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Updated: June 11, 2025
Count Haugwitz, the Prussian minister of foreign affairs, had just returned from a journey he had made with the young king to Westphalia.
Go, my dear count; but first accept my congratulations, for at this hour you have done an important service to Prussia: you have saved her from destruction. I should have crushed her like a toy in my hand if you had rejected my offers of friendship. Count Haugwitz, without obtaining further instructions from his sovereign, signed it on the 15th of December.
But by the close of February this appeal fell on deaf ears. Frederick William had decided to comply with Napoleon's terms and was about to take formal possession of Hanover. The conqueror was far from taking that easy view of the changes made in the Schönbrunn Treaty which the discerning Haugwitz had trustfully expected.
Count Haugwitz heaved a profound sigh, and wiped off the perspiration pearling in large drops on his brow. He then took the king's letter from his side-pocket and perused it once more. "It is the king's handwriting," he said, shaking his head, "and it is also his peculiar laconic style."
Even before the news of Austerlitz reached the ears of Talleyrand and Haugwitz at Vienna, the bearer of Prussia's ultimatum was posing as the friend of France.
While I am speaking of diplomatists, I cannot forbear giving you a short sketch of one whose weight in the scale of politics entitles him to particular notice: I mean the Count von Haugwitz, insidiously complimented by Talleyrand with the title of "The Prince of Neutrality, the Sully of Prussia."
The present respectable appearance of Prussia, shows, however, that whether the mission of Haugwitz had the desired issue or not, His Prussian Majesty confides in his army in preference to our parchments. Some of our politicians pretend that the present Minister of the foreign department in Prussia, Baron von Hardenberg, is not such a friend of the system of neutrality as his predecessor.
For some time past the Court of Vienna had been offering its services for mediation: they were well received at London, with open disappointment by Prussia, and with ill-concealed annoyance by Napoleon. As at the time when Haugwitz came to him to dictate Prussia's terms, so now the Emperor kept the Austrian envoy waiting without an answer, until the blow of Friedland was dealt.
The very explanations that Haugwitz had just given him as to the motives for the entry of a Prussian army into Hanover foreshadowed plenty of approaching hostilities: a brilliant victory, forestalling the union of the German and Russian forces, became necessary. For a few days the soldiers rested, recruiting their forces after their long and perilous marches.
In October, 1796, he requested his recall, but this his Sovereign refused, with the most gracious expressions; and he could not obtain it until March, 1797. Some disapprobation of the new political plan introduced by Count von Haugwitz in the Cabinet at Berlin is supposed to have occasioned his determination to retire from public employment.
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