Determinantes en el marco de la apertura económica

For most of the 1740s and the early 1750s, Russia avoided the growing tensions in central Europe. One of the key developments destabilizing Europe was the rise of Prussia. Under a series of careful and talented kings, it had become a military power in fragmented Germany far out of proportion to its small size and population. Prussia’s king, the confident and cultivated Frederick II, Frederick the Great, possessed both striking military talent and the extraordinary military machine his ancestors had created. Frederick was a gifted commander, and he had drilled his troops to be more flexible and maneuverable than any in Europe. Frederick’s innovations included deliberate asymmetry on the field of battle—

overloading one side of his line to overwhelm an enemy flank, or maneu-vering his troops quickly against an enemy flank—to win a battle before his own weaknesses were exposed. This required speed and precision, and by relentless training and discipline the Prussian army was close to achieving Frederick’s ideal of winning a battle without firing a shot, sim-ply by maneuvering the enemy into a losing position.

Frederick saw in the Austrian Empire a ripe target for Prussian aggrandizement. The death in 1740 of Austrian Emperor Charles VI gave Frederick his opening. He protested the succession of Charles’s daughter Maria Theresa as Austrian empress and invaded the rich province of Sile-sia. Frederick’s cynical grab unleashed the War of the Austrian Succes-sion, as France and Bavaria joined Frederick’s efforts to benefit from Austrian weakness. Britain intervened on Austria’s side to prevent French aggrandizement. The war finally ended in 1748, with Prussia’s hold on Silesia still firm. Russia had sent troops to Austria at the end of the war, but they arrived after peace negotiations were already under way. Their presence nevertheless signaled a more active role for Russia in European politics.

The Russian army continued to grow in power and expertise under Elizabeth. With Mu¨nnich’s dismissal, Elizabeth’s military was run by Peter Ivanovich Shuvalov, one of a trio of brothers who played key roles in Elizabeth’s regime and in her personal life. Elizabeth and Shuvalov eliminated German cosmetic innovations introduced during Anna’s reign, but as war approached in the 1750s, Shuvalov sought to re-Prussianize the Russian military by imitating Frederick the Great’s intri-cate and complex use of maneuver. Shuvalov attempted to improve the doctrine and training of Russian troops, still run by outdated field man-uals, but had much greater success with cavalry than with infantry, where he was too enamored of complex and artificial maneuvers. He lacked the skilled officers and the well-drilled troops to make them possible. To cope with the new demands of the European battlefield, Shuvalov converted some dragoons into heavier cuirassiers and mounted grenadiers. Dra-goons could not meet European cavalry on equal terms, while cuirassiers and grenadiers could carry out shock charges on the battlefield. Shuvalov was particularly effective in improving Russian artillery, though he tended to get carried away by dubious technical gimmicks.

Russia, though generally supportive of Austria, avoided European war through the 1740s. After the War of the Austrian Succession, though, the entire structure of European international politics changed in what histor-ians term the “diplomatic revolution.” An Anglo-Austrian partnership against France, the cornerstone of European politics for decades, evapo-rated as the Austrians decided to focus on their large contiguous empire in eastern Europe, not their small and vulnerable possessions in western Europe. The most pressing threat to Austria was no longer France, but the growing power of Prussia. This new Austrian view of France as a potential ally against Prussia, not a rival, left the British without their traditional continental partner to balance the military might of France.

The British turned instead to Prussia. Led by Elizabeth’s chancellor Bestuzhev-Riumin, the Russians were both concerned about Prussian power and eager for expansion in eastern Europe at Prussian expense.

Though Bestuzhev-Riumin had been pro-British, Britain’s friendship with Prussia undermined his position and opened the door to an alliance be-tween Russia and France. By spring 1757, a new system of alliances was firmly in place: France, Austria, and Russia against Prussia and Britain.

In 1756, what were in effect two separate wars broke out, linked togeth-er undtogeth-er the gentogeth-eral name of the Seven Years’ War (in Amtogeth-erican history, the French and Indian War). Britain and France went to war in a world-wide struggle for colonial domination, particularly in North America and India. In central Europe, Frederick recognized the preparations for war against him by France, Austria, and Russia and preempted their attack. In late summer 1756, Frederick occupied Saxony in central Ger-many, removing a threat to his capital Berlin. The next year, the war began in earnest.

With Britain lacking a significant army, and preoccupied by the global war against France, Frederick faced overwhelming odds in his struggle against Europe’s three largest military powers. His situation was not, however, as hopeless as it seemed. British financial subsidies kept Freder-ick’s army provisioned and manned. The coalition against him was far from united. For France, the war against Prussia was secondary compared to fighting Britain. Though France maintained an army in Germany as part of the coalition against Prussia, the burden of the war fell more heav-ily on Austria and Russia. Those two powers were also working at cross-purposes: Austria wanted to regain the lost province of Silesia, while Russia looked to expand its own domination of eastern Europe.

Frederick’s strategic skills made the problem worse, for he used Prussia’s central position and interior lines to shift his forces from one front to another to prevent his enemies from concentrating their troops against him. This established the basic dynamics of the war. Frederick’s enemies sought to gain territory at the least possible cost to themselves by putting the burden of fighting on their allies; Frederick desperately raced from front to front to survive against overwhelming odds.

Though Russia had fought Poland, Sweden, and Turkey since Peter the Great’s time, the Seven Years’ War marked its test against a first-class European army. The results were mixed, particularly early in the war. Tac-tically, Russian soldiers demonstrated great reserves of courage and endurance, standing toe-to-toe with the best soldiers in Europe in bloody exchanges of volley after volley without flinching. Their commanders did not acquit themselves so well. Overall coordination of the war, given Elizabeth’s disinterest in matters of state, fell to Bestuzhev-Riumin and a Conference attached to the imperial court. Inefficient and consumed by the micromanagement of armies at the front, it fell far short of Russia’s needs. Russia’s army commanders also proved generally ineffective.

Though they never lost a decisive battle against the Prussians, they were entirely incapable of exploiting victories to turn battlefield success into

political advantage. Russia’s supply services were poorly prepared for sustaining a war in central Europe. Part of the reason for the Russian inability to sustain momentum and exploit victory was the perennial need to withdraw home during the winter to keep the Russian army fed and clothed.

In 1757, the war intensified. In spring, the Austrians prepared an inva-sion north. Frederick, well informed of how slowly France and Russia were moving to attack him, decided on a full-scale invasion of Austrian Bohemia by over 100,000 men in four columns. Austria gave up its offen-sive, stringing out its forces in a thin and brittle cordon along its northern border. After Frederick’s easy breakthrough, Austrian troops fled in disor-der as Fredisor-derick pursued them toward Prague, already anticipating diverting his troops to deal with the French. He screened a sizable Austri-an garrison in Prague while using his main forces to confront the AustriAustri-an army east of the city. In a terribly bloody and closely fought battle, Freder-ick smashed the Austrians, then besieged Prague. Losing an equally bloody battle at Kolin in June to an Austrian relief force, Frederick with-drew north to regroup. While Frederick’s Bohemian invasion was turning sour, a French army invaded Germany from the west, beating Prussia’s British and Hanoverian allies.

While the war was raging in western Germany and Bohemia, Russian troops were still on Russian territory. The main Russian army of 100,000 troops under Stepan Fyodorovich Apraksin crept toward Freder-ick’s isolated enclave of East Prussia. Well connected politically, Apraksin was an aesthete with little practical military expertise. East Prussia was lightly garrisoned and should have been an easy prey, but Apraksin’s dil-atory pace almost brought disaster. The Prussians caught him by surprise at the village of Gross-Ja¨gersdorf on 19/30 August 1757. Outnumbered two to one, the Prussians found the Russians strung out in their line of march, stretching more than two miles from northwest to southeast. The Prussians attacked from the southwest, with their cavalry striking both extremes of the Russian line and the Prussian infantry wedging itself into a wood in the center. As the Russians rushed to deploy from marching columns into battle formations, the Prussians threatened to repeat what the Swedes had done at Narva: break through a thin Russian line and then roll up and destroy the individual pieces. The situation was salvaged by Peter Aleksandrovich Rumiantsev, later to become Catherine the Great’s best commander. He rallied the regiments in the center of the Russian line and sent them into the wood, clearing the Prussian infantry and ending the threat of a decisive breakthrough and defeat. The weight of Russian numbers, and particularly the firepower of Russian artillery, forced the Prussians into retreat as the Russian troops organized a coherent defense.

The Prussians had lost more than they could afford from their small East Prussian forces, but Apraksin had no stomach for further fighting.

Shocked by the bloody battle, he halted the invasion and withdrew to winter quarters. He was relieved of command and put on trial before con-veniently dying the next year.

Despite the Russian reverse, Frederick’s situation looked desperate by autumn 1757. He faced the armies of three great powers, an empty trea-sury that British subsidies could not fix, and a butcher’s bill that Prussia’s small population could ill afford. An Austrian detachment even raided his capital Berlin, while other Austrian forces snatched up Silesian for-tresses to regain the lost province. Matters quickly turned Frederick’s way: a spectacular victory over French forces and their German allies at Rossbach gave Frederick some security from threats from the west. He fol-lowed that with an equally impressive though more costly victory over the Austrians at Leuthen in Silesia, convincing the British to throw their support more fully behind Prussia’s war effort. The prospects for 1758 seemed much brighter for Prussia.

But early 1758 also saw a renewed Russian invasion of East Prussia, this time under Villim Villimovich Fermor, a sober and intelligent Baltic Ger-man, solicitous of his troops’ welfare. Moving with speed and dispatch, Fermor’s well-disciplined troops took the province without difficulty.

Fermor’s initiative left him, however, when it came time to push west toward Prussia proper. Unable to salvage East Prussia, Frederick tempo-rarily turned to knocking Austria out of the war. A desperate scroung-ing for soldiers managed to build Frederick’s armies back up to 160,000 men. In spring 1758 he invaded Austrian Moravia, but found the Austrians unwilling to meet him in the open field. Without a battle, Fred-erick could not use his battlefield skill to make up for his ongoing strategic nightmare. By late summer, he turned back to dealing with the Russians.

Frederick met Fermor’s troops in the wooded and marshy hills outside the village of Zorndorf, just east of the Oder River. Approaching the Rus-sian position from the north, Frederick engaged in a daring night march around the Russian right flank to attack the Russians from the rear. The Russians simply reversed in place, facing south instead of north, negating much of Frederick’s advantage. They were now, however, at much greater risk from any defeat, with their backs against swamps and a small stream that would turn any retreat into disaster.

Having lost surprise, Frederick now planned an attack from the south on the Russian right flank. On 14/25 August 1758, after two hours of bom-bardment, his massed assault troops on the Prussian left moved north through dust and smoke into a murderous close-range exchange of vol-leys with the Russians. Frederick’s supporting troops, intending to follow the initial attack on the Russian right, instead drifted east toward the cen-ter of the Russian line, depriving the main Prussian assault of support.

This shift to the center left the Prussian left flank open, an opportunity that Russian cavalry seized, sending Frederick’s entire left wing fleeing

in disorder. Only a prompt counterattack by Prussian cavalry stabilized Frederick’s left and staved off complete defeat. In the afternoon, Freder-ick’s right wing moved forward in attack, but was met head-on by a Rus-sian cavalry counterattack and went nowhere. The battle degenerated into a slugging match beyond the control of either commander. As night fell, both armies broke off contact, shocked by over 30,000 casualties from among perhaps 80,000 engaged. Neither side wished for a further fight, and the Russian army withdrew east unmolested, preceded by Fermor who had fled the battle much earlier.

Fermor’s retreat allowed Frederick to return south to fight the Austri-ans, illustrating once again how interior lines and poor allied coordina-tion allowed Frederick to sustain a war effort seemingly far beyond his country’s capabilities. Frederick nevertheless met disaster when an Aus-trian attack almost overran his army encamped at Hochkirch, though he was able to retreat with his army largely intact. Still, at the end of 1758 Frederick’s strategic situation was no better, the year’s battles had cost him his best soldiers, and his enemies demonstrated a new ability to stand up to the best Frederick could throw at them.

By the beginning of 1759, Frederick was clear that waiting on enemy attacks would bring disaster. The Russians and Austrians were improving the coordination of their moves, and even the French pressed forward in western Germany. A methodical Austrian advance in Silesia and an equally slow Russian move west into Prussia threatened to grind Freder-ick between them. The Russian army was under its third commander in three years: Peter Semyonovich Saltykov. Though in his 60s, Saltykov was much more aggressive and skilled than his unfortunate predecessors.

By summer 1759, Frederick had left the Russian threat to a subordinate, taking the Austrian theater for himself. This was a mistake: the Prussian army blundered into a frontal assault against Saltykov’s well-prepared troops at Paltzig, just inside the Prussian border, on 12/23 July 1759. They succeeded only in smashing repeatedly into impregnable Russian posi-tions, where Prussia’s well-drilled troops were slaughtered by Russian artillery. Frederick was forced to take over the defense against the Rus-sians personally.

After Paltzig, Saltykov’s forces dug in around the village of Kunersdorf on the Oder River, where they were joined by an Austrian corps sent to cooperate against Frederick. The allied forces had over 60,000 men between them. Anticipating an attack from Frederick, they constructed an elaborate series of field fortifications on a ridge running from south-west to northeast. Commanding only 50,000 men east of the Russian posi-tion, Frederick believed he could swing around the northeast extreme of the Russian position to attack its vulnerable flank, not realizing the true extent and strength of the Russian entrenchments. After repositioning his troops, Frederick attacked on the morning of 1/12 August 1759,

following lengthy artillery bombardment with an infantry assault at noon up three sides of the hill anchoring the northeastern end of the Russian line. After clearing those heights in a bloody fight, he then threw his army against the next hill in the chain, immediately to the southwest, only to find densely packed Russian and Austrian infantry facing him across the small valley separating the hills. The smoke and dust of the battle pre-vented any coordination of the overall attack. An assault by Prussian cav-alry on the southeastern face of the Russian position was repulsed by Rumiantsev’s cavalry. As the grinding attack against stubborn Russian-Austrian defenses dragged on, growing numbers of Prussians deserted to safety in the surrounding woods until Frederick’s army finally melted away. Russian cavalry sweeping through the low ground southeast of the Russian line completed the rout. Frederick was convinced his reign was over and that there was no escaping his allies’ combined might.

The carnage of Kunersdorf—30,000 dead and wounded—and the growing divergence of interests between Russia and Austria meant that Saltykov did not take full advantage of his victory. His army had been almost as badly battered as Frederick’s. Berlin was close and undefended, but Saltykov only halfheartedly crept closer to Frederick’s capital and did not attempt to destroy Frederick’s shattered forces, allowing the Prussians to rebuild an army. By October, Saltykov withdrew into winter quarters in Poland, allowing Frederick still more time to rebuild. Prussian despera-tion spurred frantic efforts to scrape together 100,000 men. At the same time, Russia’s desire to retain East Prussia after the war caused growing unease in Austria.

The Russian plan for 1760 envisaged active cooperation with the Aus-trians to clear Silesia entirely of Prussian troops and use of the combined weight of the two armies to crush Frederick if he attempted to stop them.

Despite better strategic coordination, the campaign itself proved frustrat-ing, as the two armies still could not force Frederick into a final confronta-tion. Saltykov was relieved of command and replaced by Fermor, who had not improved his nerve and initiative in his time out of power. Hop-ing to salvage a lost year, the Russians adopted a French proposal for a lightning raid on Frederick’s capital Berlin, left undefended by Freder-ick’s concentration of troops in Silesia. A joint Russian-Austrian force, with large quantities of cossacks and light cavalry, swept rapidly up the Oder River in September 1761, assembling outside Berlin. Seeing the impossibility of defending the city, the Prussian garrison evacuated and Russian troops occupied Berlin on 28 September/9 October 1760. Eager to score political points, the Russian troops were exemplary in their restrained treatment of the population and the mild conditions they imposed. The flying corps that had taken the city was too distant from its infantry and supplies to hold Berlin and withdrew two days later.

Though a remarkable public relations feat, the brief occupation of Ber-lin did nothing to conclude the war. Though Prussian reserves of

Though a remarkable public relations feat, the brief occupation of Ber-lin did nothing to conclude the war. Though Prussian reserves of