The Potato War: How Supply Turns Out to Be Decisive
FUNNY WARS 1/5. For this first installment of our “Funny Wars” series, dedicated to the most absurd conflicts, we go back to 1878-1879, when, in the name of a murky succession affair, Frederick the Great attacked Austria. But supplies were running low in both armies.
Frederick the Great was furious. “These people think I'm dead; I'll prove them wrong.” The most prominent of the “people” in question was none other than Joseph II of Habsburg, Holy Roman Emperor, who had sent an army into Bavaria in mid-January 1778.
On July 5, the King of Prussia issued a marching order to his troops and declared war on Austria for the fourth time. This conflict, officially called the War of the Bavarian Succession, has gone down in history books under the less respectful name of the Potato War, and from a military perspective, it had a far from glorious end.
In the aftermath of the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), a veritable world war that likely claimed more than 1 million lives, Frederick devoted all his energy to restoring his domains. With spectacular results: when the Bavarian Elector Maximilian III Joseph died without an heir in Munich on December 30, 1777, Prussia had undoubtedly become the second-largest power in the Empire alongside Austria.
Now, in Vienna, Joseph II, who since 1765 has presided over imperial destinies with his mother, Maria Theresa, sees in this death a unique opportunity to compensate for the loss of Silesia to the benefit of
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