CHAPTER SEVEN
Public Affairs, and the War
of the Bavarian Succession,
1778-9
Frederick discerned a rough correspondence between the exhausted
state of the Continent after the Seven Years War, and his own desire
for rest. For a span of fifteen years, the chief threat to this repose
seemed to reside in the instability of eastern Europe, where some
terrible Austro-Russian conflagration might be occasioned by the
anarchical condition of Poland, or by Catherine II's growing appetite
for conquests at the expense of the Turks. To Frederick's disappoint-
ment the connection between France and Austria survived the war,
and it was only in order to rescue himself from complete isolation
that he concluded a defensive alliance with the Russians in 1764.
Frederick drew up the second of his secret Political Testaments in
- This was a stock-taking still more comprehensive than the first
essay in 1752, and it showed how the intervention of the state was
capable of promoting the physical, educational and moral welfare of
the subject. In so far as this document touched on international
affairs, it indicated that Frederick believed that he had survived the
Seven Years War, rather than won it, and that only constant pre-
paredness would permit Prussia to exist in the same world as the
genuinely first-class powers of Austria and Russia. He wrote with
satisfaction of what had already been achieved in the way of accumu-
lating revenues, cereals and munitions, but he added that the Aus-
trians had by now become so formidable that any campaign against
them must be conducted with the greatest caution: 'it is easier to
crush 15,000 men than to beat 80,000, and you attain more or less the
same result by risking less. By multiplying small successes you gradu-
ally heap up a treasure for yourself (Frederick, Politischen Testa-
mente, 163).
A shortened and updated edition of the Testament (Expose du
Gouvernement Prussien) was prepared in 1776 for the benefit of
Prince Heniy, but probably never actually shown to him (Hintze,
1919, 3-8).
The note of caution recurs in Frederick's Aliments de
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