RUPTURE OF THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE. 
II 
RUSSIAN ARMAMENT OF 1791 AND RUPTURE OF TRIPLE ALLIANCE. 
When in 1788 the Triple Alliance had been signed between Holland, 
England, and Prussia, it was understood that a check was to be put 
upon the ambitious designs of Russia and Austria in Turkey and of 
Austria in Germany. Pitt in fact regarded the alliance as an instru¬ 
ment suited to maintain the existing balance, and saw in this the best 
interests of both England and Prussia/.' Yet by 1790 it became evident 
that Frederick William II had schemes of aggrandizement for his coun¬ 
try. His diplomats busied themselves in intrigues, planning a revolution 
in Galicia and sustaining a similar movement in Belgium ; signing 
secret treaties with the Turks, then at war with Austria and Russia ; 
proposing a Polish cession of Danzig and Thorn to Prussia ; and en¬ 
couraging Gustavus III of Sweden in his attack upon Catherine II. 
The Prussian diplomacy failed in every direction and the Prussian 
ministers found themselves confined to only two points of their wider 
intrigues—the limitation, if possible, of Austrian annexations, and the 
manipulation of the terms of the treaty of peace to be signed between 
Russia and Turkey. But in this latter plan, since England and Prussia 
were agreed to prevent any acquisition of territory by Russia, Frederick 
William II saw the opportunity of saving his prestige in the diplo¬ 
matic field and of drawing a distinct benefit from the Triple Alliance.* 
He therefore urged the English government to act with him in bringing 
pressure to bear upon Russia, and to this Pitt at first agreed. 
At the opening of the negotiations with Russia in September, 1790, j 
the instructions of Leeds to Whitworth, the English representative at 
St. Petersburg, ordered him to insist on a restoration of the status quo 
ante bellunt and went so far as to threaten an English-Turkish alliance 
if this was not conceded.f Catherine II, however, was determined 
not to make peace without some acquisition of territory, and fixed 
upon the fortress of Ochakov with the surrounding district as the 
least price at which she would discontinue w^ar. Moreover, Pitt’s 
supporters were not united in favor of an anti-Russian policy. As 
early as December, 1790, A uckla nd, who was throughout his career 
an advocate of a peaceful diplomacy for England, began to interject 
in his letters to Grenville arguments against the project of a Russian 
war. In this he was earnestly supported by Van der Spiegel, the 
Grand Pensionary of Holland ; for Holland by the terms of the Triple 
Alliance seemed likely to be drawn into a contest in which she had no 
real interest. Auckland’s first letter to Grenville on this topic was 
*Sorel, II, 154-155- 
f See Pitt’s speech in the Commons, March 29, 1791. Pari. Hist ., XXIX, 52-55, 
70-75 ; also Lecky, V, 292. 
