Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 42. (1992)
BLACK, Jeremy: British policy towards Austria, 1780–1793
Jeremy Black United Provinces from possible French attack5). Alliances between Britain and Prussia and between France and Austria completed a diplomatic estrangement that for Austria had seemed an increasingly likely consequence of British unwillingness to regard Prussia as a more serious threat than France. Kaunitz observed of Prussia in 1755 ‘this new power had quite changed the old system of Europe’6), and this was true of Austrian policy, but not of that of Britain. The alliance between Britain and Prussia during the Seven Years’ War was weak and, unlike the Anglo-Austrian alliance at the time of the War of the Austrian Succession, did not survive the conflict. However, the Austro-French alliance continued and this lessened Austrian interest in British attempts to improve relations. Throughout the 1760s and 1770s British politicians hoped that the Austro-French alliance would weaken providing them with opportunities to improve relations. However, the direction of Austrian and French interests lessened British chances. Austria was most concerned with central and eastern, rather than western and Mediterranean Europe. Erance was prepared, albeit reluctantly, to subordinate her concern for traditional allies, Poland, the Ottoman Empire and the Wittelsbach Electors, to her wish to maintain her Austrian alliance. In addition, far from seeking expansion in the Low Countries, the Empire and Italy, France was more concerned to ensure stability in these areas and to concentrate her resources on confrontation with Britain. It was symptomatic of the weakness of Britain’s position that one of the very few occasions when she could present France as aggressive was the French purchase of Corsica from Genoa and that most of the other European powers were not concerned. Bastia was not Cologne. The British government had hoped that Austria would react in a hostile fashion and were disappointed by the Austrian failure to do so7). In 1769 the Earl of Rochford, the Secretary of State for the Northern Department, told the Sardinian envoy that the government hoped that French moves, such as over Corsica and in support of Turkey, would alienate Austria8). The Hanoverian government was regarded in this period as pro-Austrian, though as un5) Robert Keith, British envoy in Vienna, to the Earl of Holdernesse, Secretary of State for the Northern Department, 22 May, 4, 19 June 1755: PRO London State Papers 80/196 fol. 23-9, 60, 94. 6) Keith to Holdernesse, 22 May 1755: PRO London State Papers 80/196 fol. 32. 7) Count of Chatelet, French envoy in London, to Duke of Choiseul, French foreign minister, 27 May 1768: Archives du Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres Paris Correspondence Politique (hereafter AE Paris CP) Angleterre 484 fol. 86; Count Viry, Sardinian envoy in London, to Charles Emmanuel III, 10 June 1768: Archivio di Stato di Torino Lettere Ministri Inghilterra (hereafter AS Torino LM Ing.) 74. 8) Scarnafis to Charles Emmanuel III, 10 Oct. 1769: AS Torino LM Ing. 76. 190
