BERNSTORFF, ANDREAS PETER, COUNT VON (1735 1797), Danish statesman, was born in Hanover on Aug. 28 His career was determined by his uncle, Johann Hartwig Ernst Bernstorff, who sent his nephew to study in the German and Swiss universities and travel for some years in Italy, France, England, and Holland, to prepare himself for a statesman's career. In 1758 he entered the Danish foreign office, was created count in 1767, and was dismissed with his uncle in 17 70. He re-entered the service after Struensee's fall at the end of 1772, working at first in the finance and economic departments, and also taking an especial interest in agriculture. The improvements he introduced in the tenures of his peasantry anticipated in some respects the agricul tural reforms of the next generation.
In April 1773 Bernstorff was transferred to the ministry of foreign affairs, where his first official act was to conclude the negotiations which had long been pending with the grand-duke Paul as duke of Holstein-Gottorp. The result was the exchange treaty of June I (May 21, O.S.), 1773, confirming the previous treaty of 1767 (see BERNSTORFF, J. H. E.). This was followed by the treaty of alliance between Denmark and Russia of Aug. 12, 1773, which was partly a mutually defensive league and partly an engagement between the two states to upset the new constitu tion recently established in Sweden by Gustavus III., when the right moment for doing so should arrive. Though the preliminaries of this treaty had been definitely settled in his uncle's time, there can be no doubt that he regarded this anti-Swedish policy as the correct one for Denmark. It is also pretty certain that the anti Swedish alliance was Russia's price for compounding the Gottorp difficulty.
Starting from the hypothesis that Sweden was "Denmark-Nor way's most active and irreconcilable enemy," Bernstorff logically included France, the secular ally of Sweden, among the hostile powers with whom an alliance was to be avoided, and drew near to Great Britain as the natural foe of France, especially during the American War of Independence, and this, too, despite the irrita tion occasioned in Denmark-Norway by Great Britain's masterful interpretation of the expression "contraband." Bernstorff was much inclined, the same winter, to join a triple alliance between Great Britain, Russia, and Denmark-Norway, proposed by England for the purpose of compelling the Bourbon powers to accept rea sonable terms of peace. But he was overruled by the crown prince Frederick, who thought such a policy was hazardous, and the Rus sian chancellor Nikita Panin proposed an armed league, to embrace all the neutral powers, for the purpose of protecting neutral ship ping in time of war. This league was very similar to one proposed by Bernstorff himself in Sept. 1778 for enforcing the principle "a free ship makes the cargo free" ; but as now presented by Russia he rightly regarded it as directed exclusively against England. He acceded to it unwillingly (July 9 I 78o) ; but he had previously, by a separate treaty with England, on July 4, come to an understand ing with that power as to the meaning of the expression "contra band of war." Bernstorff was ultimately sacrificed to the resent ment of the Russian government (Nov. 13 178o). He retired to his Mecklenburg estates but, on the fall of Guldberg four years later, was recalled to office (April 1784). The new government held the mean between Struensee's extravagant cosmopolitanism and Guldberg's stiff conservatism. In the emancipation of the serfs Bernstorff took a leading part.
Meanwhile, as Bernstorff had predicted, the Russian neutrality project had resulted in a breach between Great Britain and Russia. Then came Gustavus III.'s sudden war with Russia in 1788. Bernstorff took care that the assistance rendered to Russia under treaty obligations should be as trifling as possible, to avoid offend ing Great Britain and Prussia. On the outbreak of the French Revolution, Bernstorff condemned on principle any interference in the domestic affairs of France, and he was persuaded that Denmark's safest policy was to keep clear of every anti-French coalition. His neutrality treaty with Sweden (March 17 1794), for protecting their merchantmen by combined squadrons, was extremely beneficial to the Scandinavian powers, both commer cially and politically. Taught by the lesson of Poland, he had, in fact, long since abandoned his former policy of weakening Sweden. Bernstorff's great faculties appeared, indeed, to mature and in crease with age, and his death on June 21 1797, was regarded in Denmark as a national calamity.
See Christian Ulrich DetIey von Eggers. Denkwiirdigkeiten aus dem Leben des Grafen A. P. Bernstorff (i800) ; Aage Friis, A. P. Bern storff og 0. Hoegh-Guldberg (1899) ; and Bernstorfferne og Danmark