Military History of The Russian Empire - Elizabeth - Seven Years' War - Prelude

Prelude

Map of the countries and their territories involved in the war. Great Britain, Prussia, Portugal, with allies France, Spain, Austria, Russia, Sweden with allies

Spain allied itself with the French and attacked Portugal in 1762, bringing those two powers into the conflict as well.

The 1740s and 1750s marked growing tensions across Europe. A key event in this instability was the sudden and meteoric rise of Prussia; under a series of careful and powerful kings, the state had consolidated power in upper Germany, and risen to a prominence far exceeding its actual land area. Fredrick the Great, who ruled Prussia at the time, drilled his military ceaselessly. One of his key innovations was oblique battle order, whereupon he purposely overloaded one flank while weakening the other; if the weakened flank held, the stronger side would be able to break through the enemy and surround them. Such a maneuver required precise timing and great skill, things his highly skilled army very much possessed.

The sudden growth of Prussia shifted the balance of power in Europe greatly. Britain and the Austrian Empire had cultivated an alliance against France for many years, but this was suddenly broken when Austria shifted its center of interest away from France, and from protecting its vulnerable colonies in the west, to the rising power of Prussia in the north. Russia, meanwhile, had clashed with France time and time again, and was searching for allies against an increasingly diplomatically aggressive France and an increasingly powerful Prussia. Thus Alexey Bestuzhev-Ryumin attempted to build an alliance with Russia's "natural friends," Britain and Austria, against its "natural enemies," France and Prussia. Austria and Russia signed a cornerstone defensive alliance in 1725, but Britain was cautious about such an alliance. Realizing the opportunity, Fredrick sidestepped his French allies and signed the Treaty of Westminster with Britain in 1756. France quickly shot back at Prussia by signing an alliance with Austria, an alliance that Russia, with the caveat of non-aggression against Poland, now joined. This so-called Diplomatic Revolution set the stage for the coming Seven Years' War, and Europe sunk into an uneasy peace.

With the dismissal of Münnich, Elizabeth entrusted control of the Russian military to Peter Ivanovich Shuvalov. Shuvalov quickly eliminated the German dress that had been introduced under Münnich. Foreseeing the approach of war in the 1750s, Shuvalov worked to improve the Russian army on the Prussian model. He drilled the army in the same tactics used by Fredrick the Great, but his success carried more to his cavalry then to the infantry, as Russia lacked the officer expertise to fully achieve the Prussian model. He also worked to convert dragoons into heavier cuirassiers and mounted grenadiers, capable of shock attacks that the lighter dragoons could not muster. He also worked to improve Russian artillery, even introducing some innovations of his own design, although he tended to get carried away by technical gimmicks.

Read more about this topic:  Military History Of The Russian Empire, Elizabeth, Seven Years' War

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