1741 - Political Events

Political Events

Sir Robert Walpole uses the phrase "balance of power" in a speech he delivers in the House of Commons February 13, giving expression to the principle that has long guided British foreign policy.

Prussia's Frederick II gains a victory April 10 at Mollwitz (his 22,000 men outnumber Austria's 18,000) and later joins a secret alliance against Austria signed at Nymphenburg in May by France, Bavaria, and Spain, who are soon joined by Saxony (see 1740). An allied French-Bavarian army invades Austria and Bohemia and seizes Prague with Saxon help after 30,000 Austrian defenders have died of typhus. Frederick conquers Silesia and goes on to capture Brieg, Neisse, Glatz, and Olmutz before British diplomats mediate between Prussia and Austria (see 1742).

A Russian commission finds the regent Count Biron guilty of treason April 11 and sentences him to death by quartering (see 1740). The sentence is commuted to banishment for life to Siberia, and the count's vast property is confiscated, including diamonds worth £600,000. The French ambassador plots to destroy the Austrian influence dominant at St. Petersburg, playing on fears of the late Peter the Great's daughter Elizabeth Petrovna, now 31, that she will be confined to a convent for life. Sweden uses French mediators to make a secret agreement with the Russian princess Elizabeth Petrovna, who promises to return the Baltic territories that Sweden lost 20 years ago under terms of the Treaty of Nystad in exchange for Swedish support in her efforts to gain power. She tells Finns that Finland will become a separate state under Russian suzerainty. Sweden declares war on Russia in July, announcing that Swedes will withdraw only when Elizabeth Petrovna becomes the Russian empress. Russian forces defeat the Swedes at Vilmanstrand in August, but the Swedes advance on St. Petersburg (see 1742). The French ambassador supplies Elizabeth Petrovna with money, and she drives with her supporters to the barracks of the Preobrazhensky Guards the night of December 6 (November 25 Old Style), arouses their sympathies with a stirring speech, and leads the guards to the Winter Palace for a coup d'état. She seizes the new regent Anna Leopoldovna and her children, including the infant czar Ivan VI, banishes Anna and her husband to Siberia along with her foreign minister Andrei Ivanovich Osterman and other advisers, deposes the czar, has him imprisoned, and ascends the imperial throne to begin a reign that will continue until her death early in 1762.

Admiral Vernon leads a 100-ship, 27,000-man Royal Navy armada against the Spanish fortress San Felipe at Cartagena in the ongoing War of Jenkin's Ear but abandons a siege after 2 months of dodging Spanish lead and slapping mosquitoes that carry malaria and yellow fever (see 1739). The British retire to Jamaica after disease and battle wounds have reduced a force of 8,000 landed ashore near Cartagena to only 3,500 effectives. Admiral Vernon decorates colonial captain Lawrence Washington of Virginia for having led three gallant charges against the walls of San Felipe. Washington returns to the Potomac River plantation he calls Green Mountain and renames it Mount Vernon (see 1751).

Commodore George Anson, 44, Royal Navy, arrives on the southwest coast of South America May 8 after a 7-month voyage from England during which he has come through the Straits of Magellan, been driven back by ferocious storms to the Atlantic, rounded Cape Horn, but lost three of his six ill-equipped, poorly manned ships. First Lord of the Admiralty Sir Charles Wager, 75, and Admiral Sir John Norris have promoted Anson's expedition, which was intended to capture Spanish treasure galleons in the Pacific, but Anson has had to supplement the crews of his flagship, the 60-gun H.M.S. Centurion, and his other ships with aged pensioners from the Royal Hospital at Chelsea, marines, and soldiers. Anson has hoped to replenish his stores on Juan Fernandez Island, but not being able to determine his longitude he narrowly misses the island, does not sight it until June 21, and is unable to land until July 23, by which time he has lost nearly two-thirds of his men to the elements, scurvy, or tropical disease. By the time of departure in September, only 214 of the original 521-man Centurion complement remain alive (including 15 of her 122 marines and pensioners), only 82 of H.M.S. Gloucester's original 396; and only 39 of H.M.S. Tryal's original 96. Redistributing those who have survived, Anson raids Spanish mining settlements on the Chilean coast, recruits more seamen, and takes some Spanish ships as prizes (see 1742).