48 THE SILESIAN WARS, 1740-5
Everybody knows that Silesia and the country of Glatz are of a
quite different order of importance to the Queen of Hungary
[i.e. Maria Theresa] than the Netherlands or Lombardy. The
two former territories are some of the richest in Germany, and
they are the keys to Bohemia, Moravia and Hungary. Their
possession lends to the king of Prussia a credit and influence in
the Empire that was denied to his predecessors. (Mauvillon,
1756, III, 142)These wars brought an awareness of the things that set the two
monarchies apart. As early as 1741 Frederick sought to inculcate a
hatred of the Austrians among the Prussian troops. At the level of
personal encounter in peacetime, the Austrian traveller in Prussian
territories was distinguished by his religion, his accent, and his ample
and rich clothing. Like Count Ernst Friedrich Giannini, he might
detect a tincture of hostility mingled with the otherwise courteous
treatment that was extended to him as a foreigner (Thadden, 1967,
194).
Language and style were indeed matters of some moment. The
Political Correspondence is enlivened in one of its volumes by an
attempt on the part of Frederick and his ministers in 1758 to forge a
convincing 'Letter from a Secretary of Count Kaunitz to Count
Cobenzl. It was not difficult to obtain bad paper and a battered old
typeface, to convey the impression that the document was printed
somewhere in Germany outside Prussia, but what defeated them for
some time was Frederick's requirement to render the text 'in Austrian
German', by which he understood not the tongue of the peasants, but
something 'after the Viennese way of writing, in the usual high-
flown, bombastic and complicated Austrian style, which loads down
the name of the Empress and Kaunitz, every time they occur, with all
the customary Viennese epithets' (PC 10363). Frederick's cabinet
secretary Eichel gave up after three or four attempts, but somebody in
the foreign office at last produced a credible version.
The Prussian officers despised the lack of comradely cohesion
among their Austrian counterparts, as well as the stifling regard for
rank and etiquette which prevailed among them in their off-duty
hours. Frederick's officers, on the other hand, had the key to all
society. A Prussian lieutenant once asked an Austrian how he, as a
military man, would be received in Vienna. 'You will be greeted
courteously enough', he was told, 'but you will have as little chance
as an Austrian officer of being invited to the table of the great men'
(Friedel, 1782, 42). The emphasis on these distinctions derived from
the non-homogeneous nature of the Austrian corps, which embraced
everyone from the sons of small tradesmen to the grandees of the