82 THE ARMED CAMP, 1745-56Field-Marshal James Keith was a newcomer to Frederick's small
circle of fellow-spirits. A Scotsman by blood, and a veteran of the
Russian service, Keith was prized by Frederick for his experience, his
courage, and his resource in action. As a friend, Keith further
appealed to the king as a man of fine manners and cosmopolitan
culture. The troops liked and respected him, though the Prussian
officers harboured a lingering resentment of Keith as an outsider, and
they were amused by his subservience to his mistress Eva Merthens,
who was a large lady from Finland.
Not even Keith could aspire to the place which Frederick re-
served in his trust for that corpulent yet shadowy figure Hans Carl
von Winterfeldt. 'There can rarely be another man of such repute
who, like Winterfeldt, has ever occasioned such divisions or even
total contradictions of opinion' (Kaltenborn, 1790-1, II, 36). Winter-
feldt's enemies were willing to admit that there was much about the
man that was impressive and appealing. He had a bluff, engaging
manner, he issued his orders with clarity and confidence, and he was
able to carry a multitude of matters in his head. We are told at the
same time that Winterfeldt was vindictive, a sower of discord, and
the prey of dark ambitions and resentments. His upbringing had been
in the rural simplicities of Pomerania, and he could not forget his
failure to launch himself into the frenchified culture of Berlin after
the Second Silesian War: 'At that time the society of Berlin was most
brilliant. The ladies were amiable to an extraordinary degree, and
they said that military reputations meant nothing to them, unless the
officers in question were agreeable company as well' (Kalkreuth,
1840, II, 12).
This was the man whom Frederick chose as his confidant in the
secrets of statecraft, his spymaster, his effective chief of staff, and
whom he assigned as his nark, or personal deputy, with commanders
like Schwerin, Keith, Prince August Wilhelm and the DukeofBevern.The contemporaries of Winterfeldt linked his name with the proces-
ses which brought Prussia into the Seven Years War - that experience
which carried the state to within days of its disintegration. It does not
take long to outline the essential events.
By the early 1750s the Austrians, still intent on recovering
Silesia, had cast over the old connection with Britain, and begun to
establish a liaison with the French, their former enemies. The French
were for the moment unwilling to commit themselves to an actual
alliance, or to go to war.
The Austrian links with Russia were of much longer standing.
Here the problems for the Austrian chancellor Kaunitz were of a
different nature, for in 1753 the Empress Elizabeth and her counsel-