the 1700s. But Frederick’s right side was paralyzed, he lost his memory (could not recognize even his current mistress) and almost completely lost his ability to talk beyond the unclear mumbling. Taking into an account that the contemporary prevailing medical treatments were bloodletting and enemas, his chances to survive for any protracted period of time were not too good and the doctors proved that they are up to their reputation by killing him in less than a week. He got a very expensive sarcophagus.
His first (legal) widow, Louise of Mecklenburg-Güstrow was definitely happy but had no clue what to do because while her husband was healthy Louise figured in her role as queen at official ceremonies, but was otherwise ignored at court. Her main interest was reading religious books of which she collected a sizable library.
Taking into an account that her elder son, Christian, was only 13 years old, she, while assuming position of a Regent, had to rely upon the Grand Chancellor, Christian Christophersen Sehested leaving for herself purely official functions of her position.
Now, back to the diplomacy
A long list of the happy people included, among others:
Charles XII who finally could expect a long-time peaceful settlement with Denmark
Peter I for whom the open-ending military commitment started being a burden
Frederick William of Prussia and George of Hanover who now could safely keep blaming their past “mistakes” on Frederick
Charles Frederick, the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, who was waiting in Sweden for opportunity to regain his possessions even if he was too young to rule.
The British cabinet because now there was a hope for a speedy peace, which would re-open the Baltic markets without a need to spend money on sending a squadron into the Baltic Sea.
And of course population of Jutland, Schleswig and Holstein which hoped that their land will cease to be a theater of the military operations. Not that anybody was seriously interested in their opinions and wishes, they are added to make list more complete.
With the separate treaties involving Sweden, Russia, Prussia, Hanover and the PLC already had been signed, the congress called in neutral Lubeck included representatives of Sweden, Denmark, Schleswig-Holstein, and Russia with the diplomats from Prussia, Hanover, Saxony, and Mecklenburg hanging around just in case.
Emperor Charles VI with his usual “wisdom” decided to use this occasion to press his pet issue of the Pragmatic Sanction with the individual members of the congress. Probably, the idea was not too good because, while providing certain convenience for the Austrian side, it also allowed some of the addressees to develop a join “platform”. Russia and Prussia came with a package deal: recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction in exchange for:
- Recognition of Saxe-Lauenburg possession by Prussia.
- Recognition of the Prussian right to inherit the East Frisia.
- Recognition of the imperial title for Peter and his successors.
- Revocation of the imperial execution from Mecklenburg-Schverin.
- Promise of no interference in the issue of the Polish succession.
Charles XII simply let it be known that he absolutely does not care who is going to inherit the Hapsburg lands. Strictly speaking, this was Peter’s position as well but why say so if you can get something for nothing? Who knows when Emperor Charles is going to die but a
precedent of him addressing Peter as an emperor will be here and right now.
August of Saxony refused to sign because he had his own claim.
The main subject of discussion was, understandably, “the Schleswig Issue”, which for a while looked as irreconcilable mess. Mostly because the sides
directly involved, Sweden and Gottorp (both represented by Piper) on one side and Denmark represented by Just Juel on another, had been too concentrated on the existing
problems rather than looking for an innovative solution, which can suit both of them. An aggravating factor was behavior pf Just Juel: true to himself he was raising countless objections regarding a protocol, precedence, proper addressing and other formalities.
Eventually, Prince Golitsyn (who also was on a receiving side of Juel’s freely expressed opinions regarding the Russian princely houses and, as a little revenge, insisted on being addressed according to his official rank, aka “Vashe vysokoprevoskhoditel’stvo”) offered to consider a swap of the territories which will provide a reasonably clear separation both of the land and of a formal dependency [5]. This proposal put the process on a right track and soon enough the sides came to a reasonable exchange which produced:
- Principality of Gottorp which included Grand Duchy of Schleswig, fully independent from Denmark, in personal union with the Duchy of Holstein. A new title was immediately recognized by Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Mecklenburg, Prussia, Hanover, Saxony, Britain [6] and the Netherlands and, after some resistance, had been pushed down the throat of Charles VI.
- Duchy of Altona (“oops, we probably got carried away when burned the city” from Piper), which included the Danish possessions in Germany except for Oldenburg and was in a personal union with Denmark
Color schema:
Light orange show Kingdom of Denmark
Dark Orange show the Danish possesions in Germany (County of Oldenburg and Duchy of Altona)
Purple is the Grand Duchy of Schleswig
Light purple is the Duchy of Holstein
Light yellow is the Duchy of Plön (Oldenburg sideline)
Green is the County of Rantzau (sovereign county under a Holsteinian knightly house)
The island of Fehmarn have been traded for the "Danish" enclaves in Schleswig and on the Holsteinian coast.
Time when the region looked as a fruit salad was over and if territory of Gottorp included numerous estates of the Reichsritter’s and other small imperial entities, this was not considered to be a major problem: after experience of Mecklenburg, most of the members of nobility leaned a valuable lesson regarding value of their rights and usefulness of the appeals to emperor.
With this main problem being settled, there were small issues like contribution (unpleasant but expected), making the Russian merchant ships free from the Sound dues (a really minor issue taking into an account a very limited size of the Russian merchant fleet) and, as a bonus, acceptance of Denmark-Norway into the Baltic Mafia also known as Baltic Neutrality League which allowed to restore the policy established in 1679 by Peace of Lund including (then secret and now openly published) articles regarding the mutual assistance negotiated at Lund by Gyllenstierna.
and then reversed by Bengt Gabrielsson Oxenstierna.
So now the history made a full circle or rather a spiral because the new alliance was much more powerful than one of 1679.
_____________
[1] Who said that a crazy person can imagine himself only to be a person which already existed? IMO, imagining himself to be somebody who is not even born is
real insanity. 😜
[2] Probably this would be too much even if he got funny on his head.
[3] No pun was intended.
[4] In his own fashion, FIV was a highly moral person because he used to marry to his mistresses. Well, without bothering to divorce his wife but nobody is perfect.
[5] Duchy of Holstein was a part of the HRE but Schleswig was a Danish vassal. In case somebody missed it, credit for the whole implementation goes to
@Jürgen. His plan and explanations are copied without any changes.
[6] At that point the Brits could agree even on something much more exotic, even Mahārāja, as long as it did not cost them a penny and was paving a way to re-opening Baltic trade.