very profound. The fateful alliance with Austria during the Seven Years’ War seems to have been the result of her work. During this war the French generals, particularly Soubise, again and again revealed themselves as hopelessly incompetent. Madame Pompadour protected Soubise with disastrous consequences to the French cause. If she had not waged a needless war on the Continent, France might have preserved her colonies from English encroachments. The failure to throw everything into the defence of her colonial empire was again the work of Madame Pompadour who for personal reasons sought to ingratiate herself with Maria Theresa by allying the French and Austrian fortunes. The loss of the war and of her best colonies had a definite and important effect, Plechanov admits, on France’s subsequent economic development.
2. During the same war, Austrian and Russian troops had surrounded Frederick II., near Striegan. Frederick’s position was desperate, and an attack, which could easily have been made, would have annihilated him. But Buturlin, the Russian general, dallied and then withdrew his forces. Frederick was saved and upon Empress Elizabeth’s death, a few months later, recouped his fortunes. Of this incident Plechanov says: “It is not improbable that Buturlin’s irresolution saved Frederick from a desperate situation. Had Suvorov been in Buturlin’s place, the history of Prussia might have taken a different course.” That Buturlin should have been the commanding general instead of a man like Suvorov, he admits, is historically accidental. He also concedes that the accidents of the Seven Years’ War had a decisive influence on the subsequent history of Prussia, although he asserts that their effects would have been entirely different at a different stage of Prussia’s development.
3. During the French Revolution, what would have happened if Mirabeau had not been removed by premature death, and if Robespierre and Napoleon had? As for Mirabeau, the constitutional monarchist party would probably have held power a little longer. But even with Mirabeau it would have been unable to withstand the surge against republicanism. If Robespierre had been killed in 1793, his place would have been taken by another. Whether that person would have been superior or inferior we cannot tell. But we can tell, Plechanov assures us, that “events would have taken the same course as they did when Robespierre was alive.” And so with Napoleon. Had he been struck by a bullet, as he almost was, at the siege of Toulon, or
