Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 42. (1992)

BLACK, Jeremy: British policy towards Austria, 1780–1793

BRITISH POLICY TOWARDS AUSTRIA, 1780-93

years 1763-1772 and 1793-1801 respectively3). Research on this period has concentrated on the Dutch crisis of 1787, the Nootka Sound crisis with Spain of 1790, the Ochakov crisis with Russia of 1791 and the British response to the French Revolution. This article seeks to redress the balance, to indicate the importance of British policy towards Austria and to discuss the causes and consequences of the British failure to negotiate an alliance. Such a study is of particular importance because of the intrinsic interest of two subjects: the European response to the policies of Joseph II and the nature of international relations at the time of the French Revolution and the impact upon them of the latter. The approach adopted in this article is essentially narrative, because the actual nature of British policy needs to be established and to be discussed in a chronological framework that explains its interaction with policy towards other states. The article closes with an analysis of why an alliance was not negotiated in this period.

Anglo-Austrian relations in the first half of the century had been far from easy4), but when in this period British rulers and ministers looked to the Continent for a powerful ally they tended to look to Austria. The strategic vulnerability, military weakness and political problems of the United Provinces were increasingly obvious. Prussia lacked the strategic link and commitment of the Austrian Netherlands, was generally viewed as a more serious threat to Hanover than Austria and until 1741 was clearly a second-rank military power. In addition, the Revolutionary Settlement, the consequences of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, amounted in the field of foreign policy to commitment to continental affairs, hostility to France and alliance with Austria and the United Provinces. This set of assumptions was not followed slavishly, especially during the period of the Anglo-French alliance of 1716-1731, but it established a powerful tradition that was to be maintained throughout the eighteenth century and to be sustained by the fact that even when Britain and Austria were not allies they did not fight each other.

The Anglo-Austrian alliance collapsed in 1755-1756. Although hostilities had begun between Britain and France in North America, the Austrians resisted British pressure to take steps to protect Hanover and the

3) Hamish Scott Anglo-Austrian relations after the Seven Years War: Lord Stormont in Vienna 1763-1772 (Ph.D. London 1977); Michael Duffy British War Policy. The Austrian Alliance, 1793-1801 (D.Phil. Oxford 1971).

4) Jeremy Black When ‘Natural Allies’ Fall Out. Anglo-Austrian Relations, 1723-1740 in MÖSTA 36 (1983) 120-149; Derek McKay Allies of Convenience: Diplomatic Relations between Great Britain and Austria, 1714-1719 (New York 1986); Black British Neutrality in the War of the Polish Succession, 1733-1733 in International History Review 8 (1986) 345-366; Black British Foreign Policy and the War of the Austrian Succession in Canadian Journal of History 21 (1986) 313-331, here 330-331.

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