In the announcement of the contribution, it was still called "The diplomatic revolution". This phrase was coined in 1939 by the Nazi historian Peter Richard Rohden. It is therefore better to continue using the term "renversement des alliances", introduced by Simonde de Sismondi in 1844 and Richard Waddington in 1896.
As the Third Silesian War, the Seven Years' War was ultimately a consequence of the First Silesian War. Its outbreak can initially be explained by a coincidence, the unexpected extinction of the Habsburgs in the male line on 20 October 1740, when Charles VI died unexpectedly at the age of 56. For the European powers, this was like an invitation to encroach on Maria Theresa's inheritance. The young, 28-year-old Frederick of Brandenburg-Prussia, who only came to the throne on 31 May 1740, also saw the opportunity and, unusually in the early modern period, opened the War of the Austrian Succession in winter, on 16 December 1740, with the invasion of Silesia. The risk was enormous. Frederick would have been lost if other powers such as Saxony, Bavaria, the Electoral Palatinate, Electoral Cologne, Naples, Spain and France had not decided to enrich themselves with the Habsburg inheritance.
What prompted Frederick to take this incalculable risk? It can primarily be explained by Frederick II's peculiarity as a deficient monarch. He was a dysfunctional dynast, as he had decided early on not to continue the dynasty because he was of the same sex. This was of the greatest political importance in the dynastic age, the age of the wars of succession. The dynasties of the Valois in France, the Medici in Florence, the Orange dynasty in England and the Wittelsbach dynasty in Sweden all died out because their last representatives were same-sex orientated.
Frederick was aware that he was unable to fulfil one of his most important royal duties, the preservation of the dynasty. He tried to compensate for this with conquests in order to go down in history as a great king. Self-centred, he was prepared to sacrifice Prussia for his personal glory, or at worst for his own glorious end. On 27 April 1745, he wrote to his minister Podewils: "I have made it a point of honour to increase the power of my house more than anyone else [...] I am absolutely determined to stand up for it, and at the cost of my life and fortune. [...] I have once crossed the Rubicon and now want to assert my possession of power, or it may all perish and be buried with me except for the Prussian name." Throughout the war, he carried a small can of deadly poison with him, his "comforter", to evade responsibility at all times. What Jürgen Luh calls his "addiction to fame" led to "compensatory deeds", which were intended to distract his contemporaries and posterity from his perceived shortcomings.
His father's constant reproaches that he was incapable of becoming his successor led Frederick to take compensatory action, which resulted in the bold step of 1740, dominated the rest of his life, influenced German and Central European history through Prussian-Austrian dualism until after 1866 and almost cost him his life in the Seven Years' War and almost cost his state its existence.
The change in the constellation of powers at the beginning of the global war in Europe
The Seven Years' War has been called the First World War. However, this designation is more appropriate for the War of the Austrian and even more so for the War of the Spanish Succession, which were also fought in Europe, on the world's oceans and in the overseas colonies.
After the military conflict between France and Great Britain in North America had escalated since 1754, there was also a threat of war in Europe. Austria's refusal to reinforce its troops in the Netherlands at Britain's request led to the dissolution of the Austro-British alliance on 16 August 1755. Britain sought new allies and, in the Treaty of Saint Petersburg on 30 September 1755, offered Russia the prospect of large subsidies for the stationing of troops on the Prussian border. Brandenburg-Prussia, allied with France, was to be prevented from occupying the King of Great Britain's ancestral lands, Hanover.
Frederick II was alarmed and sent his childhood friend General Hans Karl von Winterfeldt to London for negotiations. The latter concluded the Convention of Westminster on 16 January 1756. It provided for the joint protection of northern Germany, for which Frederick II now received high subsidies. The treaty with Russia was not ratified by Great Britain. The convention triggered the overthrow of the alliances.
Louis XV wanted to occupy Hanover as a bargaining chip and now saw himself betrayed by his Prussian ally. This led to the conclusion of the first Treaty of Versailles on 1 May 1756 as a defensive alliance between France and Austria. At the same time, Austria negotiated joint action against Prussia with Tsarina Elisabeth. When the French occupied the island of Minorca, which had been British since the War of the Spanish Succession, in April 1756 and landed on Corsica, Great Britain declared war on France on 17 May 1756.
Stages of the war with the Reich as the theatre of war
Alarmed by the news of his opponents' supposed preparations for war, Frederick decided to wage a pre-emptive war and invaded Saxony on 29 August 1756 - without declaring war. The Saxon army was surrounded in Pirna. Frederick II himself had brought about the situation he feared by breaking the law. On 10 January 1757, Russia joined the alliance of France and Austria. The Third Silesian War was unleashed. The population ratio of the opposing parties was 80 million against four million Prussians.
By invading Saxony, Frederick had also broken the Imperial Peace. At the Imperial Diet in Regensburg on 17 January 1757, Emperor Franz I obtained the Imperial execution against Prussia. The Empire also deployed an army. On 1 October, Frederick turned against the advance of the Austrian army under Field Marshal Browne, who wanted to come to the aid of the trapped Saxons near Pirna. Frederick defeated him on 1 October 1756 at Lobositz on the Elbe in Bohemia. The Saxon army then surrendered on 16 October. The ordinary soldiers were conscripted into the Prussian army, but later deserted en masse.
The year 1757 did not start well for Frederick. In March, Sweden and soon Saxony and Spain joined the Allies. On 1 May, Austria and France changed their defensive alliance into an offensive alliance in the second Treaty of Versailles with the aim of crushing Prussia. Brandenburg-Prussia was to be reduced to the level of 1614. Instead of the previous 24,000, France now pledged 100,000 men and subsidies for Austria. In the event of the conquest of Silesia, France demanded the cession of the Austrian Netherlands to the Bourbon collateral line Bourbon-Parma and four barrier fortresses directly to France. Parma was to go to Austria.
On 6 May 1757, however, Frederick was victorious over the army of Charles Alexander of Lorraine near Prague. It was a costly victory, bought with the loss of 12,500 casualties. With his remaining 50,000 men, Frederick attempted to encircle and starve out Prague. Frederick's triumph lasted only a short time. Austrian Field Marshal Daun quickly arrived from the east with an army to relieve Prague. Daun's army was Austria's last contingent. Frederick did not want to wait for Daun's arrival and marched towards him with some of the troops remaining after the loss-making victory. He found him in a very favourable position on the hills of Kolin. Frederick's advisors advised against a battle.
However, Frederick hoped to bring about the decision of the war in Kolin on 18 June 1757. He intended to defeat one Austrian army at Kolin, capture the other in Prague, make peace with Austria and force the French across the Rhine. Above all, he wanted to break Austria out of the anti-Friderician alliance before Russia and Sweden intervened more actively in the fighting. The plan failed. Almost 14,000 Prussians remained on the battlefield.
Prince Henry urged an immediate retreat. Frederick declared that he was incapable of giving orders, whereupon Henry led the remnants of the army back. Everyone realised that the siege of Prague had to be lifted. Bohemia, parts of Silesia and Lusatia had to be evacuated. That was bad, because with limited resources of their own, they had to fight the war from the resources of the occupied country. In western Germany, the French under Marshal Le Tellier defeated the Hanoverian army under the Duke of Cumberland at Hastenbeck on 26 July.
In terms of the history of mentality, it was decisive that Frederick lost his aura of invincibility at Kolin. Frederick's and the Austrians' assessment of the situation coincided. A Prussian victory would probably have been decisive for the war. But Frederick, weakened by his victory at Prague, whose siege he maintained at the same time, made the attempt with inadequate means. Those around him feared that he would commit suicide.
Charles Alexander of Lorraine and Daun pursued the Prussians as far as Saxony. The next major battle took place in Upper Lusatia near the village of Moys, not far from Görlitz, on 7 September. The defeat at Moys severed the connection between Lusatia and Lower Silesia. There was no good news from the west either. After the Battle of Hastenbeck on 26 July 1757, the Hanoverian observation army had to retreat under constant French pursuit. Thanks to Danish mediation, a regional truce was reached on 10 September, the Convention of Zeven Abbey. The French under their new commander, the Duke of Richelieu, occupied Hanover and squeezed it like the Prussian possessions on the Rhine and in East Frisia. The French had achieved their main war aim on the continent. Great Britain was out of the continental war.
On 30 August 1757, the Russian army under Field Marshal Apraxin was victorious in the Battle of Groß-Jägersdorf in East Prussia. The situation of the Prussians was desperate. The war seemed close to its end. The triumph of the victorious French, Austrians and Russians seemed complete. On 16 October, the Austrian General von Futak succeeded in occupying Berlin for a day with a hussar division. He refrained from plundering in return for the payment of contributions. Demoralisation spread among the Prussians.
Since August, the Imperial army under the Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen and the French army under Charles de Rohan, prince de Soubise, had been advancing against Saxony in Thuringia. Frederick rushed over from Silesia. On 5 November 1757, while dining with his generals at Roßbach west of Leipzig, he was surprised by the appearance of the French and the Imperial Army. Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz was the first to run out and mount the cavalry. There was no battle plan. The victory at Roßbach was ultimately due to Prince Henry's planned intervention.
The strategic impact of the Battle of Roßbach was rather limited. Although the Prussians were victorious, the French army continued to harass the population in Thuringia. Nevertheless, 22,000 men had put 41,000 to flight. Europe marvelled. Roßbach became a key part of the Frederick myth. Many now believed that Germans had to choose between Austria or Prussia. The victory at Roßbach led to Britain resuming its military involvement on the European continent.
While Frederick was operating in Saxony, the Duke of Brunswick-Bevern was to secure Silesia. Daun took advantage of his superiority and besieged Schweidnitz from 14 October, which surrendered on 13 November 1757. Charles Alexander of Lorraine now turned against the centre of Prussian power in Silesia, Breslau. It capitulated on 25 November. Silesia, which provided many recruits for the war and contributed significantly to the financial burden, was almost completely lost.
In order to save what could still be saved, Frederick rushed from Saxony and united with the remnants of the Silesian army on 2 December. On 5 December, the battle took place near Leuthen in Lower Silesia. Frederick emphasised the paramount importance of the forthcoming operation in a speech to his generals before the battle. He appealed to their courage and love of country and declared that the situation was so desperate that the only alternative was victory or death. He also called on those present to publicise the content of his speech to all soldiers. This demonstrates the new Frederician style of leadership. Rhetoric became a means of politics and troop leadership in the form of an appeal to the honour and love of country, not only of the officers, but also of every ordinary soldier. As a result, they entered into a new relationship with the monarch. The alternatives offered by the king were extreme: win or perish. But it was precisely this extreme contrast that gave the speech its rhetorical power and thus lent the possible "death for the fatherland" something supposedly sublime.
The armies clashed on 6 December 1757. 10,000 Austrians were left dead, 12,000 were captured. The victorious, exhausted Prussian fighters remaining on the battlefield sang the chorale "Nun danket alle Gott" after their bloody day's work. The numerically improbable victory at Leuthen, framed by this speech and the spontaneous singing of the chorale on the battlefield, but also the rapid propagandistic publication of this ensemble of speech, victorious battle and chorale, made the Battle of Leuthen an event that attracted worldwide attention and became part of the Frederick myth.
In spite of the disaster at Kolin, Frederick had once again opted for the lopsided order of battle. A significant success was achieved against the main enemy, Austria. Silesia, of decisive economic and strategic importance, was once again almost entirely Prussian. The enemy had to look for their winter quarters in their own country. Frederick spent the winter in Breslau.
In May 1758, he advanced as far as Troppau and began the siege of the heavily fortified Olmütz on 20 May. In the western theatre of war, Duke Ferdinand von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel defeated the French at Rheinberg on 12 June 1758 and again at Krefeld on 23 June 1758, controlling almost the entire territory on the right bank of the Rhine by the end of the year.
Things were less fortunate for Frederick in the east. The siege of Olomouc had to be broken off because a convoy of more than 3,000 wagons with provisions, siege equipment, ammunition, money and 18,000 fresh soldiers, almost 30 kilometres long, was almost completely lost at the end of June. Meanwhile, the Brandenburg heartlands were threatened by a Russian invasion. The Russian army under Wilhelm von Fermor was approaching the Oder, threatening to unite with the Austrians. Frederick had to defeat one of the two powers before this could happen. He decided in favour of the Russians, whose military capabilities he underestimated.
On 25 August 1758, Frederick attacked them with inferior forces near Zorndorf in the Neumark. He was victorious, but the triumph was so costly that the Russians also celebrated the encounter as a victory. However, Fermor retreated as far as the Vistula. During the battle, Frederick risked his life, dismounted from his horse, seized the banner of an infantry regiment and led
the fleeing troops once again faced the enemy. For a long time, the Russian infantry seemed insurmountable. The battle seemed lost. Frederick repeatedly ordered his cavalry general Seydlitz to attack. Seydlitz, however, waited for a favourable moment. Frederick recognised this as correct after the battle.
After winning the battle for the prize of 30,000 fallen soldiers, Frederick wrote letters in the evening while sitting on a drum. This scene became an integral part of Frederick's folklore through contemporary engravings. The Russians initially retreated to the east. Frederick once again turned against the Austrians.
On 10 October, he marched in four columns to Hochkirch during a dense fog. When the fog lifted, it was recognised that the enemy army was camped opposite. So he set up a camp near Hochkirch. Daun and Laudon's attack on the night of 14 October was overwhelming. This time they had got ahead of Frederick, who wanted to offer battle the next day.
It was thanks to Ziethen and Sydlitz that the retreat was still reasonably orderly. They felt they were in such an exposed position vis-à-vis the
with 78,000 men, were more than twice as strong as the Austrians. Contrary to Frederick's instructions, both had left the horses of their regiments saddled at night. Of the 30,000 Prussians, around 9,000 had fallen. With this defeat, Frederick had lost the ability to wage offensive warfare.
The Austrian victory at Hochkirch appeared to be decisive, but France was facing greater challenges in the European and overseas theatres of war in 1759. The decision was made to concentrate resources against Great Britain. In the Third Treaty of Versailles of 30 December 1758, France reaffirmed its alliance with Austria and Russia, but revoked its promises regarding Silesia, reduced its military and financial aid to the allies and in return renounced its claims to the Austrian Netherlands.
Frederick tried to conserve his remaining strength. It worked in his favour that the campaign opened late in 1759. Everyone was waiting for the Russians, who were gathering near Posen under Field Marshal Saltykov and did not move towards Silesia until the beginning of July. Frederick's situation was not very hopeful. His opponents had a total of around 330,000 men at their disposal, against which Frederick could barely muster 150,000. Many of them were very young, underage and untrained; many of his experienced officers had fallen in the campaigns of the previous years, which had been characterised by heavy losses. They were replaced by younger and younger, often middle-class officers without much practice. The campaign plan for 1759 envisaged defeating the Russians first.
After the battle of Zorndorf, which was more of a draw than a victory, and a series of further defeats, large parts of Prussia and East Prussia were occupied by the enemy. Money, men, horses, equipment and ammunition for the continuation of the war became increasingly difficult to find. Not far from Frankfurt on the Oder, the two most powerful enemies, the Russians and Austrians, threatened to unite for the first time. Should this happen, Berlin and the heartlands of the monarchy would be almost impossible to defend.
Frederick hurriedly advanced from Silesia, the defence of which he left to his brother Prince Henry with insufficient troops. As always in this war, the aim was to inflict a decisive defeat on the enemy before they could unite in order to escape their overwhelming superiority. He was able to block Imperial Field Marshal Daun's route to the north. However, 20,000 Austrians under Field Marshal Lieutenant Laudon were able to bypass the Prussian main force and join the Russians.
Shortly before, Saltykov had already defeated a Prussian force under the young Lieutenant General Carl Heinrich von Wedell at Kay on 23 July. Frederick united the remnants of Wedell's corps with his main force. This left 50,000 Prussians against 79,000 Russians and Austrians at Kunersdorf.
As Frederick II was head of state, foreign minister, commander-in-chief and general in one person, decisions could be made and implemented quickly on the Prussian side. The commanders of the allied forces, on the other hand, were dependent on the instructions of their monarchs and committees such as war councils. They also had to coordinate their actions, which repeatedly led to friction. In this constellation, Frederick II was repeatedly able to achieve victories through surprising and courageous actions despite his considerable numerical inferiority. He also hoped for this in the desperate days of August 1759. It was a game of vabanque, a risky all-or-nothing game.
As at Leuthen, when he had defeated an Austrian army more than twice as strong, Frederick relied on the lopsided order of battle at Kunersdorf, not far from Frankfurt an der Oder. The armies met on 12 August 1759. The start of the battle was auspicious. The king's troops had been on the move since three o'clock in the morning. He succeeded in surprising his opponents and deceiving them about the distribution of his own forces. The strategic Mühlberg with a central enemy artillery position was quickly captured and the Russian left wing was defeated. Frederick sent a victory message to Berlin.
During the battle, Herr von Bülow, aide-de-camp to Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, arrived to report to the king the victory that the duke had won over the French at Minden on 1 August, thus preventing them from reoccupying Hanover. France no longer had a bargaining chip in the peace negotiations.
By three o'clock in the afternoon, the king's advisors were certain that the Russians and Austrians would withdraw if they were given the opportunity. Frederick, however, wanted to increase the victory. Tactical mistakes quickly turned the victory into the Prussian army's greatest disaster to date. 20,000 Prussians had been killed or wounded. That was 40 % of the army. It was the bloodiest and most unfortunate battle of the Seven Years' War for Prussia. The Prussian state, which was based on the army like no other, seemed to have been destroyed. The army was in disorderly flight. Frederick had only 3,000 soldiers left.
Friedrich had two horses shot from under him during the battle. One bullet lodged in his tobacco tin. Only the boldness of a cavalry captain saved him from capture. He was annoyed that he was still alive. Everything seemed lost. He abdicated in favour of his nephew Friedrich Wilhelm. When the defeat became known, panic broke out in Berlin. The court and the heads of the administration fled. The people were outraged and shouted insults at them.
"Le Miracle de la maison Brandenbourg"
"I announce to you the miracle of the House of Brandenburg. At the time when the enemy [...] could have dared a second battle and ended the war, he marched from Müllrose to Lieberose. [...] I cut him off [...] from the whole part of Lusatia that should have supplied him with food. Hunger will force him to make a decision," Frederick wrote to his brother Henry on 1 September 1759. He had already withdrawn his abdication four days after the Battle of Kunerdorf, when 19,000 men had reassembled at his headquarters from the ruins of his army.
As a year earlier at Zorndorf, the Russians had suffered heavy losses despite their victory at Kunersdorf and did not feel able to advance on their own; they wanted to wait for Daun's army to march on Berlin together. Daun, however, was held in Silesia by Heinrich until the Russians had to retreat back across the Oder due to supply difficulties. The Russian commander accused Daun of deliberately not reinforcing him. Saltykov had lost 13,000 men and feared that a rapid advance would overstretch his supply lines. He wrote to the Tsarina: "The King of Prussia is in the habit of selling his defeats dearly; one more such victory and I will have to deliver the news of it [...] alone."
Kunersdorf remained a traumatic experience for Frederick. The main Prussian and Austrian armies continued to operate in Saxony. The immediate consequence of the battle was the abandonment of Dresden on 4 September, with the loss of an important base of operations and a safe passage across the Elbe.
On 18 September 1759, the war overseas was largely decided with the conquest of Quebec by British troops. Frederick now hoped for peace with France. A negotiated peace could now have been reached. But that would have meant ceding territory. He was not prepared to do this.
In mid-November 1759, Frederick's reader de Catt reported from the royal headquarters west of Dresden: "Everyone [...] strongly disapproved of sending the troops to Maxen." Then disaster struck. On 20 November 1759, the corps under General Finck with 10,000 men was captured by Daun near Maxen. Two weeks later, on 3 December 1759, Major General Diericke met the same fate with 1,500 infantry soldiers.
Contrary to general fears, the so-called "Finckenfang von Maxen" did not have any catastrophic effects, except that Daun's reputation rose and Frederick's popularity fell to a low point. Soon afterwards, the opposing armies moved into winter camps in Saxony not far from Dresden. As Frederick had his troops move into a field camp, he also forced the Austrians to dispense with permanent winter quarters.
The 1760 campaign began with a disaster of the same kind; this time it befell General de la Motte Fouqué. He was overwhelmed by Laudon with 12,000 men near Landeshut in Silesia on 23 June. This meant that almost the entire Silesian army, which had only consisted of 15,000 men, was lost. The Austrians subsequently conquered the fortress of Glatz.
At the beginning of 1760, Prussians were of the opinion that peace had to be sought for the sake of survival, even at the cost of Silesia. Frederick wanted nothing to do with this. The brief occupation and pillaging of Berlin in October could not be prevented.
From 1760 onwards, all continental warring parties lacked what Frederick called the "nerve of war": Money! In addition to regular taxes and English support payments, Frederick financed the war mainly with contributions, which he squeezed out of the occupied territories, especially Saxony. He also had inferior coins minted with captured and forged Saxon coinage. Soon the precious metal content of Prussian coins was also reduced. In order not to burden the crown with this stigma, he leased the mint to Jewish bankers. In the last years of the war, Frederick had to stop paying the Prussian civil servants. All the money he could somehow raise was used for the army.
He tried in vain to persuade the Ottoman Empire to join the war against Russia or Austria and the King of Sardinia to join the war against Austria or France. The war in Europe had run its course. Frederick's assessment of the situation was depressing. He constantly complained that it was no longer possible to adequately replace men and officers. Despite the Prussian victory at Liegnitz in Silesia on 15 August 1760, the situation remained desperate. He continued to operate in Silesia until the Russian-Austrian attack on Berlin in September forced him to rush to the capital's aid. The victory at Liegnitz was above all of moral importance. It was Frederick's first real success since Hochkirch in 1758.
Even more decisive was the Prussian victory at Torgau on 3 November, the last major battle of the war. Large parts of Saxony were occupied by the Imperial Army and Daun attempted to unite with it. However, Saxony was the hub of Prussian supplies, indispensable for financing the war and for the winter quarters that were soon to be occupied. Daun was wounded in the foot. Friedrich suffered a graze shot to the chest, but without serious consequences. This time Daun had prematurely sent a victory message to Vienna. That's what it looked like at 5 pm at nightfall. After a third attack with heavy losses, the Prussians withdrew. Daun had himself taken to Torgau for dressing up. But under cover of darkness, the Prussians under Ziethen stormed the fortified Süptitz Heights. The Austrians, already drunk with victory, fled. It was the bitterest moment in Daun's career as a general.
In the summer of 1761, Frederick moved into the impregnable camp of Bunzelwitz in Lower Silesia. Austrians and Russians besieged it with 135,000 men, but had to abandon the siege on 10 September because it was not possible to feed such a large army in this area. They left 20,000 men behind for observation. The war had become a trench war. After the fall of William Pitt in December 1761, the British cancelled the subsidy payments.
Frederick found no means of engaging Marshal Daun in battle. For his part, he had established an unassailable position on the mountains. In this deadlocked situation, Prussia was first threatened with collapse due to total exhaustion. Then a second miracle befell the House of Brandenburg. Tsarina Elisabeth died on 5 January 1762. Her successor Peter III was an ardent admirer of the Prussian king. Frederick could hardly believe it. Peter III not only made peace on 5 May, but even concluded an alliance with Prussia on 1 June and provided Frederick with an auxiliary corps of 20,000 men. This prompted the conclusion of peace between Prussia and Sweden on 22 May 1762.
However, Tsar Peter was overthrown and murdered in mid-July. His successor, Catherine II, cancelled the alliance and recalled her troops. However, Frederick succeeded, probably through bribery, in persuading General Count Zakhar of Chernyshev to stay for a few more days. The Austrians were thus forced to observe him with sufficient troops. This helped Frederick to achieve another victory over Daun at Burkersdorf, south of Schweidnitz, on 21 July. With Schweidnitz, almost all of Silesia, with the exception of the County of Glatz, fell into his hands.
The long-awaited but nevertheless surprising death of the Russian Tsarina Elisabeth led to the break-up of the opposing coalition and thus enabled Prussia to be preserved. But the imbalance to Frederick's disadvantage remained dramatic. His situation became increasingly desperate.
The king's generals were afraid that he would still force a decisive battle with his limited forces. War-weariness and exhaustion were generalised. In the last battle of the war, at Freiberg in Saxony on 29 October, Prince Henry finally defeated the Imperial army alongside Austrian troops. The Austrians and the Imperial troops had to leave Saxony, except for Dresden. After this failure, Maria Theresa was also prepared to negotiate. With Saxony, Frederick had a good pledge for the negotiations. An armistice was concluded between Prussia and Austria on 24 November.
The miracle was one thing, but mainly the war ended as a result of general exhaustion. Austria was also at the end of its tether, abandoned by its allies Russia, Sweden and France, which had already made peace with Great Britain and Portugal for itself and Spain on 10 February 1763, without Prussia, a breach of the Convention of Westminster. Canada, parts of India, the Caribbean, Senegal and Gambia and many smaller overseas possessions became British. The Imperial Diet in Regensburg had already declared the Empire neutral at the end of 1762.
The war ended on 15 February 1763 with the Peace of Hubertusburg without victors or vanquished. Almost all Prussian possessions, as well as Bohemia, Saxony and parts of western Germany, were devastated. 400,000 people in Frederick's state, one in ten inhabitants, had lost their lives, most of them as a result of secondary consequences of the war such as epidemics. The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation was the only belligerent in Germany to have achieved its war aim, namely to restore the territorial state at the outbreak of war.
The remainder of Frederick's reign was a perpetual Ash Wednesday for his country, a secular penitential service, a ten-year economic crisis, extensive decoupling from the international credit markets, drastically increased tax pressure, the leasing of all Prussian tax revenues to private consortia for decades, until after his death.
