Count Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff (; 13 May 1712 – 18 February 1772) was a German-Danish statesman and a member of the Bernstorff noble family of Mecklenburg. He was the son of Joachim Engelke Freiherr von Bernstorff, chamberlain to the Elector of Hanover. Early political career His grandfather, Andreas Gottlieb von Bernstorff (1640–1726), had been one of the ablest ministers of George I and the head of the German Chancery. Under his guidance, Johann was very carefully educated, acquiring amongst other things that intimate knowledge of the leading European languages, especially French, which ever afterwards distinguished him. He was introduced into the Danish service by his relations, the brothers Plessen, who were ministers of state under Christian VI. In 1732, he was sent on a diplomatic mission to the court of Dresden, and from 1738 he represented Holstein at the Eternal Diet of Regensburg. From 1744 to 1750, he represented Denmark at Paris, whence he returned in 1754 to Denmark as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Supported by the powerful favorite Adam Gottlob Moltke, and highly respected by Frederick V, he occupied for twenty-one years the highest position in the government, and in the Council of State his opinion was decisive. But his chief concern was foreign policy. Prelude Ever since the conclusion of the Great Northern War, Danish statesmen had been occupied in harvesting its fruits, namely, the Gottorp portions of Schleswig definitely annexed to Denmark in 1721 by the Treaty of Nystad, and endeavouring to bring about a definitive general understanding with the House of Gottorp as to their remaining possessions in Holstein. With the head of the Swedish branch of the Gottorps, the crown prince Adolph Frederick, things had been arranged by the exchange of 1750; but an attempt to make a similar arrangement with the chief of the elder Gottorp line, the Czarevitch Peter Feodorovich, had failed. In intimate connection with the Gottorp affair stood the question of the political equilibrium of the north. Ever since Russia had become the dominant Baltic power, as well as the state to which the Gottorpers looked primarily for help, the necessity for a better understanding between the two Scandinavian kingdoms had clearly been recognized by the best statesmen of both, especially in Denmark from Christian VI's time; but unfortunately this sound and sensible policy was seriously impeded by the survival of the old national hatred on both sides of