Anti-Prussian Coalition
European diplomacy at this time focused on the king of Prussia, whose apparently insatiable acquisitiveness disturbed all his neighbours. Bestuzhev's offer, communicated to the British government at the end of 1745, to attack Prussia if Great Britain would guarantee subsidies to the amount of some £6,000,000, carried no weight now that Austria and Prussia had started coming to terms. Then Bestuzhev turned to Austria, and on 22 May 1746 concluded an offensive and defensive alliance between the two powers manifestly directed against Prussia. In 1747, he also signed alliances with Denmark and the Porte. At the same time Bestuzhev resisted any rapprochement with France, and severely rebuked the court of Saxony for its intrigues with that of Versailles.
About this time he felt hampered by the persistent opposition of the vice-chancellor Mikhail Vorontsov, formerly his friend, now his jealous rival, whom Frederick the Great secretly supported. In 1748, however, Bestuzhev got rid of Vorontsov by proving to the empress that Vorontsov had received money from Prussia.
The hour of Bestuzhev's triumph coincided with the peace congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (April to October 1748), which altered the whole situation of European politics and introduced fresh combinations: the breaking away of Prussia from France and a rapprochement between England and Prussia, with the inevitable corollary of an alliance between France and the enemies of Prussia.
Bestuzhev's violent political prejudices at first prevented him from properly recognizing this change. Passion had always been too large an ingredient in his diplomacy. His Anglomania also misled him. His enemies, headed by his elder brother Mikhail and the vice-chancellor Vorontsov, powerless while his diplomacy seemed faultless, quickly took advantage of his mistakes. When, on 16 January 1756, the Anglo-Prussian, and on 2 May 1756 the Franco-Austrian alliances formed, Vorontsov advocated the accession of Russia to the latter league, whereas Bestuzhev insisted on a subsidy treaty with Great Britain. But his influence had started to wane. The totally unexpected Anglo-Prussian alliance had justified the arguments of his enemies that England seemed impossible, while his hatred of France prevented him from adopting the only alternative of an alliance with her.
To prevent underground intrigues, Bestuzhev now proposed the erection of a council of ministers to settle all important affairs, and its first session (14 March–30 March 1756) proposed an alliance with Austria, France and Poland against Frederick II, though Bestuzhev opposed any composition with France. He endeavoured to support his failing credit by a secret alliance with the grand-duchess Catherine, whom he proposed to raise to the throne instead of her Holstein husband, Peter, from whom Bestuzhev expected nothing good either for himself or for Russia. He conducted negotiations through the Pole Stanislaus Poniatowski.
The accession of Russia to the anti-Prussian coalition (1756) of the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) occurred over Bestuzhev's head, and the cowardice and incapacity of his friend, the Russian commander-in-chief, Stephen Apraksin, after winning the Battle of Gross-Jägersdorf (30 August 1757), became the pretext for overthrowing the chancellor. His unwillingness to agree to the coalition became magnified in opposition accounts into a determination to defeat it, though obviously that he could only gain by the humiliation of Frederick, and his opponents never proved anything against him.
Nevertheless he lost the chancellorship and suffered banishment to his estate at Goretovo (April 1759), where he remained till the accession of Catherine II (28 June 1762). Catherine recalled him to court and made him a field marshal. However, he took no leading part in affairs and died on 21 April 1768, the last of his race.
Read more about this topic: Alexey Bestuzhev-Ryumin