WI: No miracles for Brandenburg: Friderick II is killed, Prussia defeated

[Lavanda]

Friderick II of Prussia is accidentally killed in August 1759 during the battle. Prussia is completely demoralised and begs for peace, and eventually ends up being reduced to Brandenburg and Pomerania, with Russia taking East Prussia and Austria taking back Silesia. I seriously doubt it would meaningfully influence the other part of Seven Years' War, so France is defeated just like OTL. The results I see:
1. No Partitions of Poland until the French Revolution, since Friderick is killed and Austria and Russia are unwilling.
2. Austria wins the War of Bavarian Succession and annexes Bavaria
3. Austria is more successful in fighting the Ottomans, so Bosnia is taken from them (or at least a part of it) roughly a century earlier.
Upon the death of Elizabeth of Russia Peter becomes the new Emperor, but only to be deposed as IOTL. True, he can't hand over East Prussia back to Friderick, but there were plenty of other reasons. But perhaps he himself or Catherine later on could hand over East Prussia to Poland in order to make the Poles more loyal? Or that's unlikely?
And when the Revolutionary wars start, how would the absence of a strong Prussia affect them? I see Friderick William becoming a French ally quite early.

 

[Fulano]

But perhaps he himself or Catherine later on could hand over East Prussia to Poland in order to make the Poles more loyal? Or that's unlikely?

As far I know that was the original plan. Give East Prussia to Poland and get the Duchy of Courland in exchange.

 

[alexmilman]

As far I know that was the original plan. Give East Prussia to Poland and get the Duchy of Courland in exchange.

The original plan also included some vaguely identified area in the Southern PLC with an unclear statement regarding the access to the Black Sea, which the PLC did not have. But all that was intended to be, as per the original plan, a compensation for letting the Russian troops through the PLC territory. Soon enough it became clear that for this the Polish consent is not required and the Estates of the East Prussia had been ordered to swear loyalty to Elizabeth.

Taking into the account that Russia already exercised as much control over Courland as it wanted and that the Duke of Courland had been, after avoiding death by quartering, considered himself lucky to be moved from Pelym to Yaroslavl, this item of the plan was, just as an item about convincing the Austrian court to go to was against Fritz, just one of the idiocies of Elizabeth’s politics.

 

[alexmilman]

Friderick II of Prussia is accidentally killed in August 1759 during the battle. Prussia is completely demoralised and begs for peace, and eventually ends up being reduced to Brandenburg and Pomerania, with Russia taking East Prussia and Austria taking back Silesia. I seriously doubt it would meaningfully influence the other part of Seven Years' War, so France is defeated just like OTL. The results I see:
1. No Partitions of Poland until the French Revolution, since Friderick is killed and Austria and Russia are unwilling.

Actually, Austria may be willing: MT already occupied some border area and she would like “compensation” for the Russian expansion at Ottoman’s expense. Of course, alone, she may not get it.

2. Austria wins the War of Bavarian Succession and annexes Bavaria
3. Austria is more successful in fighting the Ottomans, so Bosnia is taken from them (or at least a part of it) roughly a century earlier.

Unlikely: it had knack to be beaten by them.

Upon the death of Elizabeth of Russia Peter becomes the new Emperor, but only to be deposed as IOTL. True, he can't hand over East Prussia back to Friderick, but there were plenty of other reasons. But perhaps he himself or Catherine later on could hand over East Prussia to Poland in order to make the Poles more loyal? Or that's unlikely?

Catherine was as much Fritz’ “client” as her husband and remained such until he screwed her by forcing the 1st Partition. Within the existing post-Elizabeth political framework Prussia was much more important ally than the PLC and all Polish loyalty CII needed could be either bought by the relatively modest amounts of money or enforced by the Russian military presence.

 

[unprincipled peter]

. Austria wins the War of Bavarian Succession and annexes Bavaria

Doubtful.
Austria has already regained Silesia, and is now the major German player. No one wants to see them grow even stronger. Russia ultimately ended the war, OTL, because it didn't want Austria getting larger. In the absence of Prussia, Russia will act even sooner. Likewise, I believe France opposed the action. If it looks like Austria might get Bavaria, France may join the coalition against Austria. Britain will be too involved in North America. Austria will back down, or be defeated.

 

[Lavanda]

Doubtful.
Austria has already regained Silesia, and is now the major German player. No one wants to see them grow even stronger. Russia ultimately ended the war, OTL, because it didn't want Austria getting larger. In the absence of Prussia, Russia will act even sooner. Likewise, I believe France opposed the action. If it looks like Austria might get Bavaria, France may join the coalition against Austria. Britain will be too involved in North America. Austria will back down, or be defeated.

Prussia is still likely to oppose Austria, because it remains one of the most powerful German states.

 

[alexmilman]

Doubtful.
Austria has already regained Silesia, and is now the major German player. No one wants to see them grow even stronger. Russia ultimately ended the war, OTL, because it didn't want Austria getting larger.

You are flattering the Russian rulers and politicians of that time. 😂

Elizabeth’s motivations for getting into this war had been numerous, unclear and influenced by the numerous factors including the Austrian bribes to her Chancellor and Frederich’s public remarks about her IQ. Pretty much the same goes for getting out of the war. Of course, PIII was an admirer of the Old Fritz but well before Elizabeth’s death the Russian participation in the war was pretty much over except for the operations needed to secure supply of the Russian troops staying mostly in the PLC territory and Elizabeth’s orders to the recently appointed commander in chief had been simply ignored. The Russian military had very strained relations with their Austrian allies accusing them in inability to provide supplies and intention to achieve the Austrian goals by the Russian hands. Both accusations were at least superficially correct.

At home the war was a disaster: even with the Austrian subsidies Russian treasury was running out of money and who was going to pay? Formally, the peasants but they were somebody’s serfs so the war was hitting nobility at the pockets and the Russian nobility could not care less about who owns Silesia. Notice that CII who conducted a coup playing the “shameful peace” card, did not change a word in agreement made by PIII and for the years to come remained in a close contact with FII considering him the main ally and a valuable advisor.

In the absence of Prussia, Russia will act even sooner.

Do you mean that Elizabeth will rush to make peace with his successor? Quite possible but, with her one never can be sure.

Likewise, I believe France opposed the action. If it looks like Austria might get Bavaria, France may join the coalition against Austria. Britain will be too involved in North America. Austria will back down, or be defeated.

 

[unprincipled peter]

You are flattering the Russian rulers and politicians of that time. 😂

Elizabeth’s motivations for getting into this war had been numerous, unclear and influenced by the numerous factors including the Austrian bribes to her Chancellor and Frederich’s public remarks about her IQ. Pretty much the same goes for getting out of the war. Of course, PIII was an admirer of the Old Fritz but well before Elizabeth’s death the Russian participation in the war was pretty much over except for the operations needed to secure supply of the Russian troops staying mostly in the PLC territory and Elizabeth’s orders to the recently appointed commander in chief had been simply ignored. The Russian military had very strained relations with their Austrian allies accusing them in inability to provide supplies and intention to achieve the Austrian goals by the Russian hands. Both accusations were at least superficially correct.

At home the war was a disaster: even with the Austrian subsidies Russian treasury was running out of money and who was going to pay? Formally, the peasants but they were somebody’s serfs so the war was hitting nobility at the pockets and the Russian nobility could not care less about who owns Silesia. Notice that CII who conducted a coup playing the “shameful peace” card, did not change a word in agreement made by PIII and for the years to come remained in a close contact with FII considering him the main ally and a valuable advisor.



Do you mean that Elizabeth will rush to make peace with his successor? Quite possible but, with her one never can be sure.

I think perhaps we are discussing different wars.

I was speaking of Austria winning the War of Bavarian Succession.

Sounds like you're on the 7YW

 

[unprincipled peter]

Prussia is still likely to oppose Austria, because it remains one of the most powerful German states.

It will be a player in German politics, but it is only a decade removed from being slaughtered. Austria, by far, is the most powerful. Prussia will have to join a coalition to effectively oppose Austria. Luckily for them, such a coalition should be easy to achieve.

 

[JackLumber]

It never fails to amaze me that people view Peter III as the dumb one for leaving the war (and basically vassalizing Prussia as he did so) and not Elizabeth for involving Russia in a war for petty reasons and with little to gain.
If Russia remained uncommitted they would of had a free hand to do whatever they pleased without risk of intervention from virtually any of the other European powers.

 

[alexmilman]

It never fails to amaze me that people view Peter III as the dumb one for leaving the war (and basically vassalizing Prussia as he did so) and not Elizabeth for involving Russia in a war for petty reason and with little to gain.

This is actually very simple. The answer is “propaganda”. CII was running a very effective propaganda campaign and most of the contemporary materials used by the later historians were based upon the biased sources created during her reign. The truly amazing part is that all these quite intelligent people had been glossing over the fact that CII just continued foreign policy of her “dumb” husband. The usual excuse was Austrian “perfidy”.

Now, as far as EI was involved, stupidity of her bellicose activities was ignored due to the …er… “military glory” obtained due to the victories over Prussian armies. Just as a complete and much more expensive insanity of the activities of AI was excused by the glory of defeating Napoleon.

If Russia remained uncommitted they would of had a free hand to do whatever they pleased without risk of intervention from virtually any of the other European powers.

The problem was that the government of EI had a very vague idea on what it wanted. Basically, the almost the same goes for CII: her eventually successful acquisitions had been done in the least effective manner and some of them, PLC and Georgia, caused enormous problems later on. Needless to say that both of them kept screwing the Russian economy, which was already in quite lousy state.

 

[JackLumber]

This is actually very simple. The answer is “propaganda”. CII was running a very effective propaganda campaign and most of the contemporary materials used by the later historians were based upon the biased sources created during her reign. The truly amazing part is that all these quite intelligent people had been glossing over the fact that CII just continued foreign policy of her “dumb” husband. The usual excuse was Austrian “perfidy”.

Now, as far as EI was involved, stupidity of her bellicose activities was ignored due to the …er… “military glory” obtained due to the victories over Prussian armies. Just as a complete and much more expensive insanity of the activities of AI was excused by the glory of defeating Napoleon.


The problem was that the government of EI had a very vague idea on what it wanted. Basically, the almost the same goes for CII: her eventually successful acquisitions had been done in the least effective manner and some of them, PLC and Georgia, caused enormous problems later on. Needless to say that both of them kept screwing the Russian economy, which was already in quite lousy state.

I'm not sure the partitions would of caused Russia the same issues were it not for AI taking the polish heartland later that being said that is something else Peter III doesn't get enough credit for having an actual plan his designs on Denmark and alliances with Sweden, Prussia and England had serious potential to turn the Baltic into a region of predominantly Russian influence, something that had obvious benefits.
It does make me wonder how promising his reign could of been.
I've also started wondering what the 7 years war looks like without Russian involvement to begin with

 

[alexmilman]

I'm not sure the partitions would of caused Russia the same issues were it not for AI taking the polish heartland later

The ‘issues’ actually started even before the partitions due to the ham-fisted CIIs policies in the PLC. During the 7YW Russia had minimal problems with getting its troops across the Polish territory and generally using it as a base. But within very short period CII managed to achieve a very serious alienation and her 1st war with the Ottomans, to which Russia was completely unprepared, was triggered by the war against Bar Confederacy. Not to mention two wars fought directly against the PLC.

AI, admittedly, made things even worse.

that being said that is something else Peter III doesn't get enough credit for having an actual plan his designs on Denmark and alliances with Sweden, Prussia and England had serious potential to turn the Baltic into a region of predominantly Russian influence, something that had obvious benefits.

Yes. CIIs Baltic policy was inept, to put it mildly, causing a need for two-fronts war.

It does make me wonder how promising his reign could of been.

Unfortunately, we can only speculate because too little is known about him outside of the hostile propaganda. But initially it was very promising. His Nobility Freedom Act was extremely popular, he was planning to create the first Russian bank and the idea of minimizing power of the Guards was good but implementation had been lousy and cost him his life.

Probably it is fair to assume that he would not be such a wasteful a—hole as his wife. It is often overlooked that the glorious reign of CII resulted in the enslavement of somewhat like a million of the previously free Russian peasants (so-called “state peasants”), huge state debt, worthless paper currency, serfdom turning into the slavery, endemic (even by the Russian standards) corruption in all areas including army, destruction of the Crimean economy (besides the slave trade, there was a well-developed agriculture with its products being exported to the Ottoman Empire) and the list is going on.

I've also started wondering what the 7 years war looks like without Russian involvement to begin with

Yes, the changes could be substantial. Maybe MT would give up earlier.

 

[Jürgen]

I think a interesting factor which is often ignored; what would be the effect of Sweden regaining Stettin?

 

[Fulano]

I think a interesting factor which is often ignored; what would be the effect of Sweden regaining Stettin?

Denmark would shit bricks, that's for sure. And that would totally change the Schleswig-Holstein Question that became relevant next century.