After having subdued Saxony, it would be necessary to carry the war into Moravia. A decisive victory won in that province would open the gates of Olmütz and Brünn and carry the war near the capital. It would be well, before the campaign is over, to raise 40,000 men in Saxony, to hire troops from the Princes of the Empire, and to procure new forces. During the following campaign one would work to raise Hungary. Twenty thousand men would enter Bohemia and would easily conquer that undefended kingdom. If, at that juncture, England was governed by an indolent King, it would be unnecessary to bother about the Electorate of Hanover; but if it happens to be a warlike Prince, one will have to persuade France to make a diversion (using auxiliary troops) in the Electorate, which will free Prussia’s hands. This Hanoverian expedition would force England to accept the conditions imposed by France and its allies, and, under the peace, France would acquire Flanders, and Prussia would restore Moravia to the Queen of Hungary and would trade Bohemia against Saxony with the King of Poland.
I admit that this plan cannot be realized without a great deal of good luck; but if one fails in it, one has lost no prestige, provided that one has not divulged one’s secret, and even if one did not gain the whole of Saxony at the first stroke, it is certain that it would be very easy to cut off part of it. The chief points would be that Russia and the Queen of Hungary would have to be engaged in a war against the Turks, France, and the King of Sardinia.
The province which would suit us best after Saxony would be Polish Prussia. It separates Prussia from Pomerania and prevents us from sending support to the former by the difficulties presented by the Vistula and by fear of inroads the Russians that might make through the port of Danzig. You will see this more plainly if you consider that the Kingdom of Poland cannot be attacked except by the Muscovites, that if they descend on Danzig, they cut the army of Prussia off from any connection with this country, and that, if that army was forced to retire, it would be necessary to send them a considerable force to help them cross the Vistula.
I do not think that the best way of adding this province to the Kingdom would be by force of arms, and I should be tempted to say to you what Victor Amadeus, King of Sardinia, said to Charles Emmanuel: “My son, you must eat the Milanese up like artichokes, leaf by leaf.” Poland is an electoral Kingdom; when one of its Kings dies it is perpetually troubled by factions. You must profit from these and gain, in return for neutrality, sometimes a town, sometimes another district, until the whole has been eaten up.
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