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diff --git a/2117.txt b/2117.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9fffda6 --- /dev/null +++ b/2117.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4059 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. +XVII. (of XXI.), by Thomas Carlyle + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) + Frederick The Great--The Seven-Years War: First Campaign--1756-1757. + +Author: Thomas Carlyle + +Posting Date: June 13, 2008 [EBook #2117] +Release Date: March 2000 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. *** + + + + +Produced by D.R. Thompson + + + + + +HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA + +FREDERICK THE GREAT + +By Thomas Carlyle + + + + +Book XVII--THE SEVEN-YEARS WAR: FIRST CAMPAIGN.--1756-1757. + + + + +Chapter I.--WHAT FRIEDRICH HAD READ IN THE MENZEL DOCUMENTS. + +The ill-informed world, entirely unaware of what Friedrich had been +studying and ascertaining, to his bitter sorrow, for four years past, +was extremely astonished at the part he took in those French-English +troubles; extremely provoked at his breaking out again into a Third +Silesian War, greater than all the others, and kindling all Europe in +such a way. The ill-informed world rang violently, then and long after, +with a Controversy, "Was it of his beginning, or Not of his beginning?" +Controversy, which may in our day be considered as settled by unanimous +mankind; finished forever; and can now have no interest for any +creature. + +Omitting that, our problem is (were it possible in brief compass), To +set forth, by what authentic traits there are,--not the "ambitious," +"audacious," voracious and highly condemnable Friedrich of the +Gazetteers,--but the thrice-intricately situated Friedrich of Fact. What +the Facts privately known to Friedrich were, in what manner known; and +how, in a more complex crisis than had yet been, Friedrich demeaned +himself: upon which latter point, and those cognate to it, readers ought +not to be ignorant, if now fallen indifferent on so many other points of +the Affair. What a loud-roaring, loose and empty matter is this tornado +of vociferation which men call "Public Opinion"! Tragically howling +round a man; who has to stand silent the while; and scan, wisely under +pain of death, the altogether inarticulate, dumb and inexorable matter +which the gods call Fact! Friedrich did read his terrible Sphinx-riddle; +the Gazetteer tornado did pipe and blow. King Friedrich, in contrast +with his Environment at that time, will most likely never be portrayed +to modern men in his real proportions, real aspect and attitude then and +there,--which are silently not a little heroic and even pathetic, when +well seen into;--and, for certain, he is not portrayable at present, +on our side of the Sea. But what hints and fractions of feature we +authentically have, ought to be given with exactitude, especially with +brevity, and left to the ingenuous imagination of readers. + +The secret sources of the Third Silesian War, since called "Seven-Years +War," go back to 1745; nay, we may say, to the First Invasion of Silesia +in 1740. For it was in Maria Theresa's incurable sorrow at loss of +Silesia, and her inextinguishable hope to reconquer it, that this and +all Friedrich's other Wars had their origin. Twice she had signed Peace +with Friedrich, and solemnly ceded Silesia to him: but that too, with +the Imperial Lady, was by no means a finis to the business. Not that +she meant to break her Treaties; far from her such a thought,--in the +conscious form. Though, alas, in the unconscious, again, it was always +rather near! practically, she reckoned to herself, these Treaties would +come to be broken, as Treaties do not endure forever; and then, at the +good moment, she did purpose to be ready. "Silesia back to us; Pragmatic +Sanction complete in every point! Was not that our dear Father's will, +monition of all our Fathers and their Patriotisms and Traditionary +Heroisms; and in fact, the behest of gods and men?" Ten years ago, this +notion had been cut down to apparent death, in a disastrous manner, for +the second time. But it did not die in the least: it never thinks of +dying; starts always anew, passionate to produce itself again as action +valid at last; and lives in the Imperial Heart with a tenacity that is +strange to observe. Still stranger, in the envious Valet-Heart,--in that +of Bruhl, who had far less cause! + +The Peace of Dresden, Christmas, 1745, seemed to be an act of +considerable magnanimity on Friedrich's part. It was, at the first blush +of it, "incredible" to Harrach, the Austrian Plenipotentiary; whose +embarrassed, astonished bow we remember on that occasion, with English +Villiers shedding pious tears. But what is very remarkable withal is +a thing since discovered: [INFRA, next Note (p. 276).] That Harrach, +magnanimous signature hardly yet dry, did then straightway, by order of +his Court, very privately inquire of Bruhl, "There is Peace, you see; +what they call Peace:--but our TREATY OF WARSAW, for Partition of this +magnanimous man, stands all the same; does n't it?" To which, according +to the Documents, Bruhl, hardly escaped from the pangs of death, and +still in a very pale-yellow condition, had answered in effect, "Hah, +say you so? One's hatred is eternal;--but that man's iron heel! Wait a +little; get Russia to join in the scheme!"--and hung back; the willing +mind, but the too terrified! And in this way, like a famishing dog in +sight of a too dangerous leg of mutton, Bruhl has ever since rather +held back; would not re-engage at all, for almost two years, even on +the Czarina's engaging; and then only in a cautious, conditional and +hypothetic manner,--though with famine increasing day by day in sight +of the desired viands. His hatred is fell; but he would fain escape with +back unbroken. + + + + +HOW FRIEDRICH DISCOVERED THE MYSTERY. CONCERNING MENZEL AND WEINGARTEN. + +Friedrich has been aware of this mystery, at least wide awake to it and +becoming ever more instructed, for almost four years. Traitor Menzel the +Saxon Kanzellist--we, who have prophetically read what he had to confess +when laid hold of, are aware, though as yet, and on to 1757, it is a +dead secret to all mortals but himself and "three others"--has been busy +for Prussia ever since "the end of 1752." Got admittance to the Presses; +sent his first Excerpt "about the time of Easter-Fair, 1753,"--time +of Voltaire's taking wing. And has been at work ever since. Copying +Despatches from the most secret Saxon Repositories; ready always on +Excellency Mahlzahn's indicating the Piece wanted; and of late, I should +think, is busier than ever, as the Saxon Mystery, which is also an +Austrian and Russian one, gets more light thrown into it, and seems to +be fast ripening towards action of a perilous nature. The first Excerpts +furnished by Menzel, readers can judge how enigmatic they were. These +Menzel Papers, copies mainly of Petersburg or Vienna DESPATCHES to +Bruhl, with Bruhl's ANSWERS,--the principal of which were subsequently +printed in their best arrangement and liveliest point of vision [In +Friedrich's Manifestoes, chiefly in MEMOIRE RAISONNE SUR LA CONDUITE DES +COURS DE VIENNE ET DE SAXE (compiled from the MENZEL ORIGINALS, so +soon as these were got hold of: Berlin, Autumn, 1756). A solid and +able Paper; rapidly done, by one Count Herzberg, who rose high in +after times. Reprinted, with many other "Pieces" and "Passages," in +_Gesammelte Nachrichten und Urkunden,_--which is a "Collection" of such +(2 vols., 113 Nos. small 8vo, no Place, 1757, my Copy of it).]--are by +no means a luminous set of Documents to readers at this day. Think what +a study they were at Potsdam in 1753, while still in the chaotic state; +fished out, more or less at random, as Menzel could lay hold of them, +or be directed to them; the enigma clearing itself only by intense +inspection, and capability of seeing in the dark! + +It appears,--if you are curious on the anecdotic part,-- + +"Winterfeld was the first that got eye on this dangerous Saxon +Mystery; some Ex-Saxon, about to settle in Berlin, giving hint of it +to Winterfeld; who needed only a hint. So soon as Winterfeld convinced +himself that there was weight in the affair, he imparted it to +Friedrich: 'Scheme of partitioning, your Majesty, of picking +quarrel, then overwhelming and partitioning; most serious scheme, +Austrian-Russian as well as Saxon; going on steadily for years past, and +very lively at this time!' If true, Friedrich cannot but admit that this +is serious enough: important, thrice over, to discover whether it is +true;--and gives Winterfeld authority to prosecute it to the bottom, in +Dresden or wherever the secret may lie. Who thereupon charged Mahlzahn, +the Prussian Minister at Dresden, to find some proper Menzel, and bestir +himself. How Mahlzahn has found his Menzel, and has bestirred himself, +we saw. Thief-keys were made to pattern in Berlin; first set did not +fit, second did; and stealthy Menzel gains admittance to that Chamber of +the Archives, can steal thither on shoes of felt when occasion serves, +and copy what you wish,--for a consideration. Intermittently, since +about Easter-Fair, 1753. Three persons are cognizant of it, Winterfeld, +Mahlzahn, Friedrich; three, and no more. Probably the abstrusest study; +and the most intense, going on in the world at that epoch. [Rotzow, +_Charakteristik des Siebenjahrigen Krieges _(Berlin, 1802), i. 23.] + +"At a very early stage of the Menzel Excerpts it became manifest that +certain synchronous Austrian Ditto would prove highly elucidative; that, +in fact, it would be indispensable to get hold of these as well. Which +also Winterfeld has managed to do. A deep-headed man, who has his eyes +about him; and is very apt to manage what he undertakes. One Weingarten +Junior, a Secretary in the Austrian Embassy at Berlin (Excellency +Peubla's second Secretary), has his acquaintanceships in Berlin Society; +and for one thing, as Winterfeld discovers, is 'madly in love' with +some Chambermaid or quasi-chambermaid (let us call her Chambermaid), +'Daughter of the Castellan at Charlottenburg.' Winterfeld, through the +due channels, applied to this Chambermaid, 'Get me a small secret Copy +of such and such Despatches, out of your Weingarten; it will be well for +you and him; otherwise perhaps not well!' Chambermaid, hope urging, +or perhaps hope and fear, did her best; Weingarten had to yield the +required product and products, as required. By this Weingarten, from +some date not long after Menzel's first mysterious Dresden Excerpts, +the necessary Austrian glosses, so far as possible to Weingarten on the +indications given him, have been regularly had, for the two or three +years past. + +"Weingarten first came to be seriously suspected June, 1756 (Weingarten +Junior, let us still say, for there was a Senior of unstained fidelity); +'June 15th,' Excellency Peubla pointedly demands him from Friedrich and +the Berlin Police: 'Weingarten Junior, my SECOND Secretar, fugitive and +traitor; hidden somewhere!' ["BERLIN, 22d JUNE: Every research making +for Mr. Weingatten,--in vain hitherto" (_Gentleman's Magazine, _xxvi., +i. e. for 1756, p. 363).] Excellency Peubla is answered, 24th June: 'We +would so fain catch him, if we could! We have tried at Stendal,--not +there: tried his Mother-in-law; knows nothing: have forborne laying up +his poor Wife and Children; and hope her Imperial Majesty will +have pity on that poor creature, who is fallen so miserable.' +[_Helden-Geschichte,_ iii. 713.] So that Excellency Peubla had nothing +for it but to compose himself; to honor the unstainable fidelity of +Weingarten Senior by a public piece of promotion, which soon ensued; and +let the Junior run. Weingarten Junior, on the first suspicion, had +vanished with due promptitude,--was not to be unearthed again. We +perceive he has married his Charlottenburg Beauty, and there are +helpless babies. It seems, he lived long years after, in the Altmark, as +a Herr von Weiss,'--his reflections manifold, but unknown. [Retzow, i. +37.] What is much notabler, Cogniazzo, the Austrian Veteran, heard +Weingarten's MASTER, Graf von Peubla, talk of the 'GRAND MYSTERE,' soon +after, and how Friedrich had heard of it, not from Weingarten alone, but +from Gross-Furst PETER, Russian Heir-Apparent! [Cogniazzo, i. 225.] + +"As to Menzel, he did not get away. Menzel, as we saw, lasted in free +activity till 1757; and was then put under lock and key. Was not hanged; +sat prisoner for twenty-seven years after; overgrown with hair, legs +and arms chained together, heavy iron bar uniting both ankles; diet +bread-and-water;--for the rest, healthy; and died, not very miserable it +is said, in 1784. Shocking traitors, Weingarten and he." + +Yes, a diabolical pair, they, sure enough:--and the thing they betrayed +against their Masters, was that a celestial thing? Servants of the Devil +do fall out; and Servants not of the Devil are fain, sometimes, to raise +a quarrel of that kind!-- + +The then world, as we said, was one loud uproar of logic on the right +reading and the wrong of those Sibylline Documents: "Did your King of +Prussia interpret them aright, or even try it? Did not he use them as a +cloak for highway robbery, and swallowing of a peaceable Saxony, bad man +that he surely is?" For Friedrich's demeanor, this time again, when +it came to the acting point, was of eminent rapidity; almost a swifter +lion-spring than ever; and it brought on him, in the aerial or vocal +way, its usual result: huge clamor of rage and logic from uninformed +mankind. Clamorous rage and logic, which has now sunk irresuscitably +dead;--nothing of it much worth mentioning to modern readers, scarcely +even its HIC JACET (in Footnotes, for the benefit of the curious!),--and +it is, at last, a thing not doubtful to anybody that Friedrich, in that +matter did read aright. So that now the loud uproar is reduced to one +small question with us, What did he read in those Menzel Documents? What +Fact lying in them was it that Friedrich had to read? Here, smelted down +by repeated roastings, is succinct answer;--for the ultimate fragment of +incombustible here as elsewhere, will go into a nutshell, once the +continents of Diplomatist-Gazetteer logic and disorderly stable-litter, +threatening to heap themselves over the very stars, have been faithfully +burnt away. + +Readers heard of a "Union of Warsaw," early in 1745, concluded by the +Sea-Powers and the Saxon-Polish and Hungarian Majesties: very +harmless UNION of Warsaw, public to all the world,--but with a certain +thrice-secret "TREATY of Warsaw" (between Polish and Hungarian Majesty +themselves two, the Sea-Powers being horror-struck by mention of +it) which had followed thereupon, in an eager and wonderful manner. +Thrice-secret Treaty, for Partitioning Friedrich, and settling the +respective shares of his skin. Treaty which, to denote its origin, we +called of Warsaw; though it was not finished there (shares of skin so +difficult to settle), and "Treaty of LEIPZIG, 18th May, 1745," is +its ALIAS in Books:--of which Treaty, as the Sea-Powers had recoiled +horror-struck, there was no whisper farther, to them or to the rest of +exoteric mankind;--though it has been one of the busiest Entities ever +since. From the Menzel Documents, I know not after what circuitous +gropings and searchings, Friedrich first got notice of that Treaty: +[Now printed in _OEuvres de Frederic,_ iv. 40-42.] figure his look on +discovering it! + +We said it was the remarkablest bit of sheepskin in its Century. Readers +have heard too, That it was proposed to Bruhl, by a grateful Austria, +directly on signing the Peace of Dresden: "Our Partition-Treaty stands +all the same, does it not?"--and in what humor Bruhl answered: "Hah? Get +Russia to join!" Both these facts, That there is a Treaty of Warsaw and +that this is the Austrian-Saxon temper and intention towards him and +it, Friedrich learned from the Menzel Documents. And if the reader will +possess himself of these two facts, and understand that they are of a +germinative, most vital quality, indestructible by the times and the +chances; and have been growing and developing themselves, day and night +ever since, in a truly wonderful manner,--the reader knows in substance +what Menzel had to reveal. + +Russia was got to join;--there are methods of operating on Russia, and +kindling a poor fat Czarina into strange suspicions and indignations. +In May, 1746, within six months of the Peace of Dresden, a Treaty of +Petersburg, new version of the Warsaw one, was brought to parchment; +Czarina and Empress-Queen signing,--Bruhl dying to sign, but not daring. +How Russia has been got to join, and more and more vigorously bear a +hand; how Bruhl's rabidities of appetite, and terrors of heart, have +continued ever since; how Austria and Russia,--Bruhl aiding with +hysterical alacrity, haunted by terror (and at last mercifully EXCUSED +from signing),--have, year after year, especially in this last year, +1755, brought the matter nearer and nearer perfection; and the Two +Imperial Majesties, with Bruhl to rear, wait only till they are fully +ready, and the world gives opportunity, to pick a quarrel with +Friedrich, and overwhelm and partition him, according to covenant: This, +wandering through endless mazes of detail, is in sum what the Menzel +Documents disclose to Friedrich and us. How, in a space of ten years, +the small seed-grain of a Treaty of Warsaw, or Treaty of Petersburg, +planted and nourished in that manner, in the Satan's Invisible World, +has grown into a mighty Tree there,--prophetic of Facts near at hand; +which were extremely sanguinary to the Human Race for the next Seven +Years. + +This is the sum-total: but for Friedrich's sake, and to illustrate +the situation, let us take a few glances more, into the then Satan's +Invisible World, which had become so ominously busy round Friedrich and +others. The Czarina, we say, was got to engage; 22d May, 1746, there +came a Treaty of Petersburg duly valid, which is that of Warsaw under a +new name: and still Bruhl durst not, for above a year coming,--not till +August 15th, 1747; [MEMOIRE RAISONNE (in _Gesammelte Nachrichten _), i. +459.] and then, only in a hypothetic half-and-half way, with fear and +trembling, though with hunger unspeakable, in sight of the viands. A +very wretched Bruhl, as seen in these Menzel Documents. On poor Polish +Majesty Bruhl has played the sorcerer, this long while, and ridden him +as he would an enchanted quadruped, in a shameful manner: but how, in +turn (as we study Menzel), is Bruhl himself hagridden, hunted by his +own devils, and leads such a ghastly phantasmal existence yonder, in +the Valley of the Shadow of CLOTHES,--mere Clothes, metaphorical and +literal! ["MONTREZ-MOI DES VERTUS, PAS DES CULOTTES (Have you no virtues +then to show me; nothing but pain of breeches)!" exclaimed an impatient +French Traveller, led about in Bruhl's Palace one day: Archenholtz, +_Geschichte des Siebenjahrigen Krieges,_ i. 63.] Wretched Bruhl, +agitated with hatreds of a rather infernal nature, and with terrors of +a not celestial, comes out on our sympathies, as a dog almost +pitiable,--were that possible, with twelve tailors sewing for him, and a +Saxony getting shoved over the precipices by him. + +A famishing dog in the most singular situation. What he dare do, he +does, and with such a will. But there is almost only one thing safe to +him: that of egging on the Czarina against Friedrich; of coining lies to +kindle Czarish Majesty; of wafting on every wind rumors to that end, and +continually besieging with them the empty Czarish mind. Bruhl has many +Conduits, "the Sieur de Funck," "the Sieur Gross" plenty of Legationary +Sieurs and Conduits;--which issue from all quarters on Petersburg, and +which find there a Reservoir, and due Russian SERVICE-PIPES, prepared +for them;--and Bruhl is busy. "Commerce of Dantzig to be ruined," +suggests he, "that is plain: look at his Asiatic Companies, his Port of +Embden. Poland is to be stirred up;--has not your Czarish Majesty +heard of his intrigues there? Courland, which is almost become your +Majesty's--cunningly snatched by your Majesty's address, like a valuable +moribund whale adrift among the shallows,--this bad man will have it +out to sea again, with the harpoons in it; fairly afloat amid the Polish +Anarchies again!" These are but specimens of Bruhl. Or we can give such +in Bruhl's own words, if the reader had rather. Here are Two, which have +the advantage of brevity:-- + +1.... The Sieur de Funck, Saxon Minister at Petersburg, wrote to Count +Bruhl, 9th July, 1755 (says an inexorable Record), "That the Sieur Gross +[now Minister of Russia at Dresden, who vanished out of Berlin like an +angry sky-rocket some years ago] would do a good service to the Common +Cause, if he wrote to his Court, 'That the King of Prussia had found a +channel in Courland, by which he learned all the secrets of the Russian +Court;'" and Sieur Funck added, "that it was expected good use could be +made of such a story with her Czarish Majesty."--To which Count Bruhl +replies, 23d July, "That he has instructed the Sieur Gross, who will not +fail to act in consequence." + +2. Sieur Prasse, same Funck's Secretary of Legation, at Petersburg, +writes to Count Bruhl, 12th April, 1756:-- + +"I am bidden signify to your Excellency that it is greatly wished, +in order to favor certain views, you would have the goodness to cause +arrive in Petersburg, by different channels, the following intelligence: +'That the King of Prussia, on pretext of Commerce, is sending officers +and engineers into the Ukraine, to reconnoitre the Country and excite a +rebellion there.' And this advice, be pleased to observe, is not to come +direct from the Saxon Court, nor by the Envoy Gross, but by some third +party,--to the end there may be no concert noticed;--as they [L'ON, the +"service-pipes," and managing Excellencies, Russian and Austrian] have +given the same commission to other Ministers, so that the news shall +come from more places than one. + +"They [the said managing Excellencies] have also required me to write to +the Baron de Sack," our Saxon Minister in Sweden, "upon it, which I will +not fail to do; and they assured me that our Court's advantage was +not less concerned in it than that of their own; adding these words +[comfortable to one's soul], 'The King of Prussia [in 1745] gave Saxony +a blow which it will feel for fifty years; but we will give him one +which he will feel for a hundred.'" + +To which beautiful suggestion Excellency Bruhl answers, 2d June, 1756: +"As to the Secret Commission of conveying to Petersburg, by concealed +channels, Intelligence of Prussian machinations in the Ukraine, we are +still busy finding out a right channel; and they [L'ON, the managing +Excellencies] shall very soon, one way or the other, see the effect of +my personal inclination to second what is so good an intention, though +a little artful (UN PEU ARTIFICIEUSE,"--UN PEU, nothing to speak of)! +[MEMOIRE RAISONNE (in _ Gesammelte Nachrichten _), i. 424-425; and ib. +472.] + +Fancy a poor fat Czarina, of many appetites, of little judgment, +continually beaten upon in this manner by these Saxon-Austrian artists +and their Russian service-pipes. Bombarded with cunningly devised +fabrications, every wind freighted for her with phantasmal rumors, no +ray of direct daylight visiting the poor Sovereign Woman; who is lazy, +not malignant if she could avoid it: mainly a mass of esurient oil, +with alkali on the back of alkali poured in, at this rate, for ten years +past; till, by pouring and by stirring, they get her to the state of +SOAP and froth! Is it so wonderful that she does, by degrees, rise into +eminent suspicion, anger, fear, violence and vehemence against her bad +neighbor? One at last begins to conceive those insane whirls, continual +mad suspicions, mad procedures, which have given Friedrich such +vexation, surprise and provocation in the years past. + +Friedrich is always specially eager to avoid ill-will from Russia; but +it has come, in spite of all he could do and try. And these procedures +of the Czarish Majesty have been so capricious, unintelligible, +perverse, and his feeling is often enough irritation, temporary +indignation,--which we know makes Verses withal! I can nowhere learn +from those Prussian imbroglios of Books, what the Friedrich Sayings +or Satirical Verses properly were: Retzow speaks of a PRODUKT, one +at least, known in interior Circles. [Retzow, i. 34.] PRODUKT which +decidedly requires publication, beyond anything Friedrich ever +wrote;--though one can do without it too, and invoke Fancy in defect of +Print. The sharpness of Friedrich's tongue we know; and the diligence of +birds of the air. To all her other griefs against the bad man, this has +given the finish in the tender Czarish bosom;--and like an envenomed +drop has set the saponaceous oils (already dosed with alkali, and +well in solution) foaming deliriously over the brim, in never-imagined +deluges of a hatred that is unappeasable;--very costly to Friedrich and +mankind. Rising ever higher, year by year; and now risen, to what height +judge by the following:-- + +AT PETERSBURG, 14th-15th MAY, 1753, "There was Meeting of the Russian +Senate, with deliberation held for these two days; and for issue this +conclusion come to:-- + +"That it should be, and hereby is, settled as a fundamental maxim of the +Russia Empire, Not only to oppose any farther aggrandizement of the +King of Prussia, but to seize the first convenient opportunity for +overwhelming (ECRASER), by superior force, the House of Brandenburg +[Hear, hear!], and reducing it to its former state of mediocrity." +[MEMOIRE RAISONNE (in _Gesammelte Nachrichten _), i. 421.] Leg of mutton +to be actually gone into. With what an enthusiasm of "Hear, hear!" from +Bruhl and kindred parties; especially from Bruhl,--who, however, dare +not yet bite, except hypothetically, such his terrors and tremors. Or, +look again (same Senate), + +AT PETERSBURG, (OCTOBER, 1755): "To which Fundamental Maxim, articulately +fixed ever since those Maydays of 1753, the august Russian Sanhedrim, +deliberating farther in October, 1755, adds this remarkable extension, + +"That it is our resolution to attack the King of Prussia without farther +discussion, whensoever the said King shall attack any Ally of Russia's, +or shall himself be attacked by any of them." Hailed by Bruhl, as +natural, with his liveliest approval. "A glorious Deliberation, that, +indeed!" writes he: "It clears the way of action for Russia's Allies in +this matter; and for us too; though nobody can blame us, if we proceed +with the extremest caution,"--and rather wait till the Bear is nearly +killed. [MEMOIRE RAISONNE (in _Gesammelte Nachrichten_ ), i. 422.] + +Many marvels Friedrich had deciphered out of this Weingarten-Menzel +Apocalypse of Satan's Invisible World; and one often fancies Friedrich's +tone of mind, in his intense inspecting of that fateful continent +of darkness, and his labyrinthic stepping by degrees to the oracular +points, which have a light in them when flung open. But in respect of +practical interest, this of October, 1755 (which would get to Potsdam +probably in few weeks after) must have surpassed all the others. Marvels +many, one after the other: [For example, or in recapitulation: a Treaty +of Warsaw or Leipzig, to partition him (18th May, 1745); Treaty of +Petersburg (22d May, 1746, new form of Warsaw Treaty, with Czarina +superadded); tremulous Quasi-Accession thereto of his Polish Majesty +(most tremulous, hypothetic Quasi-Accession, "Yes-AND-No," 15th August, +1747, and often afterwards); first Deliberation of the Russian Senate, +15th May, 1753; &c. &c. For example, or in recapitulation: a Treaty +of Warsaw or Leipzig, to partition him (18th May, 1745); Treaty of +Petersburg (22d May, 1746, new form of Warsaw Treaty, with Czarina +superadded); tremulous Quasi-Accession thereto of his Polish Majesty +(most tremulous, hypothetic Quasi-Accession, "Yes-AND-No," 15th August, +1747, and often afterwards); first Deliberation of the Russian Senate, +15th May, 1753; &c. &c.] no doubt left, long since, of the constant +disposition, preparation and fixed intention to partition him. But +here, in this last indication by the Russian Senate,--which kindles into +dismal evidence so many other enigmatic tokens,--there has an ulterior +oracular point disclosed itself to Friedrich; in vaguer condition, but +not less indubitable, and much more perilous: namely, That now, at last +(end of 1755), the Two Imperial Majesties, very eager both, consider +that the time is come. And are--as Friedrich looks abroad on the +Austrian-Russian marchings of troops, campings, and unusual military +symptoms and combinations--visibly preparing to that end. + +"They have agreed to attack me next Year (1756), if they can; and next +again (1757), without IF:" so Friedrich, putting written word and public +occurrence together, gradually reads; and so, all readers will see, +the fact was,--though Imperial Majesty at Schonbrunn, as we shall find, +strove to deny it when applied to; and scouted, as mere fiction +and imagination, the notion of such an "Agreement." Which I infer, +therefore, NOT to have existed in parchment; not in parchment, but +only in reality, and as a mutual Bond registered in--shall we say "in +Heaven", as some are wont?--registered, perhaps, in TWO Places, very +separate indeed! No truer "Agreement" ever did exist;--though a devout +Imperial Majesty denies it, who would shudder at the lie direct. + +Poor Imperial Majesty: who can tell her troubles and straits in this +abstruse time! Heaven itself ordering her to get back the Silesia of her +Fathers, if she could;--yet Heaven always looking dubious, surely, upon +this method of doing it. By solemn Public Treaties signed in sight +of all mankind; and contrariwise, in the very same moments, by Secret +Treaties, of a fell nature, concocted underground, to destroy the life +of these! Imperial Majesty flatters herself it may be fair: "Treaty of +Dresden, Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle; Treaties wrung from me by force, the +tyrannic Sea-Powers screwing us; Kaunitz can tell! A consummate Kaunitz; +who has provided remedies. Treaties do get broken. Besides, I will +not go to War, unless HE the Bad One of Prussia do!"--Alas, your noble +Majesty, plain it at least is, your love of Silesia is very strong. And +consummate Kaunitz and it have led you into strange predicaments. The +Pompadour, for instance: who was it that answered, "JE NE LA CONNAIS +PAS; I don't know her!"? How gladly would the Imperial Maria Theresa, +soul of Propriety, have made that answer! But she did not; she had to +answer differently. For Kaunitz was imperative: "A kind little Note to +the Pompadour; one, and then another and another; it is indispensable, +your Imperial Majesty!" And Imperial Majesty always had to do it. And +there exist in writing, at this hour, various flattering little Notes +from Imperial Majesty to that Address; which begin, "MA COUSINE," +"PRINCESSE ET COUSINE," say many witnesses; nay "MADAME MA TRES CHERE +SOEUR," says one good witness: [Hormayr (cited in Preuss, i. 433 n.),--as +are Duclos; Montgaillard; MEMOIRES DE RICHELIEU; &c.]--Notes which ought +to have been printed, before this, or given at least to the Museums. +"My Cousin," "Princess and Cousin," "Madame my dearest Sister:" Oh, +high Imperial Soul, with what strange bed-fellows does Misery of various +kinds bring us acquainted! + +Friedrich was blamably imprudent in regard to Pompadour, thinks Valori: +"A little complaisance might have--what might it not have done!--" But +his Prussian Majesty would not. And while the Ministers of all the +other Powers allied with France "went assiduously to pay their court +to Madame, the Baron von Knyphausen alone, by his Master's order, never +once went." ["Don't! JE NE LA CONNAIS PAS"],--while the Empress-Queen +was writing her the most flattering letters. The Prince of Prussia, +King's eldest Brother, wished ardently to obtain her Portrait, and had +applied to me for it; as had Prince Henri to my Predecessor. The King, +who has such gallant and seductive ways when he likes, could certainly +have reconciled this "celebrated Lady",--a highly important Improper +Female to him and others. [Valori, i. 320.] + +Yes; but he quite declined, not counting the costs. Costs may be +immediate; profits are remote,--remote, but sure. Costs did indeed prove +considerable, perhaps far beyond his expectation; though, I flatter +myself, they never awoke much remorse in him, on that score!-- + +Friedrich's Enigma, towards the end of 1755 and onwards, is becoming +frightfully stringent; and the solution, "What practically will be the +wise course for me?" does not lessen in abstruse intricacy, but the +reverse, as it grows more pressing. A very stormy and dubious Future, +truly! Two circumstances in it will be highly determinative: one of +them evident to Friedrich; the other unknown to him, and to all mortals, +except two or three. FIRST, + +That there will be an English-French War straightway; and that, as +usual, the French, weaker at sea, will probably attack Hanover;-- +that is to say, bring the War home to one's own door, and ripen +into fulfilment those Austrian-Russian Plots. This is the evident +circumstance, fast coming on; visible to Friedrich and to everybody. +But that, in such event, Austria will join, not with England, but with +France: this is a SECOND circumstance, guessable by nobody; known +only to Kaunitz and a select one or two; but which also will greatly +complicate Friedrich's position, and render his Enigma indeed +astonishingly intricate, as well as stringent for solution! + + + + +Chapter II.--ENGLISH DIPLOMACIES ABROAD, IN PROSPECT OF A FRENCH WAR. + +Britannic Majesty, I know not at what date, but before the launching of +that poor Braddock thunder-bolt, much more after the tragic explosion it +made, had felt that French War was nearly inevitable, and also that the +French method would be, as heretofore, to attack Hanover, and wound +him in that tender part. There goes on, accordingly, a lively Foreign +Diplomatizing, on his Majesty's part, at present,--in defect, almost +total, of Domestic Preparation, military and other;--Majesty and +Ministers expecting salvation from abroad, as usual. Military +preparation does lag at a shameful rate: but, on the other hand, +there is a great deal of pondering, really industrious considering and +contriving, about Foreign Allies, and their subsidies and engagements. +That step, for example, the questionable Seizure of the French Ships +WITHOUT Declaration of War, was a contrivance by diplomatic Heads (of +bad quality): "Seize their ships," said some bad Head, after meditating; +"put their ships in SEQUESTRATION, till they do us justice. If they +won't, and go to War,--then THEY are the Aggressors, not we; and our +Allies have to send their auxiliary quotas, as per contract!" So the +Ships were seized; held in sequestration, "till many of the cargoes +(being perishable goods, some even fish) rotted." [Smollett's _History +of England; _&c. &c.] And in return, as will be seen, not one auxiliary +came to hand: so that the diplomatic Head had his rotted cargoes, and +much public obloquy, for his pains. Not a fortunate stroke of business, +that!-- + +Britannic Majesty, on applying at Vienna (through Keith, Sir or Mr. +Robert Keith, the FIRST Excellency of that name, for there are two, a +father and a son, both Vienna Excellencies), was astonished to learn +That, in such event of an Aggression, even on Hanover, there was no +co-operation to be looked for here. Altogether cold on that subject, her +Imperial Majesty seems; regardless of Excellency Keith's remonstrances +and urgencies; and, in the end, is flatly negatory: "Cannot do it, your +Excellency; times so perilous, bad King of Prussia so minatory,"--not +to mention, SOTTO VOCE that we have turned on our axis, and the wind +(thanks to Kaunitz) no longer hits us on the same cheek as formerly! + +"Cannot? Will not?" Britannic Majesty may well stare, wide-eyed; +remembering such gigantic Subsidizings and Alcides Labors, Dettingens, +Fontenoys, on the per-contra side. But so stands the fact: "No help from +an ungrateful Vienna;--quick, then, seek elsewhere!" And Hanbury and the +Continental British Excellencies have to bestir themselves as they never +did. Especially Hanbury; who is directed upon Russia,--whom alone of +these Excellencies it is worth while to follow for a moment. Russia, +on fair subsidy, yielded us a 35,000 last War (willingly granted, most +useful, though we had no fighting out of them, mere terror of them being +enough): beyond all things, let Hanbury do his best in Russia! + +Hanbury, cheerfully confident, provides himself with the requisites, +store of bribe-money as the chief;--at Warsaw withal, he picks up one +Poniatowski (airy sentimental coxcomb, rather of dissolute habits, +handsomest and windiest of young Polacks): "Good for a Lover to the +Grand-Duchess, this one!" thinks Hanbury. Which proved true, and had its +uses for Hanbury;--Grand-Duchess and Grand-Duke (Catherine and Peter, +whom we saw wedded twelve years ago, Heirs-Apparent of this Russian +Chaos) being an abstrusely situated pair of Spouses; well capable of +something political, in private ways, in such a scene of affairs; and +Catherine, who is an extremely clever creature, being out of a lover +just now. A fine scene for the Diplomatist, this Russia at present. +Nowhere in the world can you do so much with bribery; quite a standing +item, and financial necessary-of-life to Officials of the highest rank +there, as Hanbury well knows. [His Letters (in Raumer), PASSIM.] That +of Poniatowski proved, otherwise too, a notable stroke of Hanbury's; and +shot the poor Polish Coxcomb aloft into tragic altitudes, on the sudden, +as we all know! + +Hanbury's immense dexterities, and incessant labors at Petersburg, shall +lie hidden in the slop-pails: it is enough to say, his guineas, his +dexterities and auxiliary Poniatowskis did prevail; and he triumphantly +signed his Treaty (Petersburg, 30th September) "Subsidy-Treaty for +55,000 men, 15,000 of them cavalry," not to speak of "40 to 50 galleys" +and the like; "to attack whomsoever Britannic Majesty bids: annual cost +a mere 500,000 pounds while on service; 100,000 pounds while waiting." +[In _Adelung,_ vii. 609.] And, what is more, and what our readers are to +mark, the 55,000 begin on the instant to assemble,--along the Livonian +Frontier or Lithuanian, looking direct into Preussen. Diligently +rendezvousing there; 55,000 of them, nay gradually 70,000; no stinginess +in the Czarina to her Ally of England. A most triumphant thing, thinks +Hanbury: Could another of you have done it? Signed, ready for ratifying, +30th September, 1755 (bad Braddock news not hindering);--and before it +is ratified (this also let readers mark), the actual Troops getting on +march. + +Hanbury's masterpiece, surely; a glorious triumph in the circumstances, +and a difficult, thinks Hanbury. Had Hanbury seen the inside of the +cards, as readers have, he would not have thought it so triumphant. For +years past,--especially since that "Fundamental maxim, May 14th-15th, +1753," which we heard of,--the Czarina's longings had been fixed. And +here now--scattering money from both hands of it, and wooing us with +diplomatic finessings--is the Fulfilment come! "Opportunity" upon +Preussen; behold it here. + +The Russian Senate again holds deliberation; declares (on the heel of +this Hanbury Treaty), "in October, 1755," what we read above, That its +Anti-Prussian intentions are--truculent indeed. And it is the common +talk in Petersburg society, through Winter, what a dose the ambitious +King of Prussia has got brewed for him, [MEMOIRE RAISONNE (in +_Gesammelte Nachrichten _), i. 429, &c.] out of Russian indignation +and resources, miraculously set afloat by English guineas. A triumphant +Hanbury, for the time being,--though a tragical enough by and by! + + + + +THE TRIUMPHANT HANBURY TREATY BECOMES, ITSELF, NOTHING OR LESS;--BUT +PRODUCES A FRIEDRICH TREATY, FOLLOWED BY RESULTS WHICH SURPRISE +EVERYBODY. + +King Friedrich's outlooks, on this consummation, may well seem to him +critical. The sore longing of an infuriated Czarina is now let loose, +and in a condition to fulfil itself! To Friedrich these Petersburg news +are no secret; nor to him are the Petersburg private intentions a thing +that can be doubted. Apart from the Menzel-Weingarten revelations, as +we noticed once, it appears the Grand-Duke Peter (a great admirer +of Friedrich, poor confused soul) had himself thrice-secretly warned +Friedrich, That the mysterious Combination, Russia in the van, would +attack him next Spring;--"not Weingarten that betrayed our GRAND +MYSTERE; from first hand, that was done!" said Excellency Peubla, +on quitting Berlin not long after. [Cogniazzo, _Gestandnisse eines +OEsterreichischen Veterans _(as cited above), i. 225. "September 16th, +1756," Peubla left Berlin (Rodenbeck, i. 298),--three months after +Weingarten's disappearance.] The Grand Mystery is not uncertain to +Friedrich; and it may well be very formidable,--coupled with those +Braddock explosions, Seizures of French ships, and English-French War +imminent, and likely to become a general European one; which are the +closing prospects of 1755. The French King he reckons not to be well +disposed to him; their old Treaty of "twelve years" (since 1744) is just +about running out. Not friendly, the French King, owing to little rubs +that have been; still less the Pompadour;--though who could guess how +implacable she was at "not being known (NE LA CONNAIS PAS)"! At Vienna, +he is well aware, the humor towards him is mere cannibalism in refined +forms. But most perilous of all, most immediately perilous, is the +implacable Czarina, set afloat upon English guineas! + +With a hope, as is credibly surmised, that the English might soothe or +muzzle this implacable Czarina, Friedrich, directly after Hanbury's feat +in Petersburg, applied at London, with an Offer which was very tempting +there: "Suppose your Britannic Majesty would make, with me, an express +'NEUTRALITY CONVENTION;' mutual Covenant to keep the German Reich +entirely free of this War now threatening to break out? To attack +jointly, and sweep home again with vigor, any and every Armed Non-German +setting foot on the German soil!" An offer most welcome to the Heads of +Opposition, the Pitts and others of that Country; who wish dear Hanover +safe enough (safe in Davy-Jones's locker, if that would do); but are +tired of subsidizing, and fighting and tumulting, all the world over, +for that high end. So that Friedrich's Proposal is grasped at; and after +a little manipulation, the thing is actually concluded. + +By no means much manipulation, both parties being willing. There was +uncommonly rapid surgery of any little difficulties and discrepancies; +rapid closure, instant salutary stitching together of that long +unhealable Privateer Controversy, as the main item: "20,000 pounds +allowed to Prussia for Prussian damages; and to England, from the other +side, the remainder of Silesiau Debt, painfully outstanding for two +or three years back, is to be paid off at once;"--and in this way +such "NEUTRALITY CONVENTION OF PRUSSIA WITH ENGLAND" comes forth as a +Practical Fact upon mankind. Done at Westminster, 16th January, 1756. +The stepping-stone, as it proved, to a closer Treaty of the same date +next Year; of which we shall hear a great deal. The stepping-stone, +in fact, to many large things;--and to the ruin of our late +"Russian-Subsidy Treaty" (Hanbury's masterpiece), for one small thing. +"That is a Treaty signed, sure enough," answer they of St. James's; "and +we will be handsome about it to her Czarish Majesty; but as to RATIFYING +it, in its present form,--of course, never!" + +What a clap of thunder to Excellency Hanbury; his masterpiece found +suddenly a superfluity, an incommodity! The Orthodox English course now +is, "No foreign soldiers at all to be allowed in Germany;" and there +are the 55,000 tramping on with such alacrity. "We cannot ratify that +Treaty, Excellency Hanbury," writes the Majesty's Ministry, in a tone +not of gratitude: "you must turn it some other way!" A terrible blow to +Hanbury, who had been expecting gratitude without end. And now, try how +he might, there was no turning it another way; this, privately, and +this only, being the Czarina's own way. A Czarina obstinate to a degree; +would not consent, even when they made her the liberal offer, "Keep your +55,000 at home; don't attack the King of Prussia with them; you shall +have your Subsidy all the same!" "No, I won't!" answered she,--to +Hanbury's amazement. Hanbury had not read the Weingarten-Menzel +Documents;--what double double of toil and trouble might Hanbury have +saved himself and others, could he have read them! + +Hanbury could not, still less could the Majesty's Ministry, surmise the +Czarina's secret at all, now or for a good while coming. And in fact, +poor Hanbury, busy as a Diplomatic bee, never did more good in Russia, +or out of it. By direction of the Majesty's Ministry, Hanbury still +tried industriously, cash in both hands; tried various things: "Assuage +the Czarina's mind; reconcile her to King Friedrich;"--all in vain. +"Unite Austria, Russia and England, can't you, then?--in a Treaty +against the Designs of France:" how very vain! Then, at a later stage, +"Get us the Czarina to mediate between Prussia and Austria" (so +very possible to sleek them down into peace, thought Majesty's +Ministry):--and unwearied Hanbury, cunning eloquence on his lips, and +money in both hands, tries again, and ever again, for many months. And +in the way of making ropes from sand, it must be owned there never was +such twisting and untwisting, as that appointed Hanbury. Who in fact +broke his heart by it;--and died mad, by his own hand, before long. +[Hanbury's "Life" (in _Works, _vol. iii.) gives sad account.] Poor soul, +after all!--Here are some Russian Notices from him (and he has many +curious, not pertinent here), which are still worth gleaning. + +PETERSBURG, 2d OCTOBER, 1755.... "The health of the Empress [Czarina +Elizabeth, CATIN DU NORD, age now forty-five] is bad. She is affected +with spitting of blood, shortness of breath, constant coughing, swelled +legs and water on the chest; yet she danced a minuet with me," lucky +Hanbury. "There is great fermentation at Court. Peter [Grand-Duke Peter] +does not conceal his enmity to the Schuwalofs [paramours of CATIN, +old and new]; Catherine [Grand-Duchess, who at length has an Heir, +unbeautiful Czar Paul that will be, and "miscarriages" not a few] is +on good terms with Bestuchef" (corruptiblest brute of a Chancellor ever +known, friend to England by England's giving him 10,000 pounds, and the +like trifles, pretty frequently; Friedrich's enemy, chiefly from defect +of that operation)--she is "on good terms with Bestuchef. I think it +my duty to inform the King [great George, who will draw his prognostics +from it] of my observations upon her; which I can the better do, as I +often have conversations with her for hours together, as at supper my +rank places me always next to her," twice-lucky Hanbury. + +"Since her coming to this Country, she has, by every method in her +power, endeavored to gain the affections of the Nation: she applied +herself with diligence to study their language; and speaks it at +present, as the Russians tell me, in the greatest perfection. She has +also succeeded in her other aim; for she is esteemed and beloved here +in a high degree. Her person is very advantageous, and her manners very +captivating. She has great knowledge of this Empire; and makes it her +only study. She has parts; and Great-Chancellor [brute Bestuchef] tells +me that nobody has more steadiness and resolution. She has, of late, +openly declared herself to me in respect of the King of Prussia;"--hates +him a good deal, "natural and formidable enemy of Russia;" "heart +certainly the worst in the world [and so on; but will see better by and +by, having eyes of her own]:--she never mentions the King of England but +with the utmost respect and highest regard; is thoroughly sensible of +the utility of the union between England and Russia; always calls his +Majesty the Empress's best and greatest Ally [so much of nourishment in +him withal, as in a certain web-footed Chief of Birds, reckoned chief by +some]; and hopes he will also give his friendship and protection to the +Grand-Duke and herself.--As for the Grand-Duke, he is weak and violent; +but his confidence in the Grand-Duchess is so great, that sometimes he +tells people, that though he does not understand things himself, his +Wife understands everything. Should the Empress, as I fear, soon die, +the Government will quietly devolve on them." [Hanbury's Despatch, +"October 2d, 1755" (Raumer, pp. 223-225); Subsidy Treaty still at its +floweriest.] + +Catherine's age is twenty-six gone; her Peter's twenty-seven: one of +the cleverest young Ladies in the world, and of the stoutest-hearted, +clearest-eyed;--yoked to a young Gentleman much the reverse. Thank +Hanbury for this glimpse of them, most intricately situated Pair; who +may concern us a little in the sequel.--And, in justice to poor Hanover, +the sad subject-matter of Excellency Hanbury's Problems and Futilities +in Russia and elsewhere, let us save this other Fraction by a very +different hand; and close that Hanbury scene:-- + +"Friedrich himself was so dangerous," says the Constitutional Historian +once: "Friedrich, in alliance with France, how easy for him to catch +Hanover by the throat at a week's notice, throw a death-noose round the +throat of poor Hanover, and hand the same to France for tightening +at discretion! Poor Hanover indeed; she reaps little profit from her +English honors: what has she had to do with these Transatlantic Colonies +of England? An unfortunate Country, if the English would but think; +liable to be strangled at any time, for England's quarrels: the +Achilles'-heel to invulnerable England; a sad function for Hanover, +if it be a proud one, and amazingly lucrative to some Hanoverians. The +Country is very dear to his Britannic Majesty in one sense, very dear to +Britain in another! Nay Germany itself, through Hanover, is to be torn +up by War for Transatlantic interests,--out of which she does not even +get good Virginia tobacco, but grows bad of her own. No more concern +than the Ring of Saturn with these over-sea quarrels; and can, through +Hanover, be torn to pieces by War about them. Such honor to give a King +to the British Nation, in a strait for one; and such profit coming of +it:--we hope all sides are grateful for the blessings received!" + + + + +THERE HAS BEEN A COUNTER-TREATY GOING ON AT VERSAILLES IN THE INTERIM; +WHICH HEREUPON STARTS OUT, AND TUMBLES THE WHOLLY ASTONISHED EUROPEAN +DIPLOMACIES HEELS-OVER-HEAD. + +To expectant mankind, especially to Vienna and Versailles, this +Britannic-Prussian Treaty was a great surprise. And indeed it proved the +signal of a general System of New Treaties all round. The first +signal, in fact,--though by no means the first cause,--of a total +circumgyration, summerset, or tumble heels-over-head in the Political +relations of Europe altogether, which ensued thereupon; miraculous, +almost as the Earthquake at Lisbon, to the Gazetteer, and Diplomatic +mind, and incomprehensible for long years after. First signal we say, by +no means that it was the first cause, or indeed that it was a cause at +all,--the thing being determined elsewhere long before; ever since 1753, +when Kaunitz left it ready, waiting only its time. + +Kaiser Franz, they say, when (probably during those Keith urgencies) +the joining with France and turning against poor Britannic Majesty +was proposed in Council at Vienna, opened his usually silent lips; and +opined with emphasis against such a course, no Kaunitz or creature able +to persuade Kaiser Franz that good would come of it;--though, finding +Sovereign Lady and everybody against him, he held his peace again. And +returned to his private banking operations, which were more extensive +than ever, from the new troubles rising. "Lent the Empress-Queen, always +on solid securities," says Friedrich, "large sums, from time to time, in +those Wars; dealt in Commissariat stores to right and left; we ourselves +had most of our meal from him this year." [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ iv. +8.] Kaiser Franz was, and continued, of the old way of thinking; but +consummate Kaunitz, and the High Lady's fixed passion for her Schlesien, +had changed everybody else. The ulterior facts are as follows, +abbreviated to the utmost. + +September 22d, 1755, a few days before Hanbury's Subsidy-feat at +Petersburg, which took such a whirl for Hanbury, there had met for the +first time at Versailles, more especially at Babiole, Pleasure-House +of the Pompadour, a most Select Committee of Three Persons: Graf von +Stahremberg, Austrian Ambassador; Pompadour herself; and a certain +infinitely elegant Count and Reverence de Bernis (beautiful +Clerico-Mundane Gentleman, without right Benefice hitherto, but much +in esteem with the Pompadour);--for deepest practical consideration +in regard to closure of a French-Austrian Alliance. Reverend Count +(subsequently Cardinal) de Bernis has sense in Diplomacy; has his +experiences in Secular Diplomatic matters; a soft-going cautious man, +not yet official, but tending that way: whom the Pompadour has brought +with her as henchman, or unghostly counsellor, in this intricate +Adventure. + +Stahremberg, instructed from home, has no hesitation; nor has Pompadour +herself, remembering that insolent "JE NE LA CONNAIS PAS," and the +per-contra "MA COUSINE," "PRINCESSE ET SOEUR:"--but Bernis, I suppose, +looks into the practical difficulties; which are probably very +considerable, to the Official French eye, in the present state of Europe +and of the public mind. From September 22d, or autumnal equinox, 1755, +onward to this Britannic-Prussian phenomenon of January, 1756, +the Pompadour Conclave has been sitting,--difficulties, no doubt, +considerable. I will give only the dates, having myself no interest in +such a Committee at Babiole; but the dates sufficiently betoken that +there were intricacies, conflicts between the new and the old. Hitherto +the axiom always was, "Prussia the Adjunct and Satellite of France:" now +to be entirely reversed, you say? + +JULY, 1755, that is two months before this Babiole Committee met, a Duc +de Nivernois, respectable intelligent dilettante French Nobleman, +had been named as Ambassador to Friedrich, "Go, you respectable wise +Nivernois, Nobleman of Letters so called; try and retain Friedrich for +us, as usual!" And now, on meeting of the Babiole Committee, Nivernois +does not go; lingers, saddled and bridled, till the very end of the +Year; arrives in Berlin January 12th, 1756. Has his First +Audience January 14th; a man highly amiable to Friedrich; but with +proposals,--wonderful indeed. + +The French, this good while back, are in no doubt about War with +England, a right hearty War; and have always expected to retain Prussia +as formerly,--though rather on singular terms. Some time ago, for +instance, M. de Rouille, War-Minister, requested Knyphausen, Prussian +Envoy at Paris: "Suggest to your King's Majesty what plunder there is at +Hanover. Perfectly at liberty to keep it all, if he will plunder Hanover +for us!" [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ iv. 29.] Pleasant message to the proud +King; who answered with the due brevity, to the purport, "Silence, +Sir!"--with didactic effects on the surprised Rouille. Who now mends his +proposal; though again in a remarkable way. Instructs Nivernois, namely, +"To offer King Friedrich the Island of Tobago, if he will renew Treaty, +and take arms for us. Island of Tobago (a deserted, litigated, but +pretty Island, were it ever ours), will not that entice this King, +intent on Commerce?" Friedrich, who likes Nivernois and his polite ways, +answers quizzingly: "Island of Tobago? Island of Barataria your Lordship +must be meaning; Island of which I cannot be the Sancho Panza!" [Ib. +31.] And Nivernois found he must not mention Tobago again. + +For the rest, Friedrich made no secret of his English Treaty; showed it +with all frankness to Nivernois, in all points: "Is there, can the most +captious allege that there is, anything against France in it. My one +wish and aim, that of Peace for myself: judge!" Nivernois stayed till +March; but seems to have had, of definite, only Tobago and good words; +so that nothing farther came of him, and there was no Renewal of +Treaty then or after. Thus, in his third month (March, 1756), practical +Nivernois was recalled, without result;--instead of whom fat Valori was +sent; privately intending "to do nothing but observe, in Berlin." From +all which, we infer that the Babiole Committee now saw land; and that +Bernis himself had decided in the affirmative: "Austria, not Prussia; +yes, Madame!" To the joy of Madame and everybody. For, it is incredible, +say all witnesses, what indignation broke out in Paris when Friedrich +made this new "defection," so they termed it; revolt from his Liege Lord +(who had been so exemplary to him on former occasions!), and would not +bite at Tobago when offered. So that the Babiole Committee went on, +henceforth, with flowing sea; and by Mayday (1st MAY, 1756) brought +out its French-Austrian Treaty in a completed state. "To stand by one +another," like Castor and Pollux, in a manner; "24,000, reciprocally, +to be ready on demand;" nay I think something of "subsidies" withal,--TO +Austria, of course. But the particulars are not worth giving; the +Performance, thanks to a zealous Pompadour, having quite outrun the +Stipulation, and left it practically out of sight, when the push came. +Our Constitutional Historian may shadow the rest:-- + +"France and England going to War in these sad circumstances, and France +and Austria being privately prepared [by Kaunitz and others] to swear +everlasting friendship on the occasion, instead of everlasting enmity +as heretofore; unexpected changes, miraculous to the Gazetteers, became +inevitable;--nothing less, in short, than explosion or topsy-turvying +of the old Diplomatic-Political Scheme of Europe. Old dance of +the Constellations flung heels-over-head on the sudden; and much +pirouetting, jigging, setting, before they could change partners, and +continue their august dance again, whether in War or Peace. No end to +the industrious wonder of the Gazetteer mind, to the dark difficulties +of the Diplomatic. What bafflings, agonistic shufflings, impotent +gazings into the dark; what seductive fiddling, and being fiddled to! +A most sad function of Humanity, if sometimes an inevitable one; which +ought surely at all times to be got over as briefly as possible. To be +written of, especially, with a maximum of brevity; human nature being +justly impatient of talk about it, beyond the strictly needful." + +Most true it is, and was most miraculous, though now quite forgotten +again, Political Europe had to make a complete whirl-round on that +occasion. And not in a day, and merely saying to itself, "Let me do +summerset!" as idle readers suppose,--but with long months of agonistic +shuffle and struggle in all places, and such Diplomatic fiddling and +being fiddled to, as seldom was before. Of which, these two instances, +the Bernis and the Hanbury, are to serve as specimen; two and no more: +a universe of extinct fiddling compressed into two nutshells, if readers +have an ear. + + + + +Chapter III.--FRENCH-ENGLISH WAR BREAKS OUT. + +The French, in reality a good deal astonished at the Prussian-Britannic +Treaty, affected to take it easy: "Treaty for Neutrality of Germany?" +said they: "Very good indeed. Perhaps there are places nearer us, where +our troops can be employed to more advantage!" [Their "Declaration" on +it (Adelung, vii. 613.)]--hinting vocally, as henceforth their silent +procedures, their diligence in the dockyards, moving of troops coastward +and the like, still more clearly did, That an Invasion of England itself +was the thing next to be expected. + +England and France are, by this time, alike fiercely determined on War; +but their states of preparation are very different. The French have +War-ships again, not to mention Armies which they always have; some +skilful Admirals withal,--La Gallisonniere, our old Canada friend, is +one, very busy at present;--and mean to try seriously the Question of +Sea-Supremacy once more. If an Invasion did chance to land, the state +of England would be found handy beyond hope! How many fighting regiments +England has, I need not inquire, nor with what strategic virtue they +would go to work;--enough to mention the singular fact (recently true, +and still, I perceive, too like the truth), That of all their regiments, +"only Three are in this Country", or have Colonels even nominated. +Incredible; but certain. And the interesting point is, his Grace of +Newcastle dare not have Colonels, still less higher Officers nominated; +because Royal Highness of Cumberland would have the naming of them, and +they would be enemies to his Grace. [Walpole, _George the Second, _ii. +19 (date, "March 25th, 1755;" and how long after, is not said: but see +Pitt's Speeches, ib., all through 1756, and farther).] In such posture +stands the Envy of surrounding Nations at this moment. + +"Hire Hessians," cry they; "hire Hanoverians; if France land on us, +we are undone!"--and continue their Parliamentary Eloquences in a most +distressful manner. "Apply to the Dutch, at any rate, for their 6,000 +as per Treaty", cries everybody. Which is done. But the Dutch piteously +wring their hands: "Dare not, your Majesty; how dare we, for France +and our neglected Barrier! Oh, generous Majesty, excuse us!"--and the +generous Majesty has to do it; and leave the Dutch in peace, this time. +Hessians, Hanoverians, after eloquence enough, are at last got sent for, +to guard us against this terrible Invasion: about 10,000 of each kind; +and do land,--the native populations very sulky on them ("We won't +billet you, not we; build huts, and be--!"), with much Parliamentary and +Newspaper Commentary going on, of a distressful nature. "Saturday, 15th +May, 1756, Hessians disembark at Southampton; obliged to pitch Camp in +the neighborhood: Friday, 21st May, the Hanoverians, at Chatham, who hut +themselves Canterbury way;"--and have (what is the sum-total of +their achievements in this Country) a case of shoplifting, +"pocket-handkerchief, across the counter, in open day;" one case (or +what seemed to be one, but was not); ["At Maidstone, 13th Septemher, +1756;" Hanoverian soldier, purchasing a handkerchief, imagines he has +purchased two (not yet clipt asunder), haberdasher and he having no +language in common: _Gentleman's Magazine, _for 1756, pp. 259, 448, &c.; +Walpole, SAEPIUS.] "and the fellow not to be tried by us for it!" which +enrages the constitutional heart. Alas, my heavy-laden constitutional +heart; but what can we do? These drilled louts will guard us, should +this terrible Invasion land. And indeed, about three weeks BEFORE these +louts arrived, the terrible Invasion had declared itself to have +been altogether a feint; and had lifted anchor, quite in the opposite +direction, on an errand we shall hear of soon! + +About the same date, I observe, "the first regiment of Footguards +practising the Prussian drill-exercise in Hyde Park;" and hope his Grace +of Newcastle and the Hero of Culloden (immortal Hero, and aiming high in +Politics at this time) will, at least, have fallen upon some method of +getting Colonels nominated. But the wide-weltering chaos of platitudes, +agitated by hysterical imbecilities, regulating England in this great +crisis, fills the constitutional mind with sorrow; and indeed is +definable, once more, as amazing! England is a stubborn Country; but it +was not by procedures of the Cumberland-Newcastle kind that England, +and her Colonies, and Sea-and-Land Kingdoms, was built together; nor by +these, except miracle intervene, that she can stand long against stress! +Looking at the dismal matter from this distance, there is visible to me +in the foggy heart of it one lucent element, and pretty much one only; +the individual named William Pitt, as I have read him: if by miracle +that royal soul could, even for a time, get to something of Kingship +there? Courage; miracles do happen, let us hope!--This is whitherward +the grand Invasion had gone:-- + +TOULON, 10th APRIL, 1756. La Gallisonniere, our old Canadian friend, a +crooked little man of great faculty, who has been busy in the dockyards +lately, weighs anchor from Toulon; "12 sail of the line, 5 frigates and +above 100 transport-ships;" with the grand Invasion-of-England Armament +on board: 16,000 picked troops, complete in all points, Marechal Duc de +Richelieu commanding. [Adelung, viii. 70.] Weighs anchor; and, singular +to see, steers, not for England, and the Hessian-Hanover Defenders (who +would have been in such excellent time); but direct for Minorca, as the +surer thing! Will seize Minorca; a so-called inexpugnable Possession +of the English,--Key of their Mediterranean Supremacies;--really +inexpugnable enough; but which lies in the usual dilapidated state, +though by chance with a courageous old Governor in it, who will not +surrender quite at once. + +APRIL 18th, La Gallisonniere disembarks his Richelieu with a Sixteen +Thousand, unopposed at Port-Mahon, or Fort St. Philip, in Minorca; who +instantly commences Siege there. To the astonishment of England and +his Grace of Newcastle who, except old Governor Blakeney, much in +dilapidation ("wooden platforms rotten," "batteries out of repair," and +so on), have nothing ready for Richelieu in that quarter. The story of +Minorca; and the furious humors and tragic consummations that arose on +it, being still well known, we will give the dates only. + +FORT ST. PHILIP, APRIL 18th-MAY 20th. For a month, Richelieu, skilful in +tickling the French troops, has been besieging, in a high and grandiose +way; La Gallisonniere vigilantly cruising; old Blakeney, in spite of +the rotten platforms, vigorously holding out; when--May 19th, La +Gallisonniere descries an English fleet in the distance; indisputably +an English fleet; and clears his decks for a serious Affair just coming. +THURSDAY, 20th MAY, Admiral Byng accordingly (for it is he, son of that +old seaworthy Byng, who once "blew out" a minatory Spanish Fleet and +"an absurd Flame of War" in the Straits of Messina, and was made Lord +Torrington in consequence,--happily now dead)--Admiral Byng does come +on; and gains himself a name badly memorable ever since. Attacks +La Gallisonniere, in a wide-lying, languid, hovering, uncertain +manner:--"Far too weak" he says; "much disprovided, destitute, by +blame of Ministry and of everybody" (though about the strength of La +Gallisonniere, after all);--is almost rather beaten by La Gallisonniere; +does not in the least, beat him to the right degree:--and sheers off: +in the night-time, straight for Gibraltar again. To La Gallisonniere's +surprise, it is said; no doubt to old Blakeney and his poor Garrison's, +left so, to their rotten platforms and their own shifts. + +Blakeney and Garrison stood to their guns in a manful manner, for above +a month longer; day after day, week after week, looking over the horizon +for some Byng or some relief appearing, to no purpose! JUNE 14th, there +are three available breaches; the walls, however, are very sheer (a +Fortress hewn in the rock): Richelieu scanning them dubiously, and +battering his best, for about a fortnight more, is ineffectual on +Blakeney. + +JUNE 27th, Richelieu, taking his measures well, tickling French honor +well, has determined on storm. Richelieu, giving order of the day, +"Whosoever of you is found drunk shall NOT be of the storm-party" (which +produced such a teetotalism as nothing else had done),--storms, that +night, with extreme audacity. The Place has to capitulate: glorious +victory; honorable defence: and Minorca gone. + +And England is risen to a mere smoky whirlwind, of rage, sorrow and +darkness, against Byng and others. Smoky darkness, getting streaked +with dangerous fire. "Tried?" said his Grace of Newcastle to the City +Deputation: "Oh indeed he shall be tried immediately; he shall be hanged +directly!"--assure yourselves of that. [Walpole, ii. 231: Details of the +Siege, ib. 218-225; in _Gentleman's Magazine_, xxvi. 256, 312-313, 358; +in Adelung, vii.; &c. &c.] And Byng's effigy was burnt all over England. +And mobs attempt to burn his Seat and Park; and satires and caricatures +and firebrands are coming out: and the poor Constitutional Country +is bent on applying surgery, if it but know how. Surgery to such +indisputable abominations was certainly desirable. The new Relief +Squadron, which had been despatched by Majesty's Ministry, was too late +for Blakeney, but did bring home a superseded Byng. + +SPITHEAD, TUESDAY, 27th JULY, The superseded Byng arrives; is punctually +arrested, on arriving: "Him we will hang directly:--is there anything +else we can try [except, perhaps, it were hanging of ourselves, and our +fine methods of procedure], by way of remedying you?"--War against +France, now a pretty plain thing, had been "declared," 17th May (French +counter-declaring, 9th June): and, under a Duke of Newcastle and a Hero +of Culloden, not even pulling one way, but two ways; and a +Talking-Apparatus full of discords at this time, and pulling who shall +say how many ways,--the prospects of carrying on said War are none of +the best. Lord Loudon, a General without skill, and commanding, as Pitt +declares, "a scroll of Paper hitherto" (a good few thousands marked on +it, and perhaps their Colonels even named), is about going for America; +by no means yet gone, a long way from gone: and, if the Laws of Nature +be suspended--Enough of all that! + + + + +KING FRIEDRICH'S ENIGMA GETS MORE AND MORE STRINGENT. + +Friedrich's situation, in those fatefully questionable months and for +many past (especially from January 16th to July),--readers must imagine +it, for there is no description possible. In many intricacies Friedrich +has been; but never, I reckon, in any equal to this. Himself certain +what the Two Imperial Women have vowed against him; self and Winterfeld +certain of that sad truth; and all other mortals ready to deny it, and +fly delirious on hint of it, should he venture to act in consequence! +Friedrich's situation is not unimaginable, when (as can now be done by +candid inquirers who will take trouble enough) the one or two internal +facts of it are disengaged from the roaring ocean of clamorous delusions +which then enveloped them to everybody, and are held steadily in view, +said ocean being well run off to the home of it very deep underground. +Lies do fall silent; truth waits to be recognized, not always in +vain. No reader ever will conceive the strangling perplexity of that +situation, now so remote and extinct to us. All I can do is, to set down +what features of it have become indisputable; and leave them as detached +traceries, as fractions of an outline, to coalesce into something of +image where they can. + +Winterfeld's opinion was, for some time past, distinct: "Attack them; +since it is certain they only wait to attack us!" But Friedrich would by +no means listen to that. "We must not be the aggressor, my friend; that +would spoil all. Perhaps the English will pacify the Russian CATIN for +me; tie her, with packthreads, bribes and intrigues, from stirring? +Wait, watch!" Fiery Winterfeld, who hates the French, who despises the +Austrians, and thinks the Prussian Army a considerable Fact in Politics, +has great schemes: far too great for a practical Friedrich. "Plunge into +the Austrians with a will: Prussian Soldiery,--can Austrians resist +it? Ruin them, since they are bent on ruining us. Stir up the Hungarian +Protestants; try all things. Home upon our implacable enemies, sword +drawn, scabbard flung away! And the French,--what are the French? Our +King should be Kaiser of Teutschland; and he can, and he may:--the +French would then be quieter!" These things Winterfeld carried in his +head; and comrades have heard them from him over wine. [Retzow, i. +43, &c.] To all which Friedrich, if any whisper of them ever got to +Friedrich, would answer one can guess how. + +It is evident, Friedrich had not given up his hope (indeed, for above a +year more, he never did) that England might, by profuse bribery,--"such +the power of bribery in that mad court!"--assuage, overnet with +backstairs packthreads, or in some way compesce the Russian delirium for +him. And England, his sole Ally in the world, still tender of Austria, +and unable to believe what the full intentions of Austria are; England +demands much wariness in his procedures towards Austria; reiterating +always, "Wait, your Majesty! Oh, beware!"-- + +His own Army, we need not say, is in perfect preparation. The Army--let +us guess, 150,000 regular, or near 200,000 of all arms and kinds +[Archenholtz (i, 8) counts vaguely "160,000" at this date.]-- + +never was so perfect before or since. Old Captains in it, whom we used +to know, are grayer and wiser; young, whom we heard less of, are grown +veterans of trust. Schwerin, much a Cincinnatus since we last saw +him, has laid down his plough again, a fervid "little Marlborough" of +seventy-two;--and will never see that beautiful Schwerinsburg, and its +thriving woods and farm-fields, any more. Ugly Walrave is not now chief +Engineer; one Balbi, a much prettier man, is. Ugly Walrave (Winterfeld +suspecting and watching him) was found out; convicted of "falsified +accounts," of "sending plans to the Enemy," of who knows all what;--and +sits in Magdeburg (in a thrice-safe prison-cell of his own contriving), +prisoner for life. ["Arrested at Potsdam 12th February, 1748, and after +trial put into the STERN at Magdeburg; sat there till he died, 16th +January, 1773" (_Militalr-Lexikon, _iv. 150-151).] The Old Dessauer +is away, long since; and not the Old alone. Dietrich of Dessau is now +"Guardian to his Nephew," who is a Child left Heir there. Death has been +busy with the Dessauers:--but here is Prince Moritz, "the youngest, more +like his Father than any of them." Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, Moritz +of Dessau, Keith, Duke of Brunswick-Bevern: no one of these people has +been idle, in the ten years past. Least of all, has the Chief Captain of +them,--whose diligence and vigilance in that sphere, latterly, were not +likely to decline! + +Friedrich's Army is in the perfection of order. Ready at the hour, for +many months back; but the least motion he makes with it is a subject of +jealousy. Last year, on those Russian advancings and alacrities, he had +marched some Regiments into Pommern, within reach of Preussen, should +the Russians actually try a stroke there: "See!" cried all the world: +"See!" cried the enlightened Russian Public. This year 1756, from +June onwards and earlier, there are still more fatal symptoms, on the +Austrian side: great and evident War-preparations; Magazines forming; +Camps in Bohemia, Moravia; Camp at Konigsgratz, Camp at Prag,--handy +for the Silesian Border. Friedrich knows they have deliberated on their +Pretext for a War, and have fixed on what will do,--some new small +Prussian-Mecklenburg brabble, which there has lately been; paltry enough +recruiting-quarrel, such as often are (and has been settled mutually +some time ago, this one, but is capable of being ripped up again);--and +that, on this cobweb of a pretext, they mean to draw sword when they +like. Russia too has its Pretext ready. And if Friedrich hint of +stirring, England whispers hoarse, England and other friends, "Wait, +your Majesty! Oh, beware!" To keep one's sword at its sharpest, and, +with an easy patient air, one's eyes vigilantly open: this is nearly all +that Friedrich can do, in neighborhood of such portentous imminencies. +He has many critics, near and far;--for instance:-- + +BERLIN, 31st JULY, 1756, Excellency Valori writes to Versailles: ... "to +give you account of a Conversation I have had, a day or two ago, with +the Prince of Prussia [August Wilhelm, Heir-Apparent], who honors me +with a particular confidence,"--and who appears to be, privately, like +some others, very strong in the Opposition view. "He talked to me of +the present condition of the King his Brother, of his Brother's +apprehensions, of his military arrangements, of the little trust placed +in him by neighbors, of their hostile humor towards him, and of many +other things which this good Prince [little understanding them, as would +appear, or the dangerous secret that lay under them] did not approve +of. The Prince then said,"--listen to what the Prince of Prussia said to +Valori, one of the last days of July, 1756,-- + +"'There is an Anecdote which continually recurs to me, in the passes we +are got to at present. Putting the case we might be attacked by Russia, +and perhaps by Austria, the late Rothenburg was sent [as readers know], +on the King's part, to Milord Tyrconnel, to know of him what, in such +case, were the helps he might reckon on from France. Milord enumerated +the various helps; and then added [being a blusterous Irishman, sent +hither for his ill tongue]: "Helps enough, you observe, Monsieur; but, +MORBLEU, if you deceive us, you will be squelched (VOUS SEREZ ECRASES)!" +The King my 'Brother was angry enough at hearing such a speech: but, +my dear Marquis,' and the Prince turned full upon me with a face of +inquiry, 'Can the thing actually come true? And do you think it can be +the interest of your Master [and his Scarlet Woman] to abandon us to the +fury of our enemies? Ah, that cursed Convention [Neutrality-Convention +with England]! I would give a finger from my hand that it had never been +concluded. I never approved of it; ask the Duc de Nivernois, he knows +what we said of it together. But how return on our steps? Who would now +trust us?'" This Prince appeared "to be much affected by the King his +Brother's situation [of which he understood as good as nothing], and +agreed that he," the King his Brother, "had well deserved it." [Valori, +ii, 129-131.] + +This is not the first example, nor the last, of August Wilhelm's +owning a heedless, good-natured tongue; considerably prone to take +the Opposition side, on light grounds. For which if he found a kind of +solacement and fame in some circles, it was surely at a dear rate! +To his Brother, that bad habit would, most likely, be known; and his +Brother, I suppose, did not speak of it at all; such his Brother's +custom in cases of the kind.--Judicious Valori, by way of answer, +dilated on the peculiar esteem of his Majesty Louis XV. for the Prussian +Majesty,--"so as my Instructions direct me to do;" and we hear no more +of the Prince of Prussia's talk, at this time; but shall in future; and +may conjecture a great deal about the atmosphere Friedrich had now to +live in. A Friedrich undergoing, privately, a great deal of criticism: +"Mad tendency to war; lust of conquest; contempt for his neighbors, for +the opinion of the world;--no end of irrational tendencies:" [Ib. ii. +124-151 ("July 27th-August 21st").] from persons to whom the secret of +his Problem is deeply unknown. + +One wise thing the English have done: sent an Excellency Mitchell, a man +of loyalty, of sense and honesty, to be their Resident at Berlin. This +is the noteworthy, not yet much noted, Sir Andrew Mitchell; by far the +best Excellency England ever had in that Court. An Aberdeen Scotchman, +creditable to his Country: hard-headed, sagacious; sceptical of shows; +but capable of recognizing substances withal, and of standing loyal +to them, stubbornly if needful; who grew to a great mutual regard with +Friedrich, and well deserved to do so; constantly about him, during the +next seven years; and whose Letters are among the perennially valuable +Documents on Friedrich's History. [Happily secured in the British +Museum; and now in the most perfect order for consulting (thanks to Sir +F. Madden "and three years' labor" well invested);--should certainly, +and will one day, be read to the bottom, and cleared of their +darknesses, extrinsic and intrinsic (which are considerable) by somebody +competent.] + +Mitchell is in Berlin since June 10th. Mitchell, who is on the scene +itself, and looking into Friedrich with his own eyes, finds the +reiterating of that "Beware, your Majesty!" which had been his chief +task hitherto, a more and more questionable thing; and suggests to him +at last: "Plainly ask her Hungarian Majesty, What is your meaning by +those Bohemian Campings?" "Pshaw," answers Friedrich: "Nothing but +some ambiguous answer, perhaps with insult in it!"--nevertheless thinks +better; and determines to do so. [Mitchell Papers.] + + + + +Chapter IV.--FRIEDRICH PUTS A QUESTION AT VIENNA, TWICE OVER. + +July 18th, 1756, Friedrich despatches an Express to Graf von Klinggraf, +his Resident at Vienna (an experienced man, whom we have seen before in +old Carteret, "Conference-of-Hanau" times), To demand audience of the +Empress; and, in the fittest terms, friendly and courteous, brief and +clear, to put that question of Mitchell's suggesting. "Those unwonted +Armaments, Camps in Bohmen, Camps in Mahren, and military movements +and preparations," Klinggraf is to say, "have caused anxiety in her +Majesty's peaceable Neighbor of Prussia; who desires always to continue +in peace; and who requests hereby a word of assurance from her Majesty, +that these his anxieties are groundless." Friedrich himself hopes little +or nothing from this; but he has done it to satisfy people about him, +and put an end to all scruples in himself and others. The Answer may be +expected in ten or twelve days. + +And, about the same time,--likely enough, directly after, though there +is no date given, to a fact which is curious and authentic,-- + +Friedrich sent for two of his chief Generals, to Potsdam, for a secret +Conference with Winterfeld and him. The Generals are, old Schwerin and +General Retzow Senior,--Major-General Retzow, whom we used to hear of in +the Silesian Wars,--and whose Son reports on this occasion. Conference +is on this Imminency of War, and as to what shall be done in it. +Friedrich explains in general terms his dangers from Austria and Russia, +his certainty that Austria will attack him; and asks, Were it, or were +it not, better to attack Austria, as is our Prussian principle in such +case? Schwerin and Retzow--Schwerin first, as the eldest; and after +him Retzow, "who privately has charge from the Prussian Princes to do +it"--opine strongly: That indications are uncertain, that much seems +inevitable which does not come; that in a time of such tumultuous +whirlings and unexpected changes, the true rule is, Watch well, and +wait. + +After enough of this, with Winterfeld looking dissent but saying almost +nothing, Friedrich gives sign to Winterfeld;--who spreads out, in their +lucidest prearranged order, the principal Menzel-Weingarten Documents; +and bids the two Military Gentlemen read. They read; with astonishment, +are forced to believe; stand gazing at one another;--and do now take +a changed tone. Schwerin, "after a silence of everybody for some +minutes,"--"bursts out like one inspired; 'If War is to be and must be, +let us start to-morrow; seize Saxony at once; and in that rich corny +Country form Magazines for our Operations on Bohemia!'" [Retzow, i. 39.] + +That is privately Friedrich's own full intention. Saxony, with its Elbe +River as Highway, is his indispensable preliminary for Bohemia: and he +will not, a second time, as he did in 1744 with such results, leave it +in an unsecured condition. Adieu then, Messieurs; silent: AU REVOIR, +which may be soon! Retzow Junior, a rational, sincere, but rather +pipe-clayed man, who is wholly to be trusted on this Conference, with +his Father for authority, has some touches of commentary on it, which +indicate (date being 1802) that till the end of his life, or of Prince +Henri his Patron's, there remained always in some heads a doubt as to +Friedrich's wisdom in regard to starting the Seven-Years War, and to +Schwerin's entire sincerity in that inspired speech. And still more +curious, that there was always, at Potsdam as elsewhere, a Majesty's +Opposition Party; privately intent to look at the wrong side; and doing +it diligently,--though with lips strictly closed for most part; without +words, except well-weighed and to the wise: which is an excellent +arrangement, for a Majesty and Majesty's Opposition, where feasible in +the world!-- + +From Retzow I learn farther, that Winterfeld, directly on the back of +this Conference, took a Tour to the Bohemian Baths, "To Karlsbad, or +Toplitz, for one's health;" and wandered about a good deal in those +Frontier Mountains of Bohemia, taking notes, taking sketches (not with +a picturesque view); and returned by the Saxon Pirna Country, a strange +stony labyrinth, which he guessed might possibly be interesting soon. +The Saxon Commandant of the Konigstein, lofty Fortress of those parts, +strongest in Saxony, was of Winterfeld's acquaintance: Winterfeld called +on this Commandant; found his Konigstein too high for cannonading those +neighborhoods, but that there was at the base of it a new Work going +on; and that the Saxons were, though languidly, endeavoring to bestir +themselves in matters military. Their entire Army at present is under +20,000; but, in the course of next Winter, they expect to have +it 40,000. Shall be of that force, against Season 1757. No doubt +Winterfeld's gatherings and communications had their uses at Potsdam, on +his getting home from this Tour to Toplitz. + +Meanwhile, Klinggraf has had his Audience at Vienna; and has sped as +ill as could have been expected. The Answer given was of supercilious +brevity; evasive, in effect null, and as good as answering, That there +is no answer. Two Accounts we have, as Friedrich successively had them, +of this famed passage: FIRST, Klinggraf's own, which is clear, rapid, +and stands by the essential; SECOND, an account from the other side of +the scenes, furnished by Menzel of Dresden, for Friedrich's behoof +and ours; which curiously illustrates the foregoing, and confirms the +interpretation Friedrich at once made of it. This is Menzel's account; +in other words, the Saxon Envoy at Vienna's, stolen by Menzel. + +July 26th, it appears, Klinggraf--having applied to Kaunitz the +day before, who noticed a certain flurry in him, and had answered +carelessly, "Audience? Yes, of course; nay I am this moment going to +the Empress: only you must tell me about what?"--was admitted to the +Imperial Presence, he first of many that were waiting. Imperial Presence +held in its hand a snip of Paper, carefully composed by Kaunitz from the +data, and read these words: "DIE BEDENKLICHEN UMSTANDE, The questionable +circumstances of the Time have moved me to consider as indispensably +necessary those measures which, for my own security and for defence +of my Allies, I am taking, and which otherwise do not tend the least +towards injury of anybody whatsoever;"--and adding no syllable more, +gave a sign with her hand, intimating to Klinggraf that the Interview +was done. Klinggraf strode through the Antechamber, "visibly +astonished," say on-lookers, at such an Answer had. Answer, in +fact, "That there is no answer," and the door flung in your face! +[_Helden-Geschichte, _iii. 772. In Valori, ii. 128, Friedrich's little +Paper of INSTRUCTIONS to Klinggraf; this Vienna ANSWER to it, ib. +138:--see ib. 138, 162; and _Gesammelte Nachrichten, _ii. 214-221.] + +Friedrich, on arrival of report from Klinggraf, and without waiting for +the Menzel side of the scenes, sees that the thing is settled. Writes +again, however (August 2d, probably the day after, or the same day, +Klinggraf's Despatch reached him); instructing Klinggraf To request +"a less oracular response;" and specially, "If her Imperial Majesty +(Austria and Russia being, as is understood, in active League against, +him) will say, That Austria will not attack him this year or the +next?" Draw up memorial of that, Monsieur Klinggraf; and send us +the supercilious No-Answer: till which arrive we do not cross the +Frontier,--but are already everywhere on march to it, in an industrious, +cunningly devised, evident and yet impenetrably mysterious manner. + +Excellency Valori never saw such activity of military preparation: such +Artillery, "2,000 big pieces in the Park here;" Regiments, Wagon-trains, +getting under way everywhere, no man can guess whitherward; "drawn up in +the Square here, they know not by what Gate they are to march." By three +different Gates, I should think;--mysteriously, in Three Directions, +known only to King Friedrich and his Adjutant-General, all these +Regiments in Berlin and elsewhere are on march. Towards Halle (Leipzig +way); towards Brietzen (Wittenberg and Torgau way); towards Bautzen +neighborhood,--towards Three settled Points of the Saxon Frontier; will +step across the instant the supercilious No-Answer comes to hand. Are to +converge about Dresden and the Saxon Switzerland;--about 65,000 strong, +equipped as no Army before or since has been;--and take what luck there +may be. + +Bruhl and Polish Majesty's Army, still only about 18,000, have their +apprehensions of such visit: but what can they do? The Saxon Army draws +out into Camp, at sight of this mysterious marching; strong Camp "in the +angle of Elbe and Mulde Rivers;"--then draws in again; being too weak +for use. And is thinking, Menzel informs us, to take post in the stony +labyrinthic Pirna Country: such the advice an Excellency Broglio has +given;--French Excellency, now in Dresden; Marechal de Broglio's Son, +and of little less explosive nature than his Father was. Bruhl +and Polish Majesty, guessing that the hour is come, are infinitely +interested. Interested, not flurried. "Austrian-Russian Anti-Prussian +Covenant!" say Bruhl and Majesty, rather comfortably to themselves: "We +never signed it. WE never would sign anything; what have we to do with +it? Courage; steady; To Pirna, if they come! Are not Excellency Broglio, +and France, and Austria, and the whole world at our back?" + +It was full three weeks before Klinggraf's Message of Answer could +arrive at Berlin. Of Friedrich in the interim, launching such a +world-adventure, himself silent, in the midst of a buzzing Berlin, +take these indications, which are luminous enough. Duke Ferdinand +of Brunswick is to head one of the Three "Columns." Duke Ferdinand, +Governor of Magdeburg, is now collecting his Column in that +neighborhood, chiefly at Halle; whitherward, or on what errand, is +profoundly unknown. Unknown even to Ferdinand, except that it is for +actual Service in the Field. Here are two Friedrich Letters (ruggedly +Official, the first of them, and not quite peculiar to Ferdinand), which +are worth reading:-- + + +THE KING TO DUKE FERDINAND OF BRUNSWICK. + +"POTSDAM, 15th August, 1756. + +"For time of Field-Service I have made the arrangement, That for the +Subaltern Officers of your regiment, over and above their ordinary +Equipage-moneys, there shall, to each Subaltern Officer, and once for +all, be Eight Thalers [twenty-four shillings sterling] advanced. That +sum [eight thalers per subaltern] shall be paid to the Captain of every +Company; and besides this there shall, monthly, Two Thalers be deducted +from the Subaltern's Pay, and be likewise paid over to the Captain:--in +return for which, He is to furnish Free Table for the Subalterns +throughout the Campaign, and so long as the regiment is in the field. + +"Of the Two Baggage-carts per Company, the regiment shall take only One, +and leave the other at home. No Officer, let him be who or of what title +he will, Generals not excepted, shall take with him the least of Silver +Plate, not even a silver spoon. Whoever wants, therefore, to keep +table, great or small (TAFEL ODER TISCH), must manage the same with tin +utensils;--without exception, be he who he will. + +"Each Captain shall take with him a little Cask of Vinegar; of which, as +soon as the regiments get to Camp, he must give me reckoning, and I +will then have him repaid. This Vinegar shall solely and exclusively be +employed for this purpose, That in places where the water is bad, there +be poured into it, for the soldiers, a few drops of the vinegar, to +correct the water, and thereby preserve them from illnesses. + +"So soon as the regiment gets on march, the Women who have permission +to follow are put under command of the Profoss; that thereby all +plunderings and disorders may the more be guarded against. If the +Captains and Officers take Grooms (JAGER) or the like Domestics, there +can muskets be given to these, that use may be had of them, in case of +an attack in quarters, or on march, when a WAGENBURG (wagon-fortress) is +to be formed.... FRIEDRICH." [Preuss, ii. 6, 7.] + +SAME TO SAME (Confidential, this one). + +"POTSDAM, 24th August. + +... "Make as if you were meaning to go into Camp at Halle. The reason +why I stop you is, that the Courier from Vienna has not yet come. +We must therefore reassure the Saxon neighborhood. ... I have +been expecting answer from hour to hour; cannot suitably begin a +War-Expedition till it come; do therefore apprise Your Dilection, though +under the deepest secrecy. + +"And it is necessary, and my Will is, That, till farther order, you keep +all the regiments and corps belonging to your Column in the places where +they are when this arrives. And shall, meanwhile, with your best skill +mask all this, both from the Town of Halle, and from the regiments +themselves; making, in conformity with what I said yesterday, as if you +were a Corps of Observation come to encamp here, and were waiting the +last orders to go into camp." + +"FRIEDRICH." [Ib. ii. 7, 8.] + + +And in regard to the Vienna Courier, and Friedrich's attitude towards +that Phenomenon, read only these Two Notes:-- + + +1. FRIEDRICH TO THE PRINCE OF PRUSSIA AND THE PRINCESS AMELIA (at +Berlin) + +POTSDAM, "25th August," 1756. + +"MY DEAR BROTHER, MY DEAR SISTER,--I write to you both at once, for want +of time. I will follow the advice you are so good as give me; and will +take leave of the Queen [our dear Mamma] by Letter. And that the reading +of my Letter may not frighten her, I will send it by my Sister, to be +presented in a favorable moment. + +"I have yet got no Answer from Vienna; by Klinggraf's account, I shall +not receive it till to-morrow [came this night], But I count myself +surer of War than ever; as the Austrians have named Generals, and their +Army is ordered to march, from Kolin to Konigsgratz"--Schlesien way. "So +that, expecting nothing but a haughty Answer, or a very uncertain one, +on which there will be no reliance possible, I have arranged everything +for setting out on Saturday next. To-morrow, so soon as the news comes, +I will not fail to let you know. Assuring you that I am, with a perfect +affection, my dear Brother and my dear Sister,--Yours,--F." [_OEuvres de +Frederic,_ xxvi. 155.] + +Answer comes from Klinggraf that same night. Once more, an Answer almost +worse than could have been expected. "The 'League with Russia against +you' is nonextant, a thing of your imagination: Have not we already +answered?" [In _Gesammelte Urkunden, _i. 217: Klinggraf's second +question (done by Letter this time), "18th August;" Maria Theresa's +Answer, "21st August,"] Whereupon, + +2. FRIEDRICH TO THE PRINCE OF PRUSSIA. + +POTSDAM, "26th August," 1756. + +"MY DEAR BROTHER,--I have already written to the Queen; softening things +as much as I could [Letter lost]. My Sister, to whom I address the +Letter, will deliver it. + +"You have seen the Paper I sent to Klinggraf. Their Answer is 'That they +have not made an Offensive Alliance with Russia against me.' The Answer +is impertinent, high and contemptuous; and of the Assurance that I +required [as to This Year and next], not one word. So that the sword +alone can cut this Gordian Knot. I am innocent of this War; I have +done what I could to avoid it; but whatever be one's love of peace, one +cannot and must not sacrifice to that, one's safety and one's honor. +Such, I believe, will be your opinion too, from the sentiments I know in +you. At present, our one thought must be, To do War in such a way as may +cure our Enemies of their wish to break Peace again too soon. I embrace +you with all my heart. I have had no end of business (TERRIBLEMENT A +FAIRE)."--F. [_OEuvres,_ xxvi. 116.] + +THE MARCH INTO SAXONY, IN THREE COLUMNS. + +Ahead of that last Note, from an earlier hour of the same day, Thursday, +26th August, there is speeding forth, to all Three Generals of Division, +this Order (take Duke Ferdinand's copy):--[not in original]-- + +"I hereby order that Your Dilection (EW. LIEBDEN), with all the +regiments and corps in the Column standing under your command, Shall +now, without more delay, get on march, on the 29th inst.; and proceed, +according to the March-Tables and Instructions already given, to execute +what Your Dilection has got in charge."--F. + +The same Thursday, 26th, Excellency Mitchell, informed by Podewils +of the King's wish to see him at Potsdam, gets under way from Berlin; +arrives "just time enough to speak with the King before he sat down to +supper." Very many things to be consulted of, and deliberatively touched +upon, with Mitchell and England; no end of things and considerations, +for England and King Friedrich, in this that is now about to burst forth +on an astonished world!--Over in London, we observe, just in the hours +when Mitchell was harnessing for Potsdam, and so many Orders and Letters +were speeding their swiftest in that quarter, there is going forward, on +Tower-Hill yonder, the following Operation:-- + +"LONDON, THURSDAY, 26th AUGUST, 1756. About five in the afternoon, a +noted Admiral [only in Effigy as yet; but who has been held in miserable +durance, and too actual question of death or life, ever since his +return: "Oh, yes indeed! Hang HIM at once",--if that can be a remedy!] +was, after having been privately shown to many ladies and gentlemen, +brought--in an open sedan, guarded by a number of young gentlemen under +arms, with drums beating, colors flying--to Tower-Hill, where a Gallows +had been erected for him at six the same morning. He was richly dressed, +in a blue and gold coat, buff waistcoat, trimmed, &c. in full uniform. +When brought under the Gallows, he stayed a small space, till his +clergyman (a chimney-sweeper) had given him some admonitions: that done, +he was drawn, by pulleys, to the top of the Gallows, which was twenty +feet high; every person expressing as much satisfaction as if it had +been the real man. + +"He remained there, guarded by the above volunteers, without any +molestation, two hours; when, upon a supposition of being obstructed by +the Governor of the Tower, some sailors appeared, who wanted to pull him +down, in order to drag him along the streets. But a fire being kindled, +which consisted of tar-barrels, fagots, tables, tubs, &c., he was +consumed in about half an hour." [Old Newspapers (_Gentleman's Magazine, +_ xxvi. 409).] + +That is their employment on Tower-Hill, over yonder, while Mitchell is +getting under way to see Friedrich. + +Mitchell continued at Potsdam over Friday; and was still in eager +consultation that night, when the King said to him, with a certain +expressiveness of glance: "BON SOIR, then;--To-morrow morning about +four!" And on the morrow, Saturday, 28th, Mitchell reports hurriedly:-- + +"... Am just returned to Berlin, in time to write to your Lordship. This +morning, between four and five, I took leave of the King of Prussia. +He went immediately upon the Parade; mounted on horseback; and, after +a very short exercise of his Troops, put himself at their head; and +marched directly for Belitz [half-way to Brietzen, TREUENbrietzen +as they call it]; where, To-morrow, he will enter the Saxon +Territory,"--as, at their respective points, his two other Columns +will;--and begin, who shall say what terrible game; incalculable to your +Lordship and me, with such Operations afoot on Tower-Hill! [Mitchell +Papers, vi. 804 ("To Lord Holderness, 28th August, 1756").]-- + +Seven Hussar Regiments of Duke Ferdinand's Column got the length of +Leipzig that Sunday Evening, 29th; and took possession of the place. [In +_Helden-Geschichte, _iii. 731, his "Proclamation" there, 29th August, +1756.] Duke Ferdinand to right of the King, Duke of Brunswick-Bevern to +left,--the Three Columns cross the Border, at points, say 80 miles +from one another; occasionally, on the march, bending to rightwards and +leftwards, to take in the principal Towns, and make settlements there, +the two might be above a hundred miles from Friedrich on each hand. The +length of march for each Column,--Ferdinand "from Leipzig, by Chemnitz, +Freyberg, Dippoldiswalde, to the Village of Cotta" (Pirna neighborhood, +south of Elbe); Bevern, "through the Lausitz, by Bautzen, to Lohmen" +(same neighborhood, north of Elbe); King Friedrich, to Dresden, by the +course of the Elbe itself, was not far from equal, and may be called +about 150 miles. They marched with diligence, not with hurry; had their +pauses, rest-days, when business required. They got to their ground, +with the simultaneousness appointed, on the eleventh or twelfth day. + +The middle Column, under the King, where Marshal Keith is second +in command, goes by Torgau (detaching Moritz of Dessau to pick up +Wittenberg, and ruin the slight works there); crosses the Elbe at +Torgau, September 2d; marches, cantoning itself day after day, along the +southern bank of the River; leaves Meissen to the left, I perceive, does +not pass through Meissen; comes first at Wilsdruf on ground where +we have been,--and portions of it, I doubt not, were billeted in +Kesselsdorf; and would take a glance at the old Field, if they had time. +There is strict discipline in all the Columns; the authorities complying +on summons, and arranging what is needful. Nobody resists; town-guards +at once ground arms, and there is no soldier visible; soldiers all +ebbing away, whitherward we guess. [_Helden-Geschichte, _iii. 732, 733; +_OEuvres de Frederic,_ iv. 81.] + +At Wilsdruf, Friedrich first learns for certain, that the Saxon Army, +with King, with Bruhl and other chief personages, are withdrawn to +Pirna, to the inexpugnable Konigstein and Rock-Country. The Saxon Army +had begun assembling there, September 1st, directly on the news that +Friedrich was across the Border; September 9th, on Friedrich's approach, +the King and Dignitaries move off thither, from Dresden, out of his +way. Excellency Broglio has put them on that plan. Which may have its +complexities for Friedrich, hopes Broglio,--though perhaps its still +greater for some other parties concerned! For Bruhl and Polish Majesty, +as will appear by and by, nothing could have turned out worse. + +Meanwhile Friedrich pushes on: "Forward, all the same." Polish Majesty, +dating from Struppen, in the Pirna Country, has begun a Correspondence +with Friedrich, very polite on both hands; and his Adjutant-General, the +Chevalier Meagher ("Chevalier de MARRE," as Valori calls him,--MA'AR, as +he calls himself in Irish), has just had, at Wilsdruf, an interview with +Friedrich; but is far from having got settlement on the terms he wished. +Polish Majesty magnanimously assenting to "a Road through his Country +for military purposes;" offers "the strictest Neutrality, strictest +friendship even; has done, and will do, no injury whatever to his +Prussian Majesty--["Did we ever SIGN anything?" whisper comfortably +Bruhl and he to one another];--expects, therefore, that his Prussian +Majesty will march on, whither he is bound; and leave him unmolested +here." [_Helden-Geschichte, _ iii. 774.] + +That was Meagher's message; that is the purport of all his Polish +Majesty's Eleven Letters to Friedrich, which precede or follow,-- +reiterating with a certain bovine obstinacy, insensible to time or +change, That such is Polish Majesty's fixed notion: "Strict neutrality, +friendship even; and leave me unmolested here." [In _OEuvres de +Frederic,_ iv. 235-260 ("29th August-10th September-18th September," +1756), are collected now, the Eleven Letters, with their Answers.] +"Strict neutrality, yes: but disperse your Army, then," answers +Friedrich; send your Army back to its cantonments: I must myself +have the keeping of my Highway, lest I lose it, as in 1744." This is +Friedrich's answer; this at first, and for some time coming; though, as +the aspects change, and the dangerous elements heap themselves higher, +Friedrich's answer will rise with them, and his terms, like the Sibyl's, +become worse and worse. This is the utmost that Meagher, at Wilsdruf, +can make of it; and this, in conceivable circumstances, will grow less +and less. + +Next day, September 9th, Friedrich, with some Battalions, entered +Dresden, most of his Column taking Camp near by; General Wylich had +entered yesterday, and is already Commandant there. Friedrich sends, by +Feldmarschall Keith, highest Officer of his Column, his homages to her +Polish Majesty:--nothing given us of Keith's Interview; except by a +side-wind, "That Majesty complained of those Prussian Sentries walking +about in certain of her corridors" (with an eye to Something, it may be +feared!)--of which, doubtless, Keith undertook to make report. Friedrich +himself waits upon the Junior Princes, who are left here: is polite and +gracious as ever, though strict, and with business enough; lodges, for +his own part, "in the Garden-House of Princess Moczinska;"--and next +morning leads off his Column, a short march eastward, to the Pirna +Country; where, on the right and on the left, Ferdinand at Cotta, Bevern +at Lohmen (if readers will look on their Map), he finds the other Two in +their due positions. Head-quarter is Gross-Sedlitz (westernmost skirt +of the Rock-region); and will have to continue so, much longer than had +been expected. + +The Diplomatic world in Dresden is in great emotion; more especially +just at present. This morning, before leaving, Friedrich had to do +an exceedingly strict thing: secure the Originals of those Menzel +Documents. Originals indispensable to him, for justifying his new +procedures upon Saxony. So that there has been, at the Palace, a Scene +this morning of a very high and dissonant nature,--"Marshal Keith" in +it, "Marshal Keith making a second visit" (say some loose and false +Accounts);--the facts being strictly as follows. + +Far from removing those Prussian sentries complained of last night, +here seems to be a double strength of them this morning. And her +Polish Majesty, a severe, hard-featured old Lady, has been filled with +indignant amazement by a Prussian Officer--Major von Wangenheim, I +believe it is--requiring, in the King of Prussia's name, the Keys of +that Archive-room; Prussian Majesty absolutely needing sight, for a +little while, of certain Papers there. "Enter that room? Archives of +a crowned Head? Let me see the living mortal that will dare to do +it!"--one fancies the indignant Polish Majesty's answer; and how, +calling for materials, she "openly sealed the door in question," in +Wangenheim's presence. As this is a celebrated Passage, which has been +reported in several loose ways, let us take it from the primary source, +Chancery style and all. Graf von Sternberg, Austrian Excellency, writing +from the spot and at the hour, informs his own Court, and through that +all Courts, in these solemnly Official terms:-- + +"DRESDEN, 10th SEPTEMBER, 1756. The Queen's Majesty, this forenoon, has +called to her all the Foreign Ministers now at Dresden; and in Highest +Own Person has signified to us, How, the Prussian intrusions and +hostilities being already known, Highest said Queen's Majesty would now +simply state what had farther taken place this morning:-- + +"Highest said Queen's Majesty, to wit, had, in her own name, requested +the King of Prussia, in conformity with his assurances [by Keith, +yesternight] of paying every regard for Her and the Royal +Family; To remove the Prussian Sentries pacing about in those +Corridors,"--Corridors which lead to the Secret Archives, important to +some of us!--"Instead of which, the said King had not only doubled +his Sentries there; but also, by an Officer, demanded the Keys of the +Archive-apartment [just alluded to]! And as the Queen's Majesty, for +security of all writings there, offered to seal the Door of it herself, +and did so, there and then,--the said Officer had so little respect, +that he clapped his own seal thereon too. + +"Nor was he content therewith,"--not by any means!--"but the same +Officer [having been with Wylich, Commandant here] came back, a short +time after, and made for opening of the Door himself. Which being +announced to the Queen's Majesty, she in her own person (HOCHSTDIESELBE, +Highest-the-Same) went out again; and standing before the Door, informed +him, 'How Highest-the-Same had too much regard to his Prussian Majesty's +given assurance, to believe that such order could proceed from the +King.' As the Officer, however, replied, 'That he was sorry to have such +an order to execute; but that the order was serious and precise; and +that he, by not executing it, would expose himself to the greatest +responsibility," Her Majesty continued standing before the Door; and +said to the Officer, 'If he meant to use force, he might upon Her make +his beginning.'" There is for you, Herr Wangenheim!-- + +"Upon which said Officer had gone away, to report anew to the King [I +think, only to Wylich the Commandant; King now a dozen miles off, not +so easily reported to, and his mind known]; and in the mean while Her +Majesty had called to her the Prussian and English Ambassadors +[Mahlzahn and Stormont; sorry both of them, but how entirely +resourceless,--especially Mahlzahn!], and had represented and +repeated to them the above; beseeching that by their remonstrances and +persuasions they would induce the King of Prussia, conformably with his +given assurance, to forbear. Instead, however, of any fruit from such +remonstrances and urgencies, final Order came, 'That, Queen's Majesty's +own Highest Person notwithstanding, force must be used.' + +"Whereupon her Majesty, to avoid actual mistreatment, had been obliged +to"--to become passive, and, no Keys being procurable from her, see +a smith with his picklocks give these Prussians admission. +Legation-Secretary Plessmann was there (Menzel one fancies sitting, +rather pale, in an adjacent room [Supra, p. 266.]); and they knew what +to do. Their smith opens the required Box for them (one of several "all +lying packed for Warsaw," says Friedrich); from which soon taking +what they needed, Wangenheim and Wylich withdrew with their booty, and +readers have the fruit of it to this day. "Which unheard-of procedure, +be pleased, your Excellencies, to report to your respective Courts." +[_Gesammelte Nachrichten, _i. 222 (or "No. 26" of that Collection); +_OEuvres de Frederic,_ iv. 83.] + +Poor old Lady, what a situation! And I believe she never saw her poor +old Husband again. The day he went to Pirna (morning of yesterday, +September 9th, Friedrich entering in the evening), these poor Spouses +had, little dreaming of it, taken leave of one another forevermore. Such +profit lies in your Bruhl. Kings and Queens that will be governed by a +Jesuit Guarini, and a Bruhl of the Twelve Tailors, sometimes pay dear +for it. They, or their representatives, are sure to do so. Kings and +Queens,--yes, and if that were all: but their poor Countries too? Their +Countries;--well, their Countries did not hate Beelzebub, in his various +shapes, ENOUGH. Their Countries should have been in watch against +Beelzebub in the shape of Bruhls;--watching, and also "praying" in a +heroic manner, now fallen obsolete in these impious times! + + + + +Chapter V.--FRIEDRICH BLOCKADES THE SAXONS IN PIRNA COUNTRY. + +Friedrich reckons himself to have 65,000 men in Saxony. Schwerin is +issuing from Silesia, through the Glatz Mountains, for Bohemia, at the +head of 40,000. The Austrian force is inferior in quantity, and far from +ready:--Two "Camps" in Bohemia they have; the chief one under +Browne (looking, or intending, this Saxon way), and a smaller under +Piccolomini, in the Konigshof-Kolin region:--if well run into from front +and rear, both Browne and Piccolomini might be beautifully handled; and +a gash be cut in Austria, which might incline her to be at peace again! +Nothing hinders but this paltry Camp of the Saxons; itself only 18,000 +strong, but in a Country of such strength. And this does hinder, +effectually while it continues: "How march to Bohemia, and leave the +road blocked in our rear?" + +The Saxon Camp did continue,--unmanageable by any method, for five weeks +to come; the season of war-operations gone, by that time:--and +Friedrich's First Campaign, rendered mostly fruitless in this manner, +will by no means check the Austrian truculencies, as by his velocity he +hoped to do. No; but, on the contrary, will rouse the Austrians, French +and all Enemies, to a tenfold pitch of temper. And bring upon himself, +from an astonished and misunderstanding Public, such tempests and world- +tornadoes of loud-roaring obloquy, as even he, Friedrich, had never +endured before. + +To readers of a touring habit this Saxon Country is perhaps well known. +For the last half-century it has been growing more and more famous, +under the name of "Saxon Switzerland (SACHSISCHE SCHWEITZ)," instead of +"Misnian Highlands (MEISSNISCHE HOCHLAND)," which it used to be called. +A beautiful enough and extremely rugged Country; interesting to the +picturesque mind. Begins rising, in soft Hills, on both sides of the +Elbe, a few miles east of Dresden, as you ascend the River; till it +rises into Hills of wild character, getting ever wilder, and riven into +wondrous chasms and precipices. Extends, say almost twenty miles up +the River, to Tetschen and beyond, in this eastern direction; and with +perhaps ten miles of breadth on each side of the River: area of the +Rock-region, therefore, is perhaps some four hundred square miles. The +Falkenberg (what we should call HAWKSCRAG) northeastward in the Lausitz, +the Schneeberg (SNOW MOUNTAIN), southeastward on the Bohemian border, +are about thirty-five miles apart: these two are both reckoned to be in +it,--its last outposts on that eastern side. But the limits of it are +fixed by custom only, and depend on no natural condition. + +We might define it as the Sandstone NECK of the Metal Mountains: a +rather lower block, of Sandstone, intercalated into the Metal-Mountain +range, which otherwise, on both hands, is higher, and of harder rocks. +Southward (as SHOULDER to this sandstone NECK) lies, continuous, broad +and high, the "Metal-Mountain range" specially so called: northward +and northeastward there rise, beyond that Falkenberg, many mountains, +solitary or in groups,--"the Metal Mountains" fading out here into "the +Lausitz Hills," still in fine picturesque fashion, which are Northern +Border to the great Bohemian "Basin of the Elba," after you emerge from +this Sandstone Country. + +Saxon Switzerland is not very high anywhere; 2,000 feet is a notable +degree of height: but it is torn and tumbled into stone labyrinths, +chasms and winding rock-walls, as few regions are. Grows pinewood, to +the topmost height; pine-trees far aloft look quietly down upon you, +over sheer precipices, on your intricate path. On the slopes of the +Hills is grass enough; in the intervals are Villages and husbandries, +are corn and milk for the laborious natives,--who depend mainly on +quarrying, and pine-forest work: pines and free-stone, rafts of long +slim pines, and big stone barges, are what one sees upon the River +there. A Note, not very geological, says of it:-- + +"Elbe sweeps freely through this Country, for ages and aeons past; +curling himself a little into snake-figure, and with increased +velocity, but silent mostly, and trim to the edge, a fine flint-colored +river;--though in aeons long anterior, it must have been a very +different matter for torrents and water-power. The Country is one huge +Block of Sandstone, so many square miles of that material; ribbed, +channelled, torn and quarried, in this manner, by the ever-busy +elements, for a million of Ages past! Chiefly by the Elbe himself, since +he got to be a River, and became cosmic and personal; ceasing to be a +mere watery chaos of Lakes and Deluges hereabouts. For the Sandstone was +of various degrees of hardness; tenacious as marble some parts of +it, soft almost as sand other parts. And the primordial diluviums and +world-old torrents, great and small, rushing down from the Bohemian +Highlands, from the Saxon Metal Mountains, with such storming, gurgling +and swashing, have swept away the soft parts, and left the hard standing +in this chaotic manner, and bequeathed it all to the Elbe, and the +common frosts and rains of these human ages. + +"Elbe has now a trim course; but Elbe too is busy quarrying and mining, +where not artificially held in;--and you notice at every outlet of a +Brook from the interior, north side and south side, how busy the Brook +has been. Boring, grinding, undermining; much helped by the frosts, by +the rains. AEons ago, the Brook was a lake, in the interior; but was +every moment laboring to get out; till it has cut for itself that +mountain gullet, or sheer-down chasm, and brought out with it an +Alluvium or Delta,--on which, since Adam's time, human creatures have +built a Hamlet. That is the origin, or unwritten history, of most +hamlets and cultivated spots you fall in with here: they are the waste +shavings of the Brook, working millions of years, for its own object +of getting into the Elbe in level circumstances. Ploughed fields, not +without fertility, are in the interior, if you ascend that Brook; the +Hamlet, at the delta or mouth of it, is as if built upon its TONGUE +and into its GULLET: think how picturesque, in the November rains, for +example! + +"The road" one road, "from Dresden to Aussig, to Lobositz, Budin, Prag, +runs up the river-brink (south brink); or, in our day, as Prag-Dresden +Railway, thunders through those solitudes; strangely awakening their +echoes; and inviting even the bewildered Tourist to reflect, if he +could. The bewildered Tourist sees rock-walls heaven-high on both hands +of him; River and he rushing on between, by law of gravitation, law of +ennui (which are laws of Nature both), with a narrow strip of sky in +full gallop overhead; and has little encouragement to reflect, except +upon his own sorrows, and delirious circumstances, physical and moral. +'How much happier, were I lying in my bed!' thinks the bewildered +Tourist;--does strive withal to admire the Picturesque, but with little +success; notices the 'BASTEI (Bastion),' and other rigorously prescribed +points of the Sublime and Beautiful, which are to be 'done.' That +you will have to DO, my friend: step out, you will have to go on that +Pinnacle, with indifferent Hotel attached; on that iron balcony, aloft +among the clouds yonder; and shudder to project over Elbe-flood from +such altitudes, admiring the Picturesque in prescribed manner. + +"This Country has for its permanent uses, timber, free-stone, modicum +of milk and haver, serviceable to the generality;--and to his Polish +Majesty, at present, it is as the very Ark of Noah: priceless at this +juncture; being the strongest military country in the world. Excellent +strength in it; express Fortresses; especially one Fortress called the +Konigstein, not far from Schandau, of a towering precipitous nature, +with 'a well 900 feet deep' in it, and pleasant Village outside at the +base;--Fortress which is still, in our day, reckoned a safe place for +the Saxon Archives and preciosities. Impregnable to gunpowder artillery; +not to be had except by hunger. And then, farther down the River, close +by Pirna, presiding over Pirna, as that Konigstein in some sort does +over Schandau, is the Sonnenstein: Sonnenstein too was a Fortress in +those days of Friedrich, but not impregnable, if judged worth taking. +The Austrians took it, a year or two hence; Friedrich retook it, +dismantled it: 'the Sonnenstein is now a Madhouse,' say the Guide-books. + +"Sonnenstein stands close east or up-stream of Pirna, which is a town of +5,000 souls, by much the largest in those parts; Konigstein a little +down-stream of Schandau, which latter is on the opposite or north side +of the River. These are the two chief Towns, which do all the trade of +this region; picturesque places both:--the Tourist remembers Pirna? +Standing on its sleek table or stair-step, by the River's edge; well +above floodmark; green, shaggy or fringy mountains looking down on it to +rearward; in front, beyond the River, nothing visible but mile-long +cream-colored rock-wall, with bushes at bottom and top, wall quarried by +Elbe, as you can see. Pirna is near the beginning [properly END, but we +start from Dresden] or western extremity of Saxon Schweitz. Schandau, +almost at the opposite or eastern extremity, is still more picturesque; +standing on the delta of a little Brook, with high rock-cliffs, with +garden-shrubberies, sanded walks, tufts of forest-umbrage; a bright- +painted, almost OPERATIC-looking place,--with spa-waters, if I +recollect: "yes truly, and the "Bath Season" making its packages in +great haste, breaking up prematurely, this Year (1756)!-- + +Directly on arriving at Gross-Sedlitz, Friedrich takes ocular survey +of this Country, which is already not unknown to him. He finds that the +Saxons have secured themselves within the Mountains; a rocky streamlet, +Brook of Gottleube, which issues into Elbe just between Gross-Sedlitz +and them, "through a dell of eighty or a hundred feet deep," serving +as their first defence; well in front of the mere rocky Heights and +precipices behind it, which stretch continuously along to southward, +six miles or more, from Pirna and the south brink of Elbe. At +Langen-Hennersdorf, which is the southernmost part, these Heights make +an elbow inwards, by Leopoldshayn, towards the Konigstein, which is but +four miles off; here too the Saxons are defended by a Brook (running +straight towards Konigstein, this one) in front of their Heights; and +stand defensive, in this way, along a rock-bulwark of ten miles long: +the passes all secured by batteries, by abatis, palisades, mile after +mile, as Friedrich rides observant leftward: behind them, Elbe rushing +swifter through his rock-walls yonder, with chasms and intricate gorges; +defending them inexpugnably to rear. Six miles long of natural bulwark +(six to Hennersdorf), where the gross of the Saxons lie; then to +Konigstein four other miles, sufficiently, if more sparsely, beset by +them. "No stronger position in the world," Friedrich thinks; [_OEuvres +de Frederic,_ iv. 83, 84 (not a very distinct Account; and far from +accurate in the details,--which are left without effectual correction +even in the best Editions).]--and that it is impossible to force this +place, without a loss of life disproportionate even to its importance +at present. Not to say that the Saxons will make terms all the easier, +BEFORE bloodshed rise between us;--and furthermore that Hunger (for +we hear they have provision only for two weeks) may itself soon do it. +"Wedge them in, therefore; block every outgate, every entrance; nothing +to get in, except gradually Hunger. Hunger, and on our part rational +Offers, will suffice." That is Friedrich's plan; good in itself,--though +the ovine obstinacy, and other circumstances, retarded the execution of +it to an unexpected extent, lamentable to Friedrich and to some others. + +The Prussian-Saxon military operations for the next five weeks need not +detain us. Their respective positions on the Heights behind that Brook +Gottleube, and on the plainer Country in front of it,-- + +How the Prussians lie, first Division of them, from Gross-Sedlitz to +Zehist, under the King; then second Division from Zehist to Cotta, and +onward by "the Rothschenke" (RED-HOUSE Tavern), by Markersbach, and +sparsely as far as Hellendorf on the Prag Highway; in brief, where all +the Divisions of them lie, and under whom; and where the Prussians, +watching Elbe itself, have Batteries and Posts on the north side of it: +all this is marked on the Map;--to satisfy ingenuous curiosity, should +it make tour in those parts. To which add only these straggles of Note, +as farther elucidative:-- + +"The Saxons, between Elbe and their Lines, possess about thirty square +miles of country. From Pirna or Sonnenstein to Konigstein, as the crow +flies, may be five miles east to west; but by Langen-Hennersdorf, and +the elbow there, it will be ten: at Konigstein, moreover, Elbe makes +an abrupt turn northward for a couple of miles, instead of westward +as heretofore, turning abruptly westward again after that: so that the +Saxon 'Camp' or Occupancy here, is an irregular Trapezium, with +Pirna and Konigstein for vertices, and with area estimable as +above,--ploughable, a fair portion of it, and not without corn of its +own. So that the 'two weeks' provision' spun themselves out (short +allowance aiding) to two months, before actual famine came. + +... "The High-road from the Lausitz parts crosses Elbe at Pirna; falls +into the Dresden-Prag High-road there; and from Pirna towards Toplitz, +for the first few miles, this latter runs through the Prussian Posts; +but we may guess it is not much travelled at present. North of Elbe, +too, the Prussians have batteries on the fit points; detachments of due +force, from Gross-Sedlitz Bridge-of-Pontoons all round to Schandau, +or beyond; could fire upon the Konigstein, across the River: they +have plugged up the Saxon position everywhere. They have a Battery +especially, and strong post, to cannonade the Bridge at Pirna, should +the Saxons think of trying there. It is now the one Saxon or even +Half-Saxon Bridge; Sonnenstein and Pirna command the Saxon end of it, +a strong battery the Prussian end: a Bridge lying mainly idle, like the +general Highway to Toplitz at this time. Beyond the Konigstein, again, +at a place called Wendisch-Fahre (WENDS'-FERRY), the Prussians have, +by means of boats swinging wide at anchor on the swift current, what is +called a Flying-bridge, with which the north side can communicate with +the south. They have a post at Nieder-Raden (OBER Raden, railway station +in our time, is on the south side): Nether Raden is an interesting +little Hamlet, mostly invisible to mankind (built in the THROAT of the +stone chasms there), from which you begin mounting to the BASTEI far +aloft. A Raden to be noted, by the Tourist and us." + +Little, or even nothing, of fighting there is: why should there be? +The military operations are a dead-lock, and require no word. Thirty +thousand, half of the Prussian Force, lie, vigilant as lynxes, +blockading here; other half, 32,000, under Marshal Keith, have marched +forward to Aussig, to Nollendorf on the Bohemian frontier, to clear the +ways, and look into any Austrian motion thereabouts,--with whom, with +some Pandour detachment of whom, Duke Ferdinand, leading the vanguard, +has had a little brush among the Hills; smiting them home again, in his +usual creditable way (September 13th); and taking Camp at Peterswalde, +he and others of the Force, that night. [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ iv. 85; +ANONYMOUS OF HAMBURG, i. 19.] It is with this Keith Army, with this if +with any, that adventures are to be looked for at present. + +Polish Majesty's Head-quarters are at Struppen, well in the centre +of the Saxon lines; "goes always to the Konigstein to sleep." Polish +Majesty's own table is, by Friedrich's permission for that special +object, supplied AD LIBITUM: but the common men were at once put +on short allowance, which grows always the shorter. Polish Majesty +corresponds with Friedrich, as we saw; and above all, sends burning +Messages to Austria, to France, to every European Court, charged with +mere shrieks: "Help me; a robber has me!" In which sense, Excellencies +of all kinds, especially one Lord Stormont, the English Excellency, +daily running out from Dresden to Gross-Sedlitz, are passionately +industrious with Friedrich; who is eager enough to comply, were there +any safe means possible. But there are none. Unfortunately, too, +it appears the Austrians are astir; Feldmarschall Browne actually +furbishing himself at Prag yonder with an eye hitherward, and +extraordinary haste and spirit shown: which obliges Friedrich to rise +in his demands; ovine obstinacy, on the other side, naturally increasing +from the same cause. + +"Polish Majesty, we say, has liberty to bring in proviant for self and +suite, rigorously for no mortal more; and he lives well, in the culinary +sense,--surely for most part 'in his dressing-gown,' too, poor loose +collapsed soul! Bruhl and he have plenty of formal business: but their +one real business is that of crying, by estafettes and every conceivable +method, to Austria, 'Get us out of this!' To which Austria has answered, +'Yes; only patience, and be steady!'--Friedrich's head-quarters are at +Sedlitz; and the negotiating and responding which he has, transcends +imagination. His first hope was, Polish Majesty might be persuaded to +join with him;--on the back of that, certainty, gradually coming, that +Polish Majesty never would; and that the Austrians would endeavor a +rescue, were they once ready. Starvation, or the Austrians, which will +be first here? is the question; and Friedrich studies to think it will +be the former. At all events, having settled on the starvation method, +and seen that all his posts are right, we perceive he does not stick +close by Sedlitz; but runs now hither now thither; is at Torgau, where +an important establishment, kind of New Government for Saxony, on the +Finance side, is organizing itself. What his work with Ambassadors +was, and how delicate the handling needed, think!"--Here is another +Clipping:-- + +... "Polish Majesty passes the day at Struppen, amid many vain noises +of Soldiering, of Diplomatizing; the night always at Konigstein, and +finally both day and night,--quite luxuriously accommodated, Bruhl and +he, to the very end of this Affair. Towards Struppen [this is weeks +farther on, but we give it here],--Comte de Broglio [Old Broglio's elder +Son, younger is in the Military line], who is Ambassador to his +Saxon-Polish Majesty, sets out from Dresden for an interview with said +Majesty. At the Prussian lines, he is informed, 'Yes, you can go; but, +without our King's Order, you cannot return.' 'What? The Most Christian +Majesty's Ambassador, and treated in this way? I will go to where the +Polish King is, and I will return to my own King, so often as I find +business: stop me at your peril!' and threatened and argued, and made a +deal of blusterous noise;--far too much, thinks Valori; think the +Prussian Officers, who are sorry, but inflexible. Margraf Karl, +Commandant of the place, in absence of King Friedrich (who is gone +lately, on a Business we shall hear of), earnestly dissuaded Excellency +Broglio; but it was to no purpose. Next day Broglio appeared in his +state-carriage, formally demanding entrance, free thoroughfare: 'Do you +dare refuse me?' 'Yes,' answered Margraf Karl; 'we do and must.' +Indignant Broglio reappeared, next day, on foot; Lieutenant-General +Prince Friedrich Eugen of Wurtemberg the chief man in charge: 'Do you +dare?' 'Indubitably, Yes;'--and Broglio still pushing on incredulous, +Eugen actually raised his arm,--elbow and fore-arm across the breast of +Most Christian Majesty's Ambassador,--who recoiled, to Dresden, in mere +whirlwinds of fire; and made the most of it [unwisely, thinks Valori] in +writing to Court. [Valori, ii. 349, 209, 353 ("Wednesday, 6th October," +the day of it, seemingly); ib. i. 312, &c.] Court, in high dudgeon, +commanded Valori to quit Berlin without taking leave. Valori, in his +private capacity, wrote an Adieu; [Friedrich's kind Letter in answer to +it, "2d November, 1756," in Valori, i. 313.] and in his public, as the +fact stood, That he was gone without Adieu." + +And the Dauphiness, daughter of those injured Polish Majesties, fell +on her knees (Pompadour permitting and encouraging) at the feet of Most +Christian Majesty; on her knees, all in passion of tears; craved help +and protection to her loved old Mother, in the name of Nature and of all +Kings: could any King resist? And his Pompadour was busy: "Think of +that noble Empress, who calls me COUSIN AND DEAR PRINCESS; think of that +insolent Prussian Robber: Ah, your Majesty:"-and King Louis, though +not a hating man, did privately dislike Friedrich; and evil speeches +of Friedrich's had been reported to him. And, in short, the upshot was: +King Louis, bound only to 24,000 for help of Austria, determined to +send, and did send, above 100,000 across the Rhine, next Year, for that +object; as will be seen. And all Frenchmen--all except Belleisle, who +is old--are charmed with these new energetic measures, and beautiful new +Austrian connections. + +Certain it is, the Austrians are coming, her Imperial Majesty bent with +all her might on relief of those Saxon martyrs; which indeed is relief +of herself, as she well perceives: "Courage, my friends; endure yet a +little!" Messengers smuggle themselves through the Mountain paths, and +go and return, though with difficulty. + +Since September 19th, the Correspondence with Polish Majesty has ceased: +no persuading of the Polish Majesty. Winterfeld went twice to him; +conferred at large, Bruhl forbidden to be there, on the actual +stringencies and urgencies of Fact between the Two Countries; but it was +with no result at all. Polish Majesty has not the least intention that +Saxony shall be even a Highway for Friedrich, if at any time Polish +Majesty can hinder it: "Neutrality," therefore, will not do for +Friedrich; he demands Alliance, practical Partnership; and to that his +Polish Majesty is completely abhorrent. Diplomatizing may cease; nothing +but wrestle of fight will settle this matter. + +Friedrich, able to get nothing from the Sovereign of Saxony, is reduced +to grasp Saxony itself: and we can observe him doing it; always the +closer, always the more carefully, as the complicacy deepens, and the +obstinacy becomes more dangerous and provoking. What alternative is +there? On first entering Saxony, Friedrich had made no secret that he +was not a mere bird of passage there. At Torgau, there was at once a +"Field-Commissariat" established, with Prussian Officials of eminence to +administer, the Military Chest to be deposited there, and Torgau to be +put in a state of defence. Torgau, our Saxon Metropolis of War-Finance, +is becoming more and more the Metropolis of Saxon Finance in general. +Saxon Officials were liable, from the first, to be suspended, on +Friedrich's order. Saxon Finance-Officials, of all kinds, were from +the first instructed, that till farther notice there must be no +disbursements without King Friedrich's sanction. And, in fact, King +Friedrich fully intends that Saxony is to help him all it can; and that +it either will or else shall, in this dire pressure of perplexity, +which is due in such a degree to the conduct of the Saxon Government for +twelve years past. Would Saxony go with him in any form of consent, how +much more convenient to Friedrich! But Saxony will not; Polish Majesty, +not himself suffering hunger, is obstinate as the decrees of Fate (or as +sheep, when too much put upon), regardless of considerations;--and, +in fine, here is Browne actually afoot; coming to relieve Polish +Majesty!--The Austrians had uncommonly bestirred themselves:-- + +The activity, the zeal of all ranks, ever since this expedition into +Saxony, and clutching of Saxony by the throat, contemporary witnesses +declare to have been extraordinary. "Horses for Piccolomini's +Cavalry,--they had scarcely got their horses, not to speak of training +them, not to speak of cannon and the heavier requisites, when Schwerin +began marching out of Glatz on Piccolomini. As to the cannon for Browne +and him, draught-cattle seem absolutely unprocurable. Whereupon Maria +Theresa flings open her own Imperial Studs: 'There, yoke these to our +cannon; let them go their swiftest;'--which awoke such an enthusiasm, +that noblemen and peasants crowded forward with their coach-horses and +their cart-horses, to relay Browne, all through Bohemia, at different +stages; and the cannon and equipments move to their places at the +gallop, in a manner," [Archenholtz, i. 24.]--and even Browne, at the +base of the Metal Mountains, has got most of his equipments. And is +astir towards Pirna (Army of 60,000, rumor says), for relief of the +Saxon martyrs. Friedrich's complexities are getting day by day more +stringent. + +From the middle of September, Marshal Keith, as was observed, with Half +of the Prussians, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick under him, has been on +the Bohemian slope of the Metal Mountains; securing the roads, towns and +passes thereabouts, and looking out for the advance of Marshal Browne +from the interior parts. Town of Aussig, and the River-road (castle of +Tetschen, on its high rock known to Tourists, which always needs to be +taken on such occasions), these Keith has secured. Lies encamped from +Peterswalde to Aussig, the middle or main strength of him being in the +Hamlet of Johnsdorf (discoverable, if readers like): there lies Keith, +fifteen miles in length; like a strap, or bar, thrown across the back of +that Metal-Mountain Range,--or part of its back; for the range is very +broad, and there is much inequality, and many troughs, big and little, +partial and general, in the crossing of it. A tract which my readers and +I have crossed before now, by the "Pascopol" or Post-road and otherwise; +and shall often have to cross! + +Browne, vigorously astir in the interior (cannon and equipments coming +by relays at such a pace), is daily advancing, with his best speed: in +the last days of September, Browne is encamped at Budin; may cross the +Eger River any day, and will then be within two marches of Keith. His +intentions towards Pirna Country are fixed and sure; but the plan +or route he will take is unknown to everybody, and indeed to Browne +himself, till he see near at hand and consider. Browne's problem, he +himself knows, is abundantly abstruse,--bordering on the impossible; +but he will try his best. To get within reach of the Saxons is almost +impossible to Browne, even were there no Keith there. As good as +impossible altogether, by any line of march, while Keith is afoot in +those parts. By Aussig, down the River, straight for the interior of +their Camp, it is flatly impossible: by the south or southeast corner of +their Camp (Gottleube way), or by the northeast (by Schandau way, right +bank of Elbe), it is virtually so,--at least without beating Keith. +Could one beat Keith indeed;--but that will not be easy! And that, +unluckily, is the preliminary to everything. + +"By the Hellendorf-Hennersdorf side, in the wastes where Gottleube Brook +gathers itself, Browne might have a chance. There, on that southeast +corner of their Camp, were he once there to attack the Prussians from +without, while the Saxons burst up from within,--there," thinks a good +judge, "is much the favorablest place. But unless Browne's Army had +wings, how is it ever to get there? Across those Metal-Mountain ranges, +barred by Keith:--by Aussig, with the rocks overhanging Elbe River and +him, he cannot go in any case. Were there no Keith, indeed (but there +always is, standing ready on the spring), one might hold to leftward, +and by stolen marches, swift, far round about--! + +"By Schandau region, north side of the Elbe, is Browne's easiest, and +indeed one feasible, point of approach,--no Prussians at present +between him and that; the road open, though a far circuit northward for +Browne,--were he to cross the Elbe in Leitmeritz circle, and march with +velocity? That too will be difficult,--nearly impossible in sight of +Keith. And were that even done, the egress for the Saxons, by Schandau +side, is through strait mountain gorges, intricate steep passes, +crossings of the Elbe: what force of Saxons or of Austrians will drive +the Prussians from their redoubts and batteries there?" [_OEuvres de +Frederic,_ iv. 86, 93, 96.] + +Browne's problem is none of the feasiblest: but his orders are strict, +"Relieve the Saxons, at all risks." And Browne, one of the ablest +soldiers living ("Your Imperial Majesty's best general," said the dying +Khevenhuller long since), will do his utmost upon it. Friedrich does +not think the enterprise very dangerous,--beating of Keith the +indispensable preliminary to it; but will naturally himself go and look +into it. + +Tuesday, September 28th, Friedrich quits Pirna Country by the Prag +Highway; making due inspection of his Posts as he goes along; and, the +outmost of these once past, drives rapidly up the Mountains; gets, with +small escort, through Peterswalde on to Johnsdorf that night. Does +not think this Keith position good; breaks up this "Camp of Johnsdorf" +bodily next morning; and marches down the Mountains, direct towards +Browne; who, we hear, is about crossing the Eger (his Pontoons now +come at last), and will himself be on the advance. From Turmitz, a poor +mountain hamlet in the hollow of the Hills, which is head-quarters that +night, the march proceeds again; Friedrich with the vanguard; Army, I +think, on various country-roads, on both hands; till all get upon the +Great Road again,--Prag-Toplitz-Dresden Post-road; which is called, +specially in this part of it, and loosely in whole, "The Pascopol," and +leads down direct to Budin and Browne. + +"A 'Pascopol' famed in military annals," says our Tourist. "It is a +road with many windings, many precipitous sweeps of up and down; road +precipitous in structure;--offers views to the lover of wild Nature: +huge lonesome Hills scattered in the distance; waste expanses nearer +hand, and futile attempts at moorish agriculture; but little else that +is comfortable. In times of Peace, you will meet, at long intervals, +some post-vehicle struggling forward under melancholy circumstances; +some cart, or dilapidated mongrel between cart and basket, with a lean +ox harnessed to it, and scarecrow driver, laden with pit-coal,--which +you wish safe home, and that the scarecrow were getting warmed by it. +But in War-time the steep road is livelier; the common Invasion road +between Saxony and Bohemia; whole Armies sweeping over it, and their +thousand-fold wagons and noises making clangor enough. ... One of those +Hollows, on the Pascopol, is Joachimsthal, with its old Silver Mines; +yielding coins which were in request with traders, the silver being +fine. 'Let my ducat be a Joachimsthal one, then!' the old trader would +say: 'a JOACHIMSTHAL-ER;' or, for brevity, a 'THAL-ER;' whence THALER, +and at last DOLLAR (almighty and otherwise),--now going round the world! +[Busching, _Erdbeschreibung,_v. 178.] Pascopol finishes in Welmina +Township. From the last hamlet in Welmina, at the neck of the last Hill, +step downward one mile, holding rather to the left, you will come on the +innocent Village of Lobositz, its poor corn-mills and huckster-shops all +peaceably unknown as yet, which is soon to become very famous." + +The Country-roads where Friedrich's Army is on march, I should think, +are mostly on the mounting hand. For here, from Turmitz, is a trough +again; though the last considerable one; and on the crest of that, we +shall look down upon the Bohemian Plains and the grand Basin of the +Elbe,--through various scrubby villages which are not nameworthy; +through one called Kletschen, which for a certain reason is. Crossing +the shoulder of Kletschenberg (HILL of this Kletschen), which abuts upon +the Pascopol,--yonder in bright sunshine is your beautiful expansive +Basin of the Elbe, and the green Bohemian Plains, revealed for a moment. +Friedrich snatches his glass, not with picturesque object: "See, yonder +is Feldmarschall Browne, then! In camp yonder, down by Lobositz, not +ten miles from us,--[it is most true; Browne marched this morning, long +before the Sun; crossed Eger, and pitched camp at noon]--Good!" thinks +Friedrich. And pushes down into the Pascopol, into the hollows and minor +troughs, which hide Browne henceforth, till we are quite near. + +Quite near, through Welmina and a certain final gap of the Hills, +Friedrich with the vanguard does emerge, "an hour before sunset;" +overhanging Browne; not above a mile from the Camp of Browne. A very +large Camp, that of Browne's, flanked to right by the Elbe; goes from +Sulowitz, through Lobositz, to Welhoten close on Elbe;--and has +properties extremely well worth studying just now! "Friedrich" the Books +say, "bivouacs by a fire of sticks," short way down on the southern +slope of the Hill; and till sunset and after, has eye-glass, brain, and +faculties and activities sufficiently occupied for the rest of the +night;--his Divisions gradually taking post behind him, under arms; "not +till midnight, the very rearmost of them." ["Tuesday, 28th September, +left the Camp at Sedlitz, with 8 battalions 20 squadrons, to Johnsdorf: +29th, to Turmitz,--Browne is to pass the Eger tomorrow. From the tops of +the Pascopol (30th), SEE an Austrian Camp in the Plain of Lobositz. +Vanguard bivouacs in the 'neck' of the two Hills or a little beyond." +PRUSSIAN ACCOUNT OF CAMPAIGN 1756 (in _Gesammelte Nachrichten_, +i. 844-845, 840-858); Anonymous of Hamburg; &c. &c.] + + + + +Chapter VI.--BATTLE OF LOBOSITZ. + +Welmina,--or Reschni-Aujest, last pertinent of Welmina (but we will take +Friedrich's name for it), offers to the scrutinizing eye nothing, in +our day, but some bewildered memory of "Alte Fritz" clinging obstinately +even to the Peasant mind thereabouts. A sleepy littery place; some +biggish haggard untrimmed trees, some broken-backed sleepy-looking +thatched houses, not in contact, and each as far as might be with its +back turned on the other, and cloaked in its own litter and privacy. +Probably no human creature will be visible, as you pass through. Much +straw lying about, chiefly where the few gaunt trees look down on it +(cattle glad of any shelter): in fact, it is mainly an extinct tumult +of straw; nothing alive, as you pass, but a few poor oxen languidly +sauntering up and down, finding much to trample, little to eat. The +Czech Populations (were it not for that "Question of the Nationalities") +are not very beautiful! + +Close south of this poor Hamlet is a big Hill, conspicuous with three +peaks; quite at the other base of which, a good way down, lies Lobositz, +the main Village in those parts; a place now of assiduous corn-mill and +fruit trade; and one of the stations on the Dresden-Prag Railway. This +Hill is what Lloyd calls the Lobosch; [Major-General Lloyd, _History +of the late War in Germany, _1756-1759 (3 vols. 4to, London, 1781), i. +2-11.] twin to which, only flatter, is Lloyd's "Homolka Hill" (Hill +of RADOSTITZ in more modern Plans and Books). Conspicuous Heights, and +important to us here,--though I did not find the Peasants much know them +under those names. By the southern shoulder of this Lobosch Hill runs +the road from Welmina to Lobositz, with branches towards many other +villages. To your right or southern hand, short way southward, rises the +other Hill, which Lloyd calls Homolka Hill; the gap or interval between +Homolka and Lobosch, perhaps a furlong in extent, is essentially the +PASS through those uplands. This pass, Friedrich, at the first moment, +made sure of; filling the same with battalions, there to bivouac. He +likewise promptly laid hold of the two Hills, high Lobosch to his left, +and lower Homolka to right; which precautionary measure it is reckoned +a fault in Browne to have neglected, that night; fault for which he +smarted on the morrow. + +From this upland pass, or neck between the two Mountains, Friedrich's +battalions would have had a fine view, had the morning shone for them: +Lobositz, Leitmeritz, Melnick; a great fertile Valley, or expanse of +fruitful country, many miles in breadth and length; Elbe, like a silver +stripe, winding grandly through the finest of all his countries, before +ducking himself into the rock-tumults of that Pirna district. The +mountain gorges of Prag and Moldau River, south of Melnick, lie hidden +under the horizon, or visible only as peaks, thirty miles and more to +southeastward; a bright country intervening, sprinkled with steepled +towns. To northwestward, far away, are the Lausitz Mountains, ranked +in loose order, but massive, making a kind of range: and as outposts +to them in their scattered state, Hills of good height and aspect are +scattered all about, and break the uniformity of the Plain. Nowhere in +North Germany could the Prussian battalions have a finer view,--if the +morning were fine, and if views were their object. + +The morning, first in October, was not fine; and it was far other than +scenery that the Prussian battalions had in hand!--Friday, 1st October, +1756, Day should have broken: but where is day? At seven in the morning +(and on till eleven), thick mist lay over the plain; thin fog to the +very hill-tops; so that you cannot see a hundred yards ahead. Lobositz +is visible only as through a crape; farther on, nothing but gray sea; +under which, what the Austrians are doing, or whether there are any +Austrians, who can say? Leftward on the Lobosch-Hill side, as we +reconnoitre, some Pandours are noticeable, nestled in the vineyards +there:--that sunward side of the Lobosch is all vineyards, belonging +to the different Lobositzers: scrubby vineyards, all in a brown plucked +state at this season. Vineyards parted by low stone walls, say three or +four feet high (parted by hurdles, or by tiny trenches, in our day, and +the stone walls mere stone facings): there are the Pandours crouched, +and give fire in a kneeling posture when you approach. Lower down, near +Lobositz itself, flickerings as of Horse squadrons, probably Hussar +parties, twinkle dubious in the wavering mist. Problem wrapt in mist; +nothing to be seen; and all depends on judging it with accuracy! Seven +by the clock: Deploy, at any rate; let us cover our post; and be in +readiness for events. + +Friedrich's vanguard of itself nearly fills that neck, or space between +the Lobosch and Homolka Hills. He spreads his Infantry and "hundred +field-pieces," in part, rightwards along the Homolka Hill; but chiefly +leftwards along the Lobosch, where their nearest duty is to drive off +those Pandours. Always as a new battalion, pushing farther leftward, +comes upon its ground, the Pandours give fire on it;--and it on the +Pandours; till the Left Wing is complete, and all the Lobosch is, in +this manner, a crackling of Pandour musketry, and anti-musketry. Right +Wing, steady to its guns on the Homolka, has as yet nothing to do. Those +wings of Infantry are two lines deep; the Cavalry, in three lines, is +between them in the centre; no room for Cavalry elsewhere, except on the +outskirts some fringing of light horse, to be ready for emergencies. + +The Pandour firing, except for the noise of it, does not amount to much; +they can take no aim, says Lloyd, crouching behind their stone fences; +and the Prussian Battalions, steadily pushing downwards, trample out +their sputtering, and clear the Lobosch of them to a safe distance. +But the ground is intricate, so wrapt in mist for the present. That +crackling lasts for hours; decisive of nothing; and the mist also, and +one's anxious guessings and scrutinizings, lasts in a wavering fitful +manner. + +Once, for some time, in the wavering of the mist, there was seen, down +in the plain opposite our centre, a body of Cavalry. Horse for certain: +say ten squadrons of them, or 1,500 Horse; continually manoeuvring, +changing shape; now in more ranks, now in fewer; sometimes +"checkerwise," formed like a draught-board; shooting out wings: they +career about, one sees not whither, or vanish again into the mist +behind. "Browne's rear-guard this, that we are come upon," thinks +Friedrich; "these squatted Pandours, backed by Horse, must be his +rear-guard, that are amusing us: Browne and the Army are off; crossing +the Elbe, hastening towards the Schandau, the Pirna quarter, while we +stand bickering and idly sputtering here!"--Weary of such idle business, +Friedrich orders forward Twenty of his Squadrons from the centre +station: "Charge me those Austrian Horse, and let us finish this." The +Twenty Squadrons, preceded by a pair of field-pieces, move down hill; +storm in upon the Austrian party, storm it furiously into the mist; are +furiously chasing it,--when unexpected cannon-batteries, destructive +case-shot, awaken on their left flank (batteries from Lobositz, one may +guess); and force them to draw back. To draw back, with some loss; and +rank again, in an indignantly blown condition, at the foot of their +Hill. Indignant; after brief breathing, they try it once more. + +"Don't try it!" Friedrich had sent out to tell them: for the mist +was clearing; and Friedrich, on the higher ground, saw new important +phenomena: but it was too late. For the Twenty Squadrons are again +dashing forward; sweeping down whatever is before them: in spite of +cannon-volleys, they plunge deeper and deeper into the mist; come upon +"a ditch twelve feet broad" (big swampy drain, such as are still found +there, grass-green in summer-time); clear said ditch; forward still +deeper into the mist: and after three hundred yards, come upon a second +far worse "ditch;" plainly impassable this one,--"ditch" they call it, +though it is in fact a vile sedgy Brook, oozing along there (the MORELL +BACH, considerable Brook, lazily wandering towards Lobositz, where it +disembogues in rather swifter fashion);--and are saluted with cannon, +from the farther side; and see serried ranks under the gauze of mist: +Browne's Army, in fact! The Twenty Squadrons have to recoil out of +shot-range, the faster, the better; with a loss of a good many men, in +those two charges. Friedrich orders them up Hill again; much regretful +of this second charge, which he wished to hinder; and posts them to +rearward,--where they stand silent, the unconscious stoic-philosophers +in buff, and have little farther service through the rest of the day. + +It is now 11 o'clock; the mist all clearing off; and Friedrich, before +that second charge, had a growing view of the Plain and its condition. +Beyond question, there is Browne; not in retreat, by any means; but in +full array; numerous, and his position very strong. Ranked, unattackable +mostly, behind that oozy Brook, or BACH of Morell; which has only two +narrow Bridges, cannon plenty on both: one Bridge from the south parts +to Sulowitz (OUR road to Sulowitz and it would be by Radostitz and +the Homolka); and then one other Bridge, connecting Sulowitz with +Lobositz,--which latter is Browne's own Bridge, uniting right wing and +left of Browne, so to speak; and is still more unattackable, in the +circumstances. What will Friedrich decide on attempting? + +That oozy Morell Brook issues on Browne's side of Lobositz, cutting +Browne in two; but is otherwise all in Browne's favor. Browne +extends through Lobositz; and beyond it, curves up to Welhoten on +the River-brink; at Lobositz are visible considerable redoubts, +cannon-batteries and much regular infantry. Browne will be difficult to +force yonder, in the Lobositz part; but yonder alone can he be tried. +He is pushing up more Infantry that way; conscious probably of that +fact,--and that the Lobosch Hill is not his, but another's. What would +not Browne now give for the Lobosch Hill! Yesternight he might have had +it gratis, in a manner; and indeed did try slightly, with his Pandour +people (durst not at greater expense),--who have now ceased sputtering, +and cower extinct in the lower vineyards there. Browne, at any rate, +is rapidly strengthening his right wing, which has hold of Lobositz; +pushing forward in that quarter,--where the Brook withal is of firmer +bottom and more wadable. Thither too is Friedrich bent. So that Lobositz +is now the key of the Battle; there will the tug of war now be. + +Friedrich's cavalry is gone all to rearward. His right wing holds the +Homolka Hill,--that too would now be valuable to Browne; and cannot be +had gratis, as yesternight! Friedrich's left wing is on the Lobosch; +Pandours pretty well extinct before it, but now from Welhoten quarter +new Regulars coming on thither,--as if Browne would still take the +Lobosch? Which would be victory to him; but is not now possible to +Browne. Nor will long seem so;--Friedrich having other work in view for +him;--meaning now to take Lobositz, instead of losing the Lobosch to +him! Friedrich pushes out his Left Wing still farther leftward, leftward +and downward withal, to clear those vineyard-fences completely of +their occupants, Pandour or Regular, old or new. This is done; the +vineyard-fences swept;--and the sweepings driven, in a more and more +stormy fashion, towards Welhoten and Lobositz; the Lobosch falling quite +desperate for Browne. + +Henceforth Friedrich directs all his industry to taking Lobositz; +Browne, to the defending of it, which he does with great vigor and +fire; his batteries, redoubts, doing their uttermost, and his battalions +rushing on, mass of them after mass, at quick march, obstinate, fierce +to a degree, in the height of temper; and showing such fight as we never +had of them before. Friedrich's Left Wing and Browne's Right now have it +to decide between them;--any attempt Browne makes with his Left through +Sulowitz (as he once did, and once only) is instantly repressed by +cannon from the Homolka Hill. And the rest of the Battle, or rather the +Battle itself,--for all hitherto has been pickeering and groping in the +mist,--may be made conceivable in few words. + +Friedrich orders the second line of his Left Wing to march up and join +with the first; Right Wing, shoving ITS two lines into one, is now to +cover the Lobosch as well. Left Wing, in condensed condition, shall +fall down on Lobositz, and do its best. They are now clear of the +vineyard-works; the ground is leveller, though still sloping,--a three +furlongs from the Village, and somewhat towards the Elbe, when Browne's +battalions first came extensively to close grips; fierce enough (as was +said); the toughest wrestle yet had with those Austrians,--coming on +with steady fury, under such force of cannon; with iron ramrods too, +and improved ways, like our own. But nothing could avail them; the +counter-fury being so great. They had to go at the Welhoten part, and +even to run,--plunging into Elbe, a good few of them, and drowning there, in the +vain hope to swim. "Never have my troops," says Friedrich, "done such +miracles of valor, cavalry as well as infantry, since I had the honor to +command them. By this dead-lift achievement (TOUR DE FORCE) I have seen +what they can do." [Letter to Schwerin, "Lobositz, 2d August, 1756" +(Retzow, i. 64); RELATION DE LA CAMPAGNE, 1756, that is, PRUSSIAN +ACCOUNT (in _Gesammelte Nachrichten), _i. 848. Lloyd, UT SUPRA, i. 2-11 +(who has solid information at first hand, having been an actor in these +Wars. A man of great natural sagacity and insight; decidedly luminous +and original, though of somewhat crabbed temper now and then; a man +well worth hearing on this and on whatever else he handles). Tempelhof, +GESCHICHTE DES SIEBENJAHRIGEN KRIEGES (which is at first a mere +Translation of Lloyd, nothing new in it but certain notes and criticisms +on Lloyd; when Lloyd ends, Tempelhof, Prussian Major and Professor, a +learned, intelligent, but diffuse man, of far inferior talent to Lloyd, +continues and completes on his own footing: six very thin 4tos, Berlin, +1794), i. 38 (Battle, with FOOTNOTES), and ib. 51 (CRITICISM of Lloyd). +Prussian and Austrian Accounts in _Helden-Geschichte, _iii. 800 et seq. +Many Narratives in FELDZUGE, and the BEYLAGE to Seyfarth; &c. &c.] + +In fine, after some three hours more of desperate tugging and +struggling, cannon on both sides going at a great rate, and infinite +musketry ("ninety cartridges a man on our Prussian side, and ammunition +falling done"), not without bayonet-pushings, and smitings with the butt +of your musket, the Austrians are driven into Lobositz; are furiously +pushed there, and, in spite of new battalions coming to the rescue, +are fairly pushed through. These Village-streets are too narrow for +new battalions from Browne; "much of the Village should have been burnt +beforehand," say cool judges. And now, sure enough, it does get burnt; +Lobositz is now all on fire, by Prussian industry. So that the Austrians +have to quit it instantly; and rush off in great disorder; key of the +Battle, or Battle itself, quite lost to them. + +The Prussian infantry, led by the Duke of Brunswick-Bevern ("Governor of +Stettin," one of the Duke-Ferdinand cousinry, frugal and valiant), gave +the highest satisfaction; seldom was such firing, such furious pushing; +they had spent ninety cartridges a man; were at last quite out of +cartridges; so that Bevern had to say, "Strike in with bayonets, MEINE +KINDER; butt-ends, or what we have; HERAN!" Our Grenadiers were mainly +they that burnt Lobositz. "How salutary now would it have been," says +Epimetheus Lloyd, "had Browne had a small battery on the other side of +the Elbe;" whereby he might have taken them in flank, and shorn them +into the wind! Epimetheus marks this battery on his Plan; and is wise +behindhand, at a cheap rate. + +Browne's Right Wing, and probably his Army with it, would have gone much +to perdition, now that Lobositz was become Prussian,--had not Browne, +in the nick of the moment, made a masterly movement: pushed forward +his Centre and Left Wing, numerous battalions still fresh, to interpose +between the chasing Prussians and those fugitives. The Prussians, +infantry only, cannot chase on such terms; the Prussian cavalry, we +know, is far rearward on the high ground. Browne retires a mile +or two,--southward, Budin-ward,--not chased; and there halts, and +rearranges himself; thinking what farther he will do. His aim in +fighting had only been to defend himself; and in that humble aim he has +failed. Chase of the Prussians over that Homolka-Lobosch country, with +the high grounds rearward and the Metal Mountains in their hands, he +could in no event have attempted. + +The question now is: Will he go back to Budin; or will he try +farther towards Schandau? Nature points to the former course, in such +circumstances; Friedrich, by way of assisting, does a thing much +admired by Lloyd;--detaches Bevern with a strong party southward, out +of Lobositz, which is now his, to lay hold of Tschirskowitz, lying +Budin-ward, but beyond the Budin Road. Which feat, when Browne hears +of it, means to him, "Going to cut me off from Budin, then? From my +ammunition-stores, from my very bread-cupboard!" And he marches that +same midnight, silently, in good order, back to Budin. He is not much +ruined; nay the Prussian loss is numerically greater: "3,308 killed and +wounded, on the Prussian side; on the Austrian, 2,984, with three cannon +taken and two standards." Not ruined at all; but foiled, frustrated; and +has to devise earnestly, "What next?" Once rearranged, he may still try. + +The Battle lasted seven hours; the last four of it very hot, till +Lobositz was won and lost. It was about 5 P.M. when Browne fired his +retreat-cannon:--cannon happened to be loaded (say the Anecdote-Books, +mythically given now and then); Friedrich, wearied enough, had flung +himself into his carriage for a moment's rest, or thankful reflection; +and of all places, the ball of the retreat-cannon lighted THERE. Between +Friedrich's feet, as he lay reclining,--say the Anecdote-Books, whom +nobody is bound to believe. + +On the strength of those two Prussian charges, which had retired from +case-shot on their flank, and had not wings, for getting over sedge and +ooze, Austria pretended to claim the victory. "Two charges repelled by +our gallant horse; Lobositz, indeed, was got on fire, and we had nothing +for it but to withdraw; but we took a new position, and only left +that for want of water;"--with the like excuses. "Essentially a clear +victory," said the Austrians; and sang TE-DEUM about it;--but profited +nothing by that piece of melody. The fact, considerable or not, was, +from the first, too undeniable: Browne beaten from the field. And beaten +from his attempt too (the Saxons not relievable by this method); and +lies quiet in Budin again,--with his water sure to him; but what other +advantages gained? + +Here are two Letters, brief both, which we may as well read:-- + +1. FRIEDRICH TO WILHELMINA (at Baireuth). + +"LOBOSITZ, 4th October, 1756. + +"MY DEAR SISTER,--Your will is accomplished. Tired out by these +Saxon delays, I put myself at the head of my Army of Bohemia [Keith's +hitherto]; and marched from Aussig to--a Name which seemed to me of good +augury, being yours,--to the Village of Welmina [Battle was called OF +WELMINA, by the Prussians at first]. I found the Austrians here, near +Lobositz; and, after a Fight of seven hours, forced them to run. Nobody +of your acquaintance is killed, except Generals Luderitz and OErzen [who +are not of ours]. + +"I return you a thousand thanks for the tender part you take in my lot. +Would to Heaven the valor of my Army might procure us a stable Peace! +That ought to be the aim of War. Adieu, my dear Sister; I embrace you +tenderly, assuring you of the lively affection with which I am--F." +[_OEuvres,_ xxvii. i. 291.] + +2. PRINCE OF PRUSSIA TO VALORI (who is still at Berlin, but soon going +as it proves,--Broglio's explosion at the Lines of Gross-Sedlitz being +on hand, during the King's absence, in these very hours) ["5th-6th +October" (Valori, ii. 353).] + +"CAMP OF LOBOSITZ, 5th October, 1756. + +"You will know the news of the day; and I am persuaded you take part +in it. All you say to me betokens the conspiracy there is for the +destruction of our Country. If that is determined in the Book of Fate, +we cannot escape it. + +"Had my advice been asked, a year ago, I should have voted to preserve +the Alliance [with YOU] which we had been used to for sixteen years +[strictly for twelve, though in substance ever since 1740], and which +was by nature advantageous to us. But if my advice were asked just now, +I should answer, That the said method being now impossible, we are in +the case of a ship's captain who defends himself the best he can, and +when all resources are exhausted, has, rather than surrender on shameful +conditions, to fire the powder-magazine, and blow up his ship. You +remember that of your Francois I."--FORS L'HONNEUR; ah yes, very +well!--"Perhaps it will be my poor Children who will be the victims of +these past errors,"--for such I still think them, I for my part. + +"The Gazettes enumerate the French troops that are to besiege Wesel, +Geldern [Wesel they will get gratis, poor Geldern will almost break +their heart first], and take possession of Ost-Friesland; the Russian +Declaration [Manifesto not worth reading] tells us Russia's intentions +for the next year [most truculent intentions]: we will defend ourselves +to the last drop of our blood, and perish with honor. If you have any +counsel farther, I pray you give it me. + +MAP GOES HERE--BETWEEN P. 350 AND 351 Chap VII book 17 + +"Remain always my friend; and believe that in all situations I will +remain yours; and trying to do what my duty is, will not forfeit the +sentiments on your part which have been so precious to me. Your servant, +GUILLAUME." [Valori, ii. 204-206.] + +"Pity this good Prince contemplating the downfall of his House," +suggests Valori: "He deserved a better fate! He would be in despair to +think I had sent this Letter to your Excellency; but I thought perhaps +you would show it to the King,"--and that it might do good one day. +[Valori (to the French Minister, "12th October, 1756"), ii. 204.] The +Prussians lay in their "Camp of Lobositz," posted up and down in that +neighborhood, for a couple of weeks more; waiting whether Browne would +attempt anything farther in the fighting way; and, in fine, whether the +solution of the crisis would fall out hereabouts, or on the other side +of the Hills. + + + + +Chapter VII.--THE SAXONS GET OUT OF PIRNA ON DISMAL TERMS. + +The disaster of October 1st--for which they were trying to sing TE-DEUMS +at Vienna--fell heavier on the poor Saxons, in their cage at Pirna: +"Alas, where is our deliverance now?" Friedrich's people, in their lines +here, gave them such a "joy-firing" for Lobositz as Retzow has seldom +heard; huge volleyings, salvoings, running-fires, starting out, +artistically timed and stationed, thunderous, high; and borne by the +echoes, gloomily reverberative, into every dell and labyrinth of the +Pirna Country;--intended to strike a deeper damp into them, thinks he. +[Retzow, i. 67.] But Imperial Majesty was mindful, too; and straightway +sent Browne positive order, "Deliver me these poor Saxons at any price!" +And in the course of not quite a week from Lobositz, there arrives a +confidential Messenger from Browne: "Courage still, ye caged Saxons; I +will try it another way! Only you must hold out till the 11th; on the +11th stand to your tools, and it shall be done." + +Browne is to take a succinct Detachment, 8,000 picked men, horse and +foot; to make a wider sweep with these, well eastward by the foot of +Lausitz Hills, and far enough from all Prussian parties and scouts; +to march, with all speed and silence, "through Bohm-Leipa, Kamnitz, +Rumburg, Schluckenau; and come in upon the Schandau region, quite from +the northeast side; say, at Lichtenhayn; an eligible Village, which is +but seven miles or so from the Konigstein, with the chasmy country +and the river intervening. Monday, October 11th, Browne will arrive at +Lichtenhayn (sixty miles of circling march from Budin); privately post +himself near Lichtenhayn; Prussian posts, of no great strength, lying +ahead of him there. You, indignant extenuated Saxons, are to get +yourselves across,--near the Konigstein it will have to be, under cover +of the Konigstein's cannon,--on the front or riverward side of those +same Prussian posts: crossing-place (Browne's Messenger settles) can +be Thurmsdorf Hamlet, opposite the Lilienstein, opposite the Hamlets of +Ebenheit and Halbstadt there. Konigstein fire will cover your bridge and +your building of it. + +"Monday night next, I say, post yourselves there, with hearts resolute, +with powder dry; there, about the eastern roots of the Lilienstein +[beautiful Show Mountain, with stair-steps cut on it for Tourist people, +by August the Strong], and avoid the Prussian battery and abatis which +is on it just now! You at Ebenheit, I at Lichtenhayn, trimmed and braced +for action, through that Monday night. Tuesday morning, the Konigstein, +at your beckoning, shall fire two cannon-shots; which shall mean, 'All +ready here!' Then forward, you, on those Prussian posts by the front; +I will attack them by the rear. With right fury, both of us! I am +told, they are but weak in those posts; surely, by double impetus, and +dead-lift effort from us both, they CAN be forced? Only force them,--you +are in the open field again; and you march away with me, colors flying; +your hunger-cage and all your tribulations left behind you!"-- + + +This is Browne's plan. The poor Saxons accept,--what choice have +they?--though the question of crossing and bridge-building has its +intricacies; and that inevitable item of "postponement till the 11th" +is a sore clause to them; for not only are there short and ever shorter +rations, but grim famine itself is advancing with large strides. The +"daily twenty ounces of meal" has sunk to half that quantity; the "ounce +or so of butcher's-meat once a week" has vanished, or become HORSE of +extreme leanness. The cavalry horses have not tasted oats, nothing but +hay or straw (not even water always); the artillery horses had to +live by grazing, brown leaves their main diet latterly. Not horses any +longer; but walking trestles, poor animals! And the men,--well, they are +fallen pale; but they are resolute as ever. The nine corn-mills, which +they have in this circuit of theirs, grind now night and day; and all +the cavalry are set to thresh whatever grain can be found about; no +hind or husbandman shall retain one sheaf: in this way, they hope, utter +hunger may be staved off, and the great attempt made. [PRECIS DE +LA RETRAITE DE L'ARMEE SAXONNE DE SON CAMP DE PIRNA (in _Gesammelte +Nachrichten, _i. 482-494).] + +Browne skilfully and perfectly did his part of the Adventure. Browne +arrives punctually at Lichtenhayn, evening of the 11th; bivouacs, hidden +in the Woods thereabouts, in cold damp weather; stealthily reconnoitres +the Prussian Villages ahead, and trims himself for assault, at sound +of the two cannons to-morrow. But there came no cannon-signal on the +morrow; far other signallings and messagings to-morrow, and next +day, and next, from the Konigstein and neighborhood! "Wait, Excellency +Feldmarschall [writes Bruhl to him, Note after Note, instead of +signalling from the Konigstein]: do wait a very little! You run no +risk in waiting; we, even if we MUST yield, will make that our first +stipulation!" "YOU will?" grumbles Browne; and waits, naturally, with +extreme impatience. But the truth is, the Adventure, on the Saxon side +of it, has already altogether misgone; and becomes, from this point +onwards, a mere series of failures, futilities and disastrous miseries, +tragical to think of. Worth some record here, since there are +Documents abundant;--especially as Feldmarschall Rutowski (who is +General-in-Chief, an old, not esteemed, friend of ours) has produced, or +caused to be produced, a Narrative, which illuminates the Business +from within as well. [PRECIS, &c. (just cited); compare TAGEBUCH DER +EINSCHLIESSUNG DES SACHSISCHEN LAGERS BEY PIRNA ("Diary," &c., which is +the Prussian Account: in Seyfarth, BEYLAGEN), ii. 22-48.] The latter is +our main Document here:-- + +I know not how much of the blame was General Rutowski's: one could +surmise some laxity of effort, and a rather slovenly-survey of facts, in +that quarter. The Enterprise, from the first, was flatly impossible, say +judges; and it is certain, poor Rutowski's execution was not first-rate. +"How get across the Elbe?" Rutowski had said to himself, perhaps not +quite with the due rigor of candor proportionate to the rigorous fact: +"How get across the Elbe? We have copper pontoons at Pirna; but they +will be difficult to cart. Or we might have a boat-bridge; boats planked +together two and two. At Pirna are plenty of boats; and by oar and +track-rope, the River itself might be a road for them? Boats or pontoons +to Konigstein, by water or land, they must be got. Eight miles of +abysmal roads, our horses all extenuated? Impossible to cart these +pontoons!" said Rutowski to himself.--Pity he had not tried it. He had +a week to do those eight bad miles in; and 2,000 lean horses, picking +grass or brown leaves, while their riders threshed. "We will drag our +pontoons by water, by the Elbe tow-path," thought Rutowski, "that +will be easier;"--and forthwith sets about preparing for it, secretly +collecting boats at Pirna, steersmen, towing-men, bridge-tackle and what +else will be necessary. + +Rutowski made, at least, no delay. Browne's messenger, we find, had come +to him, "Thursday, 7th:" and on Friday night Rutowski has a squad of +boatmen, steersmen and twoscore of towing peasants ready; and +actually gets under way. They are escorted by the due battalions with +field-pieces;--who are to fire upon the Prussian batteries, and keep up +such a blaze of musketry and heavier shot, as will screen the boats in +passing. Surely a ticklish operation, this;--arguing a sanguine temper +in General Rutowski! The south bank of the River is ours; but there are +various Prussian batteries, three of them very strong, along the north +bank, which will not fail to pelt us terribly as we pass. No help for +it;--we must trust in luck! Here is the sequel, with dates adjusted. + +ELBE RIVER, NIGHT OF OCTOBER 8th-9th. Friday night, accordingly, so +soon as Darkness (unusually dark this night) has dropt her veil on the +business, Rutowski sets forth. The Prussian battery, or bridge-head +(TETE-DE-PONT), at Pirna, has not noticed him, so silent was he. But, +alas, the other batteries do not fail to notice; to give fire; and, in +fact, on being answered, and finding it a serious thing, to burst out +into horrible explosion; unanswerable by the Saxon field-pieces; +and surely perilous to human nature steering and towing those big +River-Boats. "Loyal to our King, and full of pity for him; that are +we;"--but towing at a rate, say of two shillings per head! Before long, +the forty towing peasants fling down their ropes, first one, then more, +then all, in spite of efforts, promises, menaces; and vanish among the +thickets,--forfeiting the two shillings, on view of imminent death. +Soldiers take the towing-ropes; try to continue it a little; but now the +steersmen also manage to call halt: "We won't! Let us out, let us out! +We will steer you aground on the Prussian shore if you don't!" making +night hideous. And the towing enterprise breaks down for that bout; +double barges mooring on the Saxon shore, I know not precisely at what +point, nor is it material. + +SATURDAY NIGHT, OCTOBER 9th-10th) New boatmen, forty new towmen have +been hired at immense increase of wages; say four shillings for the +night: but have you much good probability, my General, that even for +that high guerdon imminence of death can be made indifferent to towmen? +No, you have n't. The matter goes this night precisely as it did last: +towmen vanishing in the horrible cannon tumult; steersmen shrieking, "We +will ground you on the Prussian shore;" very soldiers obliged to give it +up; and General Rutowski himself obliged to wash his hands of it, as +a thing that cannot be done. In fact, a thing which need not have been +tried, had Rutowski been rigorously candid with himself and his hopes, +as the facts now prove to be. "Twenty-four hours lost by this bad +business" (says he; "thirty-six," as I count, or, to take it rigorously, +"forty-eight" even): and now, Sunday morning instead of Friday, at what, +in sad truth, is metaphorically "the eleventh hour," Rutowski has to +bethink him of his copper pontoons; and make the impossible carting +method possible in a day's time, or do worse. + +SUNDAY, MONDAY, OCTOBER 10th-11th, By unheard-of exertions, all hands +and all spent-horses now at a dead-lift effort night and day, Rutowski +does get his pontoons carted out of the Pirna storehouse; lands them +at Thurmsdorf,--opposite the Lilienstein,--a mile or so short of +Konigstein, where his Bridge shall be. It is now the 11th, at night. And +our pontoons are got to the ground, nothing more. Every man of us, at +this hour, should have been across, and trimming himself to climb, with +bayonet fixed! Browne is ready, expecting our signal-shot to storm in +on his side. And our bridge is not built, only the pontoons here. "All +things went perverse," adds Rutowski, for farther comfort: "we [Saxon +Home-Army] had with us, except Officers, only Four Pontoniers, or +trained Bridge-builders; all the rest are at Warsaw:" sad thought, but +too late to think it! + +TUESDAY, TILL WEDNESDAY EARLY (12th-13th), Bridge, the Four Pontoniers, +with Officers and numb soldiers doing their best, is got built;--Browne +waiting for us, on thorns, all day; Prussians extensively beginning to +strengthen their posts, about the Lilienstein, about Lichtenhayn, or +where risk is; and in fact pouring across to that northern side, quite +aware of Rutowski and Browne. + +That same night, 12th-13th, while the Bridge was struggling to complete +itself,--rain now falling, and tempests broken out,--the Saxon Army, +from Pirna down to Hennersdorf, had lifted itself from its Lines, and +got under way towards Thurmsdorf, and the crossing-place. Dark night, +plunging rain; all the elements in uproar. The worst roads in Nature; +now champed doubly; "such roads as never any Army marched on before." +Most of their cannon are left standing; a few they had tried to yoke, +broke down, "and choked up the narrow road altogether; so that the +cavalry had to dismount, and lead their horses by side-paths,"--figure +what side-paths! Distance to Thurmsdorf, from any point of the Saxon +Lines, cannot be above six miles: but it takes them all that night and +all next day. Such a march as might fill the heart with pity. Oh, ye +Rutowskis, Bruhls, though never so decorated by twelve tailors, what +a sight ye are at the head of men! Dark night, wild raging weather, +labyrinthic roads worn knee-deep. It is broad daylight, Wednesday, 13th, +and only the vanguard is yet got across, trailing a couple of cannons; +and splashes about, endeavoring to take rank there, in spite of wet and +hunger; rain still pouring, wind very high. + +Nothing of Browne comes, this Wednesday; but from the opposite +Gross-Sedlitz and Gottleube side, the Prussians are coming. This +morning, at daylight, struck by symptoms, "the Prussians mounted our +empty redoubts:" they are now in full chase of us, Ziethen with Hussars +as vanguard. A difficult bit of marching, even Ziethen and his light +people find it; sprawling forward, at their cheeriest, with daylight +to help, and in chase, not chased, through such intricacies of rock and +mud. Ziethen's company did not assist the Saxons! They wheel round, show +fight, and there is volleying and bickering all day; the Saxon march +getting ever more perturbed. Nearly all the baggage has to be left. +Ziethen takes into the woods near Thurmsdorf; giving fire as the poor +wet Saxons, now much in a pell-mell condition, pass to their Bridge. +[PRUSSIAN ACCOUNT (in _Gesammelte Nachrichten), _i. 852.] Heavier +Prussians are striding on to rear; these, from some final hill-top, do +at last belch out two cannon-shots: figure the confusion at that Bridge, +the speed now becoming delirious there! Towards evening, rain still +violent, the Saxons, baggageless, and rushing quite pell-mell the latter +part of them, are mostly across, still countable to 14,000 or so;--upon +which they cut their Bridge adrift, and let the river take it. At +Raden, a few miles lower, the Prussians fished it out; rebuilt it more +deliberately,--and we shall find it there anon. This day Friedrich, +hearing what is afoot, has returned in person from the Lobositz +Country; takes Struppen as his head-quarter, which was lately the Polish +Majesty's. + +From Browne there has nothing come this Wednesday; but to-morrow morning +at seven there comes a Letter from him, written this night at ten; to +the effect:-- + +"HEAD-QUARTER, LICHTENHAYN, Wednesday, October 13th, 10 P.M. + +"EXCELLENZ,--Have [omitting the I] waited here at Lichtenhayn since +Tuesday, expecting your signal-cannon; hearing nothing of it, conclude +you have by misfortune not been able to get across; and that the +Enterprise is up. My own position being dangerous [Prussians of double +my strength intrenched within few miles of me], I turn homewards +to-morrow at nine A.M.: ready for whatever occurs TILL then; and +sorrowfully say adieu," [PRECIS (ut supra), p. 493; _Helden-Geschichte, +_iii. 940; &c.] + +Dreadful weather for Browne in his bivouac, and wearisome waiting, +with Prussians and perils accumulating on him! Browne was ill of lungs; +coughing much; lodging, in these violent tempests, on the cold ground. +A right valiant soldier and man, as does appear; the flower of all the +Irish Brownes (though they have quite forgotten him in our time), and of +all those Irish Exiles then tragically spending themselves in Austrian +quarrels! "You saw the great man," says one who seems to have been +present, "how he sacrificed himself to this Enterprise. What Austrian +Field-marshal but himself would ever have lowered his loftiness to lead, +in person, so insignificant a Detachment, merely for the public good! +I have seen staff-officers, distinguished only by their sasheries and +insignia, who would not have stirred to inspect a vedette without 250 +men. Our Field-marshal was of another turn. Sharing with his troops all +the hardships, none excepted, of these critical days; and in spite of a +violent cough, which often brought the visible blood from his lungs, and +had quite worn him down; exposing himself, like the meanest of the Army, +to the tempests of rainy weather. Think what a sight it was, going to +your very heart, and summoning you to endurance of every hardship,--that +evening [not said which], when the Field-marshal, worn out with his +fatigues and his disorder, sank out of fainting-fits into a sleep! The +ground was his bed, and the storm of clouds his coverlid. In crowds his +brave war-comrades gathered round; stripped their cloaks, their coats, +and strove in noble rivalry which of them should have the happiness to +screen the Father of the Army at their own cost of exposure, and by +any device keep the pelting of the weather from that loved head!" +[Cogniazzo, _Gestandnisse eines OEsterreichischen Veterans, _ii. 251.] +There is a picture for you, in the heights of Lichtenhayn, as you steam +past Schandau, in contemplative mood; and perhaps think of "Justice to +Ireland!" among other sad thoughts that rise. + +From Thurmsdorf to the Pontoon-Bridge there was a kind of road; down +which the Saxons scrambled yesterday; and, by painful degrees, got +wriggled across. But, on the other shore, forward to the Hamlets of +Halbstadt and Ebenheit, there is nothing but a steep slippery footpath: +figure what a problem for the 14,000 in such weather! Then at +Ebenheit, close behind, Browne-wards, were Browne now there, rises the +Lilienstein, abrupt rocky mountain, its slopes on both hands washed +by the River (River making its first elbow here, closely girdling this +Lilienstein): on both these slopes are Prussian batteries, each with its +abatis; needing to be stormed:--that will be your first operation. +Abatis and slopes of the Lilienstein once stormed, you fall into a +valley or hollow, raked again by Prussian batteries; and will have to +mount, still storming, out of the valley, sky-high across the Ziegenruck +(GOAT'S-BACK) ridge: that is your second preliminary operation. After +which you come upon the work itself; namely, the Prussian redoubts at +Lichtenhayn, and 12,000 men on them by this time! A modern Tourist says, +reminding or informing: + +"From the Konigstein to Pirna, Elbe, if serpentine, is like a serpent +rushing at full speed. Just past the Konigstein, the Elbe, from +westward, as its general course is, turns suddenly to northward; runs so +for a mile and a half; then, just before getting to the BASTEI at +Raden, turns suddenly to westward again, and so continues. Tourists +know Raden,"--where the Prussians have just fished out a Bridge for +themselves,--"with the BASTEI high aloft to west of it. The Old Inn, +hospitable though sleepless, stands pleasantly upon the River-brink, +overhung by high cliffs: close on its left side, or in the intricacies +to rear of it, are huts and houses, sprinkled about, as if burrowed in +the sandstone; more comfortably than you could expect. The site is a +narrow dell, narrow chasm, with labyrinthic chasms branching off from +it; narrow and gloomy as seen from the River, but opening out even into +cornfields as you advance inwards: work of a small Brook, which is still +industriously tinkling and gushing there, and has in Pre-Adamite times +been a lake, and we know not what. Nieder-Raden, this, on the north side +of the River; of Ober-Raden, on the south side, there is nothing visible +from your Inn windows,"--nor have we anything to do with it farther. +An older Guide of Tourists yields us this second Fraction (capable of +condensation):-- + +... "To Halbstadt, thence to Ebenheit, your path is steeper and steeper; +from Ebenheit to the Lilienstein you take a guide. The Mountain is +conical; coarse RED sandstone; steps cut for you where needed: August +the Strong's Hunting-Lodge (JAGDHUTTE) is here (August went thither in +a grand way, 1708, with his Wife); Lodge still extant, by the side of a +wood;--Lilienstein towering huge and sheer, solitary, grand, like some +colossal Pillar of the Cyclops, from this round Pediment of Country +which you have been climbing; tops of Lilienstein plumed everywhere with +fir and birch, Pediment also very green and woody. August the Strong, +grandly visiting here, 1708, on finish of those stair-steps cut for +you, set up an Ebenezer, or Column of Memorial at this Hunting-Hut, with +Inscription which can still be read, though now with difficulty in its +time-worn state:-- + +"FRIEDERICUS AUGUSTUS, REX [of what? Dare not say of POLAND just now, +for fear of Charles XII.], ET ELECTOR SAX., UT FORTUNAEM VIRTUTE, ITA +ASPERAM HANC RUPEM PRIMUS [PRIMUS not of men, but of Saxon Electors] +SUPERAVIT, ADITUMQUE FACILIOREM REDDI CURAVIT. ANNO 1708."--"UT FORTUNAM +VIRTUTE, As his fortune by valor, SO he conquered this rugged rock +by"--Poor devil, only hear him:--and think how good Nature is (for the +time being) to poor devils and their 354 bastards! [M.(agister) Wilhelm +Lebrecht Gotzinger, _Schandau und seine Umgebungen, oder Beschreibung +der Sachsischen Schweitz _(Dresden, 1812), pp. 145-148. Gotzinger, +who designates himself as "Pastor at Neustadt near Stolpen" (northwest +border of the Pirna Country), has made of this (which would now be +called a TOURIST'S GUIDE, and has something geological in it) a modest, +good little Book, put together with industry, clearness, brevity. Gives +interesting Narrative of our present Business too, as gathered from his +"Father" and other good sources and testimonies.] + +Bruhl and the Polish Majesty, safe enough they, and snug in the +Konigstein, are clear for advancing: "Die like soldiers, for your King +and Country!" writes Polish Majesty, "Thursday, two in the morning:" +that also Rutowski reads; and I think still other Royal Autographs, sent +as Postscripts to that. From the Konigstein they duly fire off the two +Cannon-shot, as signal that we are coming; signal which Browne, just in +the act of departing, never heard, owing to the piping of the winds and +rattling of the rain. "Advance, my heroes!" counsel they: "You cannot +drag your ammunitions, say you; your poor couple of big guns? Here are +his Majesty's own royal horses for that service!"--and, in effect, the +royal stud is heroically flung open in this pressure; and a splashing +column of sleek quadrupeds, "150 royal draught-horses, early in the +forenoon," [Gotzinger, p. 156.] swim across to Ebenheit accordingly, if +that could encourage. And, "about noon, there is strong cannonading from +the Konigstein, as signal to Browne," who is off. Polish Majesty looking +with his spy-glass in an astonished manner. In Vain! Rutowski and his +Council of War--sitting wet in a hut of Ebenheit, with 14,000 starved +men outside, who have stood seventy-two hours of rain, for one item--see +nothing for it but "surrender on such terms as we can get." + +"In fact," independently of weather and circumstances, "the Enterprise," +says Friedrich, "was radically impossible; nobody that had known the +ground could have judged it other." Rutowski had not known it, then? +Browne never pretended to know it. Rutowski was not candid with the +conditions; the conditions never known nor candidly looked at; and +THEY are now replying to him with candor enough. From the first his +Enterprise was a final flicker of false hope; going out, as here, by +spasm, in the rigors of impossibility and flat despair. + +That column of royal horses sent splashing across the River,--that was +the utmost of self-sacrifice which I find recorded of his Polish Majesty +in this matter. He was very obstinate; his Bruhl and he were. But his +conduct was not very heroic. That royal Autograph, "General Rutowski, +and ye true Saxons, attack these Prussian lines, then; sell your lives +like men" (not like Bruhl and me), must have fallen cold on the heart, +after seventy-two hours of rain! Rutowski's wet Council of War, in the +hut at Ebenheit, rain still pouring, answers unanimously, "That it were +a leading of men to the butchery;" that there is nothing for it but +surrender. Bruhl and Majesty can only answer: "Well-a-day; it must be +so, then!"-- + +Winterfeld, Prussian Commander hereabouts, grants Armistice, grants +liberal "wagon-loads of bread" first of all; terms of Capitulation to be +settled at Struppen to-morrow. + +FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15th, Rutowski goes across to Struppen, the late Saxon +head-quarter, now Friedrich's;--Friday gone a fortnight was the day +of Lobositz. Winterfeld and he are the negotiators there; Friedrich +ratifying or refusing by marginal remarks. The terms granted are hard +enough: but they must be accepted. First preliminary of all terms has +already been accepted: a gift of bread to these poor Saxons; their +haversacks are empty, their cartridge-boxes drowned; it has rained on +them three days and nights. Last upshot of all terms is still well known +to everybody: That the 14,000 Saxons are compelled to become Prussian, +and "forced to volunteer"! + +That had been Friedrich's determination, and reading of his rights in +the matter, now that hard had come to hard. "You refused all terms; you +have resisted to death (or death's-DOOR); and are now at discretion!" +Of the question, What is to be done with those Saxons? Friedrich +had thought a great deal, first and last; and had found it very +intricate,--as readers too will, if they think of it. "Prisoners of +War,--to keep them locked up, with trouble and expense, in that fashion? +They can never be exchanged: Saxony has now nothing to exchange them +with; and Austria will not. Their obstinacy has had costs to me; who of +us can count what costs! In short, they shall volunteer!" + +"Never did I, for my poor part, authorize such a thing," loudly +asseverated Rutowski afterwards. And indeed the Capitulation is not +precise on that interesting point. A lengthy Document, and not worth +the least perusal otherwise; we condense it into three Articles, all +grounding on this general Basis, not deniable by Rutowski: "The Saxon +Army, being at such a pass, ready to die of hunger, if we did NOT lift +our finger, has, so to speak, become our property; and we grant it the +following terms:"-- + +"1. Kettle-drums, standards and the like insignia and matters of +honor,--carry these to the Konigstein, with my regretful respects to +his Polish Majesty. Konigstein to be a neutral Fortress during this War. +Polish Majesty at perfect liberty to go to Warsaw [as he on the instant +now did, and never returned]. + +"2. Officers to depart on giving their parole, Not to serve against us +during this War [Parole given, nothing like too well kept]. + +"3. Rest of the Army, with all its equipments, munitions, soul and body +(so to speak), is to surrender utterly, and be ours, as all Saxony shall +for the present be." [In _Helden-Geschichte, _iii. 920-928, at full +length--with Briedrich's MARGINALIA noticeably brief.] + +That is, in sum, the Capitulation of Struppen. Nothing articulate in it +about the one now interesting point,--and in regard to that, I can only +fancy Rutowski might interject, interrogatively, perhaps at some +length: "Our soldiers to be Prisoners of War, then?" "Prisoners; yes, +clearly,--unless they choose to volunteer, and have a better fate! +Prisoners can volunteer. They are at discretion; they would die, if we +did NOT lift our finger!" thus I suppose Winterfeld would rejoin, if +necessary;--and that, in the Winterfeld-Rutowski Conferences, the thing +had probably been kept in a kind of CHIAROSCURO by both parties. + +Very certain it is, Sunday, 17th October, 1756, Capitulation being +signed the night before, Friedrich goes across at Nieder-Raden (where +the Pilgrim of the Picturesque now climbs to see the BASTEI; where the +Prussians have, by this time, a Bridge thrown together out of those +Pontoons),--goes across at Nieder-Raden, up that chasmy Pass; rides to +the Heights of Waltersdorf, in the opener country behind; and pauses +there, while the captive Saxon Army defiles past him, laying down its +arms at his feet. Unarmed, and now under Prussian word of command, +these Ex-Saxon soldiers go on defiling; march through by that Chasm +of Nieder-Raden; cross to Ober-Raden; and, in the plainer country +thereabouts, are--in I know not what length of hours, but in an +incredibly short length, so swift is the management--changed wholly into +Prussian soldiers: "obliged to volunteer," every one of them! + +That is the fact; fact loudly censured; fact surely questionable,--to +what intrinsic degree I at this moment do not know. Fact much +blamable before the loose public of mankind; upon which I leave men to +their verdict. It is not a fact which invites imitation, as we shall +see! Fact how accomplished; by what methods? that would be the question +with me; but even that is left dark. "The horse regiments, three of +heavy horse, he broke; and distributed about, a good few in his own +Garde-du-Corps." Three other horse regiments were in Poland, the sole +Saxon Army now left,--of whom, at least of one man among whom, we may +happen to hear. "Ten foot regiments [what was reckoned a fault] he +left together; in Prussian uniform, with Prussian Officers. They were +scattered up and down; put in garrisons; not easy handling them: they +deserted by whole companies at a time in the course of this War." +[Preuss, ii. 22, 135; in Stenzel (v. 16-20) more precise details.] Not +a measure for imitation, as we said!--How Friedrich defended such hard +conduct to the Saxons? Reader, I know only that Destiny and Necessity, +urged on by Saxons and others, was hard as adamant upon Friedrich at +this time; and that Friedrich did not the least dream of making any +defence;--and will have to take your verdict, such as it may be. + +Moritz of Dessau had a terrible Winter of it, organizing and breaking +in these Saxon people,--got by press-gang in this way. Polish Majesty, +"with 500 of suite," had driven instantly for Warsaw; post-horses most +politely furnished him, and all the Prussian posts and soldiers well +kept out of his road,--road chosen for him to that end. Poor soul, +he never came back. For six years coming, he saw, from Warsaw in the +distance (amid anarchy and NIE-POZWALAM, which he never lacked there), +the wide War raging, in Saxony especially; and died soon after it was +done. Nor did Bruhl return, except broken by that event, and to die +in few months after. Let us pity the poor fat-goose of a Majesty +(not ill-natured at all, only stupid and idle): some pity even to the +doomed-phantasm Bruhl, if you can;--and thank Heaven to have got done +with such a pair!-- + +Friedrich's treatment of the Saxon Troops, Saxon Majesty and Country: +who shall say that it was wise in all points? It would be singular +treatment, if it were! In all things, AFTER is so different from +BEFORE and DURING. The truth is, Friedrich hoped long to have made some +agreement with the Saxons. And readers now, in the universal silence, +have no notion of Friedrich's complexities from fact, and of the +loud howl of hostile rumor, which was piping through all journals, +diplomacies and foreign human throats, against him at that time. + +"The essential passages of War and Peace," says a certain Commentator, +"during those Five weeks of Pirna, can be made intelligible in small +compass. But how the world argued of them then and afterwards, and rang +with hot Gazetteer and Diplomatic logic from side to side, no reader +will now ever know. A world-tornado extinct, gone:--think of the sounds +uttered from human windpipes, shrill with rage some of them, hoarse +others with ditto; of the vituperations, execrations, printed and +vocal,--grating harsh thunder upon Friedrich and this new course of his. +Huge melody of Discords, shrieking, droning, grinding on that topic, +through the afflicted Universe in general, for certain years. The very +Pamphlets printed on it,--cannot Dryasdust give me the number of tons +weight, then? Dead now every Pamphlet of them; a thing fallen horrible +to human nature; extinct forever, as is the wont in such cases." + +I will give only this of Voltaire; a mild Epigram, done at The DELICES, +in pleasant view of Ferney and good things coming. A bolt shot into the +storm-tost Sea and its wreckages, by a Mariner now cheerily drying his +clothes on the shore there;--in fact, an indifferent Epigram, on Kings +Friedrich and George, which is now flying about in select circles:-- + + "Rivaux du Vainqueur de l'Euphrate, + L'Oncle et le Neveu, + L'un fait la guerre en pirate, + L'autre en parti bleu." + +"Rivals of Alexander the Great, this Uncle and Nephew make war, the one +as a Pirate [seizure of those French ships], the other [Saxony stolen] +as Captain of an Accidental Thieving-squad,"--PARTI BLEU, as the French +soldiers call it. [Walpole's LETTERS, "To Sir Horace Mann, 8th December; +1756."] + +MAP facing page 365, Chap VII, Book 17---- + +Pirna was no sooner done than Friedrich returned to the "Camp at +Lobositz," where his victorious Keith-Army has been lying all this +while. The Camp of Lobositz, and all Camps Prussian and Austrian, are +about to strike their tents, and proceed to Winter-quarters, to prepare +against next Spring. Friedrich set off thither October 18th (the very +day after that of Waltersdorf); with intent to bring home Keith's Army, +and see if Browne meant anything farther (which Browne did not, or does +only in the small Tolpatch way); also to meet, Schwerin, whom he had +summoned over from Silesia for a little conference there. Schwerin, +after eating Konigsgratz Country well,--which was all he could do, +as Piccolomini would not come out, and we know how strong the ground +is,--had retired to Silesia again, in due season (snapping up, in a +sharply conclusive manner, any Tolpatcheries that attempted chase of +him); taken Winter cantonments in Silesia, headquarter Schweidnitz; +and is now getting his Instructions, here personally, in the Metal +Mountains, for a day or two. [_Helden-Geschichte, _iii. 946, 948.] + +Friedrich brought his Keith-Army home to Gross-Sedlitz, to join the +other Force there; and distributed the whole into their Winter-quarters. +Cantoned far and wide, spreading out from Pirna on both hands: on the +left or western hand, by Zwickau, Freyberg, Chemnitz, up to Leipzig, +Torgau; and on the right or northeast hand, by Zittau, Gorlitz, Bautzen, +to protect the Lausitz against Austrian inroads,--while a remote +Detachment, under Winterfeld, watches the Bober River with similar +views. [In _Helden-Geschichte, _iii. 948 et seq., a minute List by Place +and Regiment.] All which done, or settled to be done, Friedrich quits +Gross-Sedlitz, November 14th; and takes up his abode at Dresden for this +Winter. + + + + +Chapter VIII.--WINTER IN DRESDEN. + +The Saxon Army is incorporated, then; its King gone under the horizon; +the Saxon Country has a Prussian Board set over it, to administer all +things of Government, especially to draw taxes and recruits from Saxony. +Torgau, seat of this new Board, has got fortified; "1,500 inhabitants +were requisitioned as spademen for that end, at first with +wages,"--latterly, I almost fear, without! + +The Saxon Ministers are getting drilled, cashiered if necessary; and on +all hands, rigorous methods going forward;--till Saxony is completely +under grasp; in which state it was held very tight indeed, for the six +years coming. There is no detailing of all that; details, were they even +known to an Editor at such distance, would weary every reader. Enough to +understand that Friedrich has not on this occasion, as he did in 1744, +omitted to disarm Saxony, to hobble it in every limb, and have it, +at discretion, tied as with ropes to his interests and him. +[_Helden-Geschichte, _iii. 945-956.] His management was never accounted +cruel; and it was studiously the reverse of violent or irregular: but it +had to be rigorous as the facts were;--nor was it the worst, or reckoned +the worst, of Saxony's miseries in this time. + +Poor Country, suffering for its Bruhl! In the Country, except for its +Bruhl, there was no sin against Prussia; the reverse rather. The Saxon +population, as Protestants, have no good-will to Austria and its aims +of aggrandizement. In Austrian spy-letters, now and afterwards, they are +described to us as "GUT PREUSSISCH;" "strong for Prussia, the most of +them, even in Dresden itself." + +Whether Friedrich could have had much real hope to end the War this +Year, or scare it off from beginning, may be a question. If he had, it +is totally disappointed. The Saxon Government has brought ruin on itself +and Country, but it has been of great damage to Friedrich. Would Polish +Majesty have consented to disband his soldiers, and receive Friedrich +with a BONA-FIDE "Neutrality," Friedrich could have passed the +Mountains still in time for a heavy stroke on Bohemia, which was totally +unprepared for such a visit, And he might--from the Towers of Prag, for +instance--have, far more persuasively, held out the olive-branch to +an astonished Empress-Queen: "Leave me alone, Madam; will you, then! +Security for that; I wanted and want nothing more!" But Polish Majesty, +taking on him the character of Austrian martyr, and flinging himself +into the gulf, has prevented all that; has turned all that the other +way. + +Austria, it appears, is quite ungrateful: "Was n't he bound?" thinks +Austria,--as its wont rather is. Forgetful of the great deliverance +wrought for it by poor Polish Majesty; whom it could not deliver-except +into bottomless wreck! Austria, grateful or not, stands unscathed; has +time to prepare its Armaments, its vocal Arguments: Austria is in higher +provocation than ever; and its very Arguments, highly vocal to the Reich +and the world, "Is not this man a robber, and enemy of mankind?" do +Friedrich a great deal of ill. Friedrich's sudden Campaign, instead of +landing him in the heart of the Austrian States, there to propose Peace, +has kindled nearly all Europe into flames of rage against him,--which +will not consist in words merely! Never was misunderstanding of a man +at a higher pitch: "Such treatment of a peaceable Neighbor and Crowned +Head,--witness it, ye Heavens and thou Earth!" Dauphiness falling on her +knees to Most Christian Majesty; "Princess and dearest Sister" to Most +Christian Majesty's Pompadour; especially no end of Pleading to the +German Reich, in a furious, Delphic-Pythoness or quasi-inspired tone: +all this goes on. + +From the time when Pirna was blockaded, Kaiser Franz, his high Consort +and sense of duty urging him, has been busy in the Reich's-Hofrath (kind +of Privy-Council or Supreme Court of the Reich, which sits at Vienna); +busy there, and in the Reich's Diet at Regensburg; busy everywhere, with +utmost diligence over Teutschland,--forging Reich thunder. Manifestoes, +HOF-DECRETS, DEHORTATORIUMS, EXCITATORIUMS; so goes it, exploding like +Vesuvius, shock on the back of shock:--20th September it began; and +lasts, CRESCENDO, through Winter and onwards, at an extraordinary rate. +[In _Helden-Geschichte_(iv. 163-174; iii. 956; and indeed PASSIM +through those Volumes), the Originals in frightful superabundance.] Of +all which, leaving readers to imagine it, we will say nothing,--except +that it points towards "Armed Interference by the Reich," "Reich's +Execution Army;" nay towards "Ban of the Reich" (total excommunication +of this Enemy of Mankind, and giving of him up to Satan, by bell, book +and candle), which is a kind of thunder-bolt not heard of for a good +few ages past! Thunder-bolt thought to be gone mainly to rust by the +judicious;-- + +which, however, the poor old Reich did grasp again, and attempt to +launch. As perhaps we shall have to notice by and by, among the miracles +going. + +France too, urged by the noblest concern, feels itself called upon. +France magnanimously intimates to the Reich's Diet, once and again, +"That Most Christian Majesty is guarantee of the Treaty of Westphalia; +Most Christian Majesty cannot stand such procedures;" and then +the second time, "That Most Christian Majesty will interfere +practically,"--by 100,000 men and odd. [_Helden-Geschichte, _iv. 340 +("26th March, 1757").] In short, the sleeping world-whirlwinds are +awakened against this man. General Dance of the Furies; there go they, +in the dusky element, those Eumenides, "giant-limbed, serpent-haired, +slow-pacing, circling, torch in hand" (according to Schiller),-- +scattering terror and madness. At least, in the Diplomatic Circles of +mankind;--if haply the Populations will follow suit!-- + + +Friedrich, abundantly contemptuous of Reich's-thunder in the rusted +kind, and well able to distinguish sound from substance in the Reich or +elsewhere, recognizes in all this sufficiently portentous prophecies of +fact withal; and understands, none better, what a perilous position he +has got into. But he cannot mend it;--can only, as usual, do his own +utmost in it. As readers will believe he does; and that his vigilance +and diligence are very great. Continual, ubiquitous and at the top of +his bent, one fancies his effort must have been,--though he makes +no noise on the subject. Considerable work he has with Hanover, +this Winter; with the poor English Government, and their "Army of +Observation," which is to appear in the Hanover parts, VERSUS those +100,000 French, next Spring. To Hanover he has sent Schmettau (the +Younger Schmettau, Elder is now dead) in regard to said Army; has made +a new and closer Treaty with England (impossible to be fulfilled on poor +England's part);--and laments, as Mitchell often does, the tragically +embroiled condition of that Country, struggling so vehemently, to no +purpose, to get out of bed, and not unlike strangling or smothering +itself in its own blankets, at present! With and in regard to Saxony, +his work is of course extremely considerable; and in regard to his own +Army, and its coming Business, considerablest of all. Counter-Manifesto +work, to state his case in a distinct manner, and leave it with +the Populations if the Diplomacies are deaf: this too, is copiously +proceeding; under Artists who probably do not require much supervision. +In fact, no King living has such servants, in the Civil or the Military +part, to execute his will. And no King so little wastes himself in +noises; a King who has good command of himself, first of all; not to be +thrown off his balance by any terror, any provocation even, though his +temper is very sharp. + +Friedrich in person is mainly at Dresden, lodged in the Bruhl +Palace;--endless wardrobes and magnificences there; three hundred and +sixty-FOUR Pairs of Breeches hanging melancholy, in a widowed manner: +C'EST ASSEZ DE CULOTTES; MONTREZ-MOI DES VERTUS! Bruhl is far away, in +Poland; Madam Bruhl has still her Apartments in this Palace,--a frugal +King needs only the necessary spaces. Madam Bruhl is very busy here; and +not to good purpose, being well seen into. "She had a cask of wine sent +her from Warsaw," says Friedrich; "orders were given to decant for her +every drop of the wine, but to be sure and bring us the cask." Cask +was found to have two bottoms, intermediate space filled with +spy-correspondence. Madam Bruhl protests and pleads, Friedrich not +unpolite in reply; his last Letter to her says, "Madam, it is better +that you go and join your Husband." + +Another high Dame gets sausages from Bohemia;--some of Friedrich's light +troops have an appetite, beyond strict law for sausages; break in, find +Letters along with the other stuffing. [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ iv. 108; +Mitchell, "27th March, 1757" (Raumer p. 321).] Friedrich has a good deal +of watching and coercing to do in that kind,--some arresting, conveyance +even to Custrin for a time, though nothing crueler proved needful. To +the poor Queen he keeps up civilities, but is obliged to be strict as +Argus;--she made him a Gift too, the NIGHT of Correggio, admired NOTTE +of Correggio; having heard that he sat before it silent for half an +hour, on entering that fine Gallery,--which is due to our Sovereign Lord +and his Bruhl, alas! On the other hand, Friedrich had to take from her +Majesty's Royal Abode those Hundred Swiss of Body-guard; to discharge +the same, and put Prussians in their stead. Nay, at one time, on loud +outcry from her Majesty, and great private cause of complaint against +her, there was talk of sending the poor Royal lady to Warsaw, after her +Husband; but her objection being violent, nothing came of that: Winter +following, her poor Majesty died, [27th November, 1757.] and gave nobody +any farther trouble. + +Friedrich's outposts, especially in the Lausitz, are a good deal +disturbed by Austrian Tolpatcheries; and do feats, heroic in the small +way, in smiting down that rabble. A valuable Officer or two is lost in +such poor service, poor but indispensable; [Funeral Discourses (of a +very curious, ponderous and serious tone), in _Gesammelte Nachrichten, +_ii. 458, 464, &c.] and the troops have not always the repose which is +intended them. Lieutenant-Colonel Loudon (Scotch by kindred, and famous +enough before long) is the soul of these Croat enterprises,--and gets +his Colonelcy by them, in a month or two; Browne recommending. Loudon +had arrived too late for Lobositz, but had been with Browne to +Schandau; and, on the march homewards, did a bright feat of the Croat +kind:--surprisal, very complete, of that Hill-Castle of Tetschen and +considerable Hussar Party there; done in a style which caught the eye of +Browne; and was the beginning of great things to poor Loudon, after +his twenty years of painful eclipse under the Indigo Trencks, and +miscellaneous Doggeries, Austrian and Russian. [LA VIE DU FELDMARECHAL +BARON DE LOUDON (Translation of one Pezzl's German: a Vienne et a Paris, +1792), i. 1-32.] + +Tetschen, therefore, will again need capture by the Prussians, if they +again intend that way. And in the mean while, Friedrich, to counterpoise +those mischievous Croat people, has bethought him of organizing +a similar Force of his own;--Foot chiefly, for, on hint of former +experience, he already has Hussars in quantity. And, this Winter, there +are accordingly, in different Saxon Towns, three Irregular Regiments +getting ready for him; three "Volunteer Colonels" busily enlisting each +his "Free Corps," such the title chosen;--chief Colonel of them one +Mayer, now in Zwickau neighborhood with 6 or 700 loose handy fellows +round him, getting formed into strict battalion there: [Pauli (our old +diffuse friend), _Leben grosser Helden des gegenwartigen Krieges _(9 +vols., Halle, 1759-1764), iii. 159,? Mayr.] of whom, and of whose +soldiering, we shall hear farther. For the plan was found to answer; and +extended itself year after year; and the "Prussian Free Corps," one way +and another, made considerable noise in the world. + +Outwardly Friedrich's Life is quiet; busy, none can be more so; but to +the on-looker, placid, polite especially. He hears sermon once or twice +in the Kreuz-Kirche (Protestant High Church); then next day will hear +good music, devotional if you call it so, in the Catholic Church, where +her Polish Majesty is. Daily at the old hour he has his own Concert, now +and then assisting with his own flute. Makes donations to the Poor, and +such like, due from Saxon Sovereignty while held by him; on the other +hand, reduces salaries at a sad rate Guarini, Queen's Confessor, +from near 2,000 pounds to little more than 300 pounds, for one +instance;--cuts off about 25,000 pounds in all under this head. +[_Helden-Geschichte, _iv. 306 ("December, 1756").] And is heavy with +billeting, as new Prussians arrive. Billets at length in the very +Ambassadors' Hotels,--and by way of apology to the Excellencies, +signifies to them in a body: "Sorry for the necessity, your +Excellencies: but ought not you to go to Warsaw rather? Your credentials +are to his Polish Majesty. He is not here; nor coming hither, for some +time!" Which hint, I suppose, the Excellencies mostly took. From his +own Forests there came by the Elbe great rafts of firewood, to warm his +soldiers in their quarters. Once or twice he makes excursions, of a day +of two days; to the Lausitz, to Leipzig (through Freyberg, where he +has a post of importance);--very gracious to the University people: +"Students be troubled with soldiering? Far from it ye learned Gentlemen, +servants of the Muses! Recruitment, a lamentable necessity, is to go +on under your own Official people, and wholly by the old methods." +[_Helden-Geschichte, _iv. 303-313; UNIVERSITATSANSCHLAG ZU LEIPZIG, +WEGEN DER WERBUNG ("University-Placard about Enlisting:" in _Gesammelte +Nachrichten, _i. 811).] + +Once, and once only, he made a run to Berlin, January 4th-18th, 1757: +the last for six years and more. Came with great despatch, Brother Henri +with him, whole journey in one day; got, "to his Mother's about 11 +at night." [Ib. iv. 308.] A joyful meeting, for the kindred: cheerful +light-gleam in the dark time, so suddenly eclipsed to them and others +by those hurricanes that have risen. His Majesty seems to be in perfect +health; and wears no look of gloom. At Berlin is no Carnival this +year; all are grave, sunk in sad contemplations of the future. Of his +businesses in this interval, which were many, I will say nothing; only +of one little Act he did, the day before his departure: the writing of +this SECRET LETTER OF INSTRUCTIONS to Graf Finck von Finkenstein, +his chief Home Minister, one of his old boy-comrades, as readers may +recollect. The Letter was read by Count Finck with profound attention, +11th January, 1757, and conned over till he knew every point of +it; after which he sealed it up, inscribing on the Cover: +"HOCHSTEIGENHANDIGE UND GANX GEHEIME"--that is, "Highest-Autographic and +altogether Secret Instructions, by the King, which, with the Appendixes, +were delivered to me, Graf von Finkenstein, the 12th of January, 1757." +In this docketing it lay, sealed for many years (none knows how many), +then unsealed, still in strict keeping, in the Private Royal Archives" +[Preuss, i. 449.]--till on Friedrich's Birthday, 24th January, 1854, it +was, with some solemnity, lithographed at Berlin, and distributed to a +select public,--as readers shall see. + + +"SECRET INSTRUCTION FOR THE GRAF VON FINCK. + +"BERLIN, 10th January, 1757. + +"In the critical situation our affairs are in, I ought to give you my +orders, so that in all the disastrous cases which are in the possibility +of events, you be authorized for taking the necessary steps. + +"1. If it chanced (which Heaven forbid) that one of my Armies in Saxony +were totally beaten; or that the French should drive the Hanoverians +from their Country [which they failed not to do], and establish +themselves there, and threaten us with an invasion into the Altmark; or +that the Russians should get through by the Neumark,--you are to save +the Royal Family, the principal DICASTERIA [Land-Schedules, Lists of +Tax-dues], the Ministries and the Directorium [which is the central +Ministry of all]. If it is in Saxony on the Leipzig side that we are +beaten, the fittest place for the removal of the Royal Family, and of +the Treasure, is to Custrin: in such case the Royal Family and all above +named must go, escorted by the whole Garrison" of Berlin, "to Custrin. +If the Russians entered by the Neumark, or if a misfortune befell us +in the Lausitz, it would be to Magdeburg that all would have to go: in +fine, the last refuge is Stettin,--but you must not go till the +last extremity. The Garrison, the Royal Family and the Treasure are +inseparable, and go always together: to this must be added the Crown +Diamonds, the Silver Plate in the Grand Apartments,--which, in such +case, as well as the Gold Plate, must be at once coined into money. + +"If it happened that I were killed, the Public Affairs must go on +without the smallest alteration, or its being noticeable that they are +in other hands: and, in this case, you must hasten forward the Oaths and +Homagings, as well here as in Preussen; and, above all, in Silesia. If +I should have the fatality to be taken prisoner by the Enemy, I prohibit +all of you from paying the least regard to my person, or taking the +least heed of what I might write from my place of detention. Should such +misfortune happen me, I wish to sacrifice myself for the State; and you +must obey my Brother,--who, as well as all my Ministers and Generals, +shall answer to me with their heads, Not to offer any Province or any +Ransom for me, but to continue the War, pushing their advantages, as if +I never had existed in the world. + +"I hope, and have ground to believe, that you, Count Finck, will not +need to make use of this Instruction: but in case of misfortune, I +authorize you to employ it; and, as mark that it is, after a mature and +sound deliberation, my firm and constant will, I sign it with my Hand +and confirm it with my Seal." + +Or, in Friedrich's own spelling &c., so far as our possibilities +permit:-- + + +"INSTRUCTION SECRETE POUR LE CONTE DE FINE. + +"BERLIN, ce 10 de Janv. 1757. + +"Dans La Situation Critique ou se trouvent nos affaires je dois Vous +donner mes Ordres pour que dans tout Les Cas Malheureux qui sont dans +la possibilite des Evenemens vous Soyez autorisse aux partis quil faut +prendre. 1)[Yes; but there follows no "2)" anywhere, such the haste!] +Sil arivoit (de quoi le Ciel preserve) qu'une de mes Armees en Saxse fut +totallement battue, oubien que Les francais chassassent Les Hanovryeins +de Leur pais et si etablissent et nous menassassent d'un Invassion +dans la Vieille Marche, ou que les Russes penetrassent par La Nouvelle +Marche, il faut Sauver la famille Royale, les principeaux Dicasteres +les Ministres et le Directoire. Si nous somes battus en Saxse du Cote +de leipssic Le Lieu Le plus propre pour Le transport de La famille et du +Tressor est a Custrin, il faut en ce Cas que la famille Royalle et touts +cidesus nomez aillent esCortez de toute La Guarnisson a Custrin. Si les +Russes entroient par la Nouvele Marche ou quil nous arivat un Malheur +en Lusace, il faudroit que tout Se transportat a Magdebourg, enfin Le +Derni& refuge est a Stetein, mais il ne hut y all&r qu'a La Derniere +exstremite La Guarnisson la famille Royalle et le Tressort sent +Inseparables et vont toujours ensemble il faut y ajouter les Diamans de +la Couronne, et L'argenterie des Grands Apartements qui en pareil cas +ainsi que la Veselle d'or doit etre incontinant Monoyee. Sil arivoit +que je fus tue, il faut que Les affaires Continuent Leur train sans la +Moindre allteration et Sans qu'on s'apersoive qu'elles sont en d'autre +Mains, et en ce Cas il faut hater Sermens et homages tant ici qu'en +prusse et surtout en Silesie. Si j'avois la fatalite d'etre pris +prissonier par L'Enemy, je Defend qu'on Aye le Moindre egard pour ma +perssonne ni qu'on fasse La Moindre reflextion sur ce que je pourois +ecrire de Ma Detention, Si pareil Malheur m'arivoit je Veux me +Sacriffier pour L'Etat et il faut qu'on obeisse a Mon frere le quel +ainsi que tout Mes Ministres et Generaux me reponderont de leur Tette +qu'on offrira ni province ni ransson pour moy et que lon Continuera la +Guerre en poussant Ses avantages tout Come si je n'avais jamais exsiste +dans le Monde. J'espere et je dois Croire que Vous Conte finc n'aurez +pas bessoin de faire usage de Cette Instruction mais en cas de Malheur +je Vous autorisse a L'Employer, et Marque que C'est apres Une Mure et +saine Deliberation Ma ferme et Constante Volonte je le Signe de Ma Main +et la Muni de mon Cachet, + +"FREDERIC R." + +[Fac simile of Autograph (Berlin, 24th January, 1854), where is some +indistinct History of the Document. Printed also in _OEuvres,_ xxv. +319-323.] + +These, privately made law in this manner, are Friedrich's fixed feelings +and resolutions;--how fixed is now farther apparent by a fact which was +then still more private, guessable long afterwards only by one or two, +and never clearly known so long as Friedrich lived: the fact that he had +(now most probably, though the date is not known) provided poison for +himself, and constantly wore it about his person through this War. "Five +or six small pills, in a small glass tube, with a bit of ribbon to +it:" that stern relic lay, in a worn condition, in some drawer of +Friedrich's, after Friedrich was gone. [Preuss, ii. 175, 315 n.] For the +Facts are peremptory; and a man that will deal with them must be equally +so. + +Two days after this Finck missive, Friday, 12th, Friedrich took farewell +at Berlin, drove to Potsdam that night with his Brother, to Dresden next +day. Adieu, Madam; Adieu, O Mother! said the King, in royal terms, but +with a heart altogether human. "May God above bless you, my Son!" the +old Lady would reply:--and the Two had seen one another for the last +time; Mother and Son were to meet no more in this world. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, +Vol. XVII. (of XXI.), by Thomas Carlyle + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. *** + +***** This file should be named 2117.txt or 2117.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/1/1/2117/ + +Produced by D.R. 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