Count Johann Hartwig Ernst Von Bernstorff - Seven Years' War

Seven Years' War

The first difficult problem he had to face was the Seven Years' War. He was determined to preserve the neutrality of Denmark at any cost, and this he succeeded in doing, despite the existence of a subsidy-treaty with the king of Prussia, and the suspicions of Britain and Sweden. It was through his initiative, too, that the Convention of Klosterzeven was signed (10 September 1757), and on the 4 May 1758 he concluded a still more promising treaty with France, whereby, in consideration of Denmark's holding an army-corps of 24,000 men in Holstein till the end of the war, to secure Hamburg, Lübeck, and the Gottorp part of Holstein from invasion, France, and ultimately Austria also, engaged to bring about an exchange between the king of Denmark and the Cesarevitch, as regards Holstein.

But the course of the war made this compact inoperative. Austria hastened to repudiate her guarantee to Denmark in order not to offend the new emperor of Russia, Czar Peter III, and one of Peter's first acts on ascending the throne was to declare war against Denmark. The coolness and firmness of Bernstorff saved the situation. He protested that the king of Denmark was bound to defend Schleswig so long as there was a sword in Denmark and a drop of blood in the veins of the Danish people. He rejected the insulting ultimatum of the Russian emperor. He placed the best French general of the day at the head of the well-equipped Danish army.

But just as the Russian and Danish armies had come within striking distance, the tidings reached Copenhagen that Peter III had been overthrown by his consort, Catherine II.