Franz A. J. Szabo. The Seven Years War in Europe, 1756-1763. Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2008. xxi + 511 pp. $38.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-582-29272-7.

Reviewed by Brian G.H. Ditcham (Independent Scholar)
Published on H-German (February, 2008)

Cutting "Old Fritz" Down To Size?

In the preface to his new work on the Seven Years War, Franz A. J. Szabo recounts the oft-told tale of Joseph Goebbels's call to General Theodor Busse on April 13, 1945. The propaganda minister was in an excited state: "The Czarina is dead!" he announced, to inform his interlocutor that Franklin D. Roosevelt had just died (p. x). The historical reference would have been obvious to Busse. The death of Empress Elizabeth of Russia in January 1762, when all seemed lost for Prussia, led to a dramatic reversal of fortune. Maybe miracles could repeat themselves. Adolf Hitler, whose self-identification with Frederick II had grown as the war turned against him, also clutched at this straw while meditating on a portrait of the Prussian monarch that hung in his bunker quarters. The events of January 1762 are a remarkably clear-cut example of the decisive role of individual personality in history. Szabo's book could never be accused of underplaying this aspect of his chosen topic. This is a book in which the personalities of kings and empresses, ministers and royal favorites, and ambassadors and field marshals play an important role.

It is also a book whose title needs to be taken seriously. This is not a history of the Seven Years War in all its complexity; instead, a parallel volume on the war in the wider world, from Quebec to Manila, is planned in the same series. Clearly, a case can be made for seeing these two conflicts as largely separate: a Franco-British war fought primarily in the non-European world and the Third Silesian War waged between Austria and its allies (primarily Russia, but including France, Sweden, and many smaller German principalities). In practice however, it proves harder to keep the conflicts apart, not just because of the continental dimension of the Franco-British conflict, fought in western Germany (which gets full coverage from Szabo). British and French war aims and strategies were primarily focused on the wider world and French enthusiasm for the war in Europe faded fast in the face of defeat on the high seas and in North America. Even if military developments in these far-flung areas mostly figure as "noises off" for Szabo, they are important in his account of the protracted peace-making process, in which the Grand Banks fisheries appear more prominently than the County of Glatz.

It should also be added that Szabo's "Europe" has a distinctly continental tinge. It largely stops at the high-water mark. Naval conflict, even in European waters, is handled in much the same way as the war outside Europe. For example, Admiral Hawke's victory over the French fleet at Quiberon Bay in 1759 (which virtually eliminated the latter as a serious force) gets barely more attention than the minor encounter between Swedish and Prussian galleys in the Baltic coastal waters off Neuwarp in the same year. The largely forgotten conflict between Spain and Portugal in 1762 is covered, though in relatively little detail. The core of the narrative concentrates on the war fought in the space bounded by the Rhine, the Oder, the Baltic, and the Bohemian mountains.

"Narrative" is the key word. Szabo's account has a distinctly old fashioned air about it. While cognizant of recent scholarship like Jonathan Dull's outstanding The French Navy and the Seven Years' War (2005) and the slightly older but now classic works of Christopher Duffy on eighteenth-century warfare (such as The Military Experience in the Age of Reason [1987]; Russia's Military Way to the West [1981]), it could have been written fifty or even seventy years ago. Apart from Szabo's own work in Austrian archives, it relies essentially on long-published primary materials rather than new research.

In terms of content and approach, this is a military/diplomatic history. Armies march and counter-march and sometimes clash bloodily; the advances and retreats and maneuvers are followed faithfully, sometimes on a daily basis. Battles are described in rather distanced, large-unit terms. To support this approach, the provision of battle maps is reasonably good, although there are some surprising absences: no map of Hochkirch is included, even though the book's jacket bears a striking depiction of this battle, nor is there one of Rossbach. Rulers and ministers and diplomats negotiate subsidy treaties, squabble over military deployments, and worry about financing their armies. The voices of those below this exalted level are completely inaudible. While from time to time Szabo notes the growing importance of the so-called "little war" waged by irregular and semi-regular forces like the Cossacks, it is rarely integrated into the story. The reader is given little sense of the reality of war at the level of the individual combatant, let alone how war impacted civilian populations. Cultural aspects of the conflict, propaganda and counter-propaganda, the role of religion, and the manufacturing of patriotic consensus in the combatant powers are all passed over in silence.

Within this rather narrow focus, Szabo provides a thorough, detailed account of military operations and their high political context. However, the narration is not always easy to follow. While it is not always easy for an author to keep track of parallel operations spread out over a wide area and make clear to the reader how they interrelate, Szabo's approach to this problem is distinctly unsatisfactory. His chapters are long, without sub-divisions; they jump chronologically. The Battle of Minden in July 1759 is covered after the Prussian reverses of November and December of that year, while Swedish operations in the same year appear in the narrative after the Russian retreat to winter quarters in late 1760.

A more serious issue is perhaps Szabo's open animus against Prussia and Frederick II. The king's military ability is regularly minimized, his personality criticized, and his policies derided. He is given little credit for Prussian victories (generally attributed to the achievements of others) but sole blame for defeats. Even his literary skills and musical abilities are belittled. The Prussian cantonal system of military recruitment is dismissed as "infamous," and recruits into the Prussian army from elsewhere in Germany are invariably "dragooned." The brutality of the Prussian occupation of Saxony is repeatedly stressed. There are distinct echoes of the Prussophobe consensus that dominated most Anglophone historiography of Germany from at least 1914 until quite recently, which at its most radical saw Prussia as solely and uniquely to blame for all the evils of the twentieth century. Clearly, this venerable academic interpretation has been much debated in recent years in Germany and beyond. It would have been interesting had Szabo sought to engage with recent scholarship to explain why he prefers the more traditional view, but he fails to do this. "Apologists" for Frederick are regularly scolded but rarely identified by name.

In the end, Szabo's acerbic tone becomes wearing and even counter-productive. If Frederick II was really so devoid of any positive qualities whatsoever, why did he find so many enthusiastic admirers? Attentive reading begins to detect double standards. Ferdinand of Brunswick's infringement of Dutch neutrality in the run-up to the Battle of Crefeld in 1758 curiously escapes moral condemnation (even though he was on the Prussian side). The sad fate of nominally neutral Poland as base area and supply zone for the Russian armies is barely mentioned until the final pages, although most of the blame for Poland's problems is placed at Frederick's door for debasing its currency.

Frederick's approach to warfare was undoubtedly brutal and hugely wasteful of life. What, however, are we to make of the Austrian court's categorical order to General Leopold von Daun (whose undoubted skills at maneuvering his troops were matched by extreme caution about giving battle) that he must at all costs engage Frederick even if he was likely to be defeated? Szabo clearly shares the view of the Austrian Chancellor Wenzel von Kaunitz that Austria's failure to crush Prussia was a tragedy for Europe and the world. One does not have to share Thomas Carlyle's notorious hero worship of Frederick to find this view somewhat simplistic. Kaunitz's problem was that in order to strip Prussia of Silesia and restore it to Habsburg rule, an unreformed Austria needed allies. With the exception of Elizabeth of Russia, however, no other major European ruler was prepared to face bankruptcy to achieve that end. In the final analysis, even Maria Theresia of Austria was unwilling to beggar herself to regain Silesia. Elizabeth died and the pro-Prussian Peter III ascended the throne. Although (as Hitler's case showed) such fateful turning points are not always decisive, in this case Prussia survived, and (pace Szabo) survival amounted to victory.

Ultimately this is a rather unsatisfactory book, an uneasy mix of a very traditional "battles and treaties" history, and a morality play in which the villain unaccountably escapes in the end. Its narrow focus, clear biases, and rather convoluted narrative line will make it a problematic book to teach.

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Citation: Brian G.H. Ditcham. Review of Szabo, Franz A. J., The Seven Years War in Europe, 1756-1763. H-German, H-Net Reviews. February, 2008.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=14227

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