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History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 15

by Thomas Carlyle · English · Gutenberg #2115 · 462,996 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 15

Author: Thomas Carlyle


        
Release date: June 16, 2008 [eBook #2115]
                Most recently updated: July 14, 2008

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by D.R. Thompson and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II OF PRUSSIA — VOLUME 15 ***




Produced by D.R. Thompson





HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA

FREDERICK THE GREAT

By Thomas Carlyle





BOOK XV.--SECOND SILESIAN WAR, IMPORTANT EPISODE IN THE GENERAL EUROPEAN
ONE.--15th Aug. 1744-25th Dec. 1745.




Chapter I.--PRELIMINARY: HOW THE MOMENT ARRIVED.

Battle being once seen to be inevitable, it was Friedrich's plan not to
wait for it, but to give it. Thanks to Friedrich Wilhelm and himself,
there is no Army, nor ever was any, in such continual preparation.
Military people say, "Some Countries take six months, some twelve, to
get in motion for war: but in three weeks Prussia can be across
the marches, and upon the throat of its enemy." Which is an immense
advantage to little Prussia among its big neighbors. "Some Countries
have a longer sword than Prussia; but none can unsheathe it so
soon:"--we hope, too, it is moderately sharp, when wielded by a deft
hand.

The French, as was intimated, are in great vigor, this Year; thoroughly
provoked; and especially since Friedrich sent his Rothenburg among
them, have been doing their very utmost. Their main effort is in the
Netherlands, at present;--and indeed, as happened, continues all
through this War to be. They by no means intend, or ever did, to neglect
Teutschland; yet it turns out, they have pretty much done with their
fighting there. And next Year, driven or led by accidents of various
kinds, they quit it altogether; and turning their whole strength upon
the Netherlands and Italy, chiefly on the Netherlands, leave Friedrich,
much to his astonishment, with the German War hanging wholly round
HIS neck, and take no charge of it farther! In which, to Friedrich's
Biographers, there is this inestimable benefit, if far the reverse to
Friedrich's self: That we shall soon have done with the French, then;
with them and with so much else; and may, in time coming, for most part,
leave their huge Sorcerer's Sabbath of a European War to dance
itself out, well in the distance, not encumbering us farther, like a
circumambient Bedlam, as it has hitherto done. Courage, reader! Let us
give, in a glance or two, some notion of the course things took, and
what moment it was when Friedrich struck in;--whom alone, or almost
alone, we hope to follow thenceforth; "Dismal Swamp" (so gracious was
Heaven to us) lying now mostly to rearward, little as we hoped it!

It was mere accident, a series of bad accidents, that led King Louis and
his Ministers into gradually forsaking Friedrich. They were the
farthest in the world from intending such a thing. Contrariwise, what
brain-beating, diplomatic spider-weaving, practical contriving, now
and afterwards, for that object; especially now! Rothenburg, Noailles,
Belleisle, Cardinal Tencin, have been busy; not less the mistress
Chateauroux, who admires Friedrich, being indeed a high-minded
unfortunate female, as they say; and has thrown out Amelot, not
for stammering alone. They are able, almost high people, this new
Chateauroux Ministry, compared with some; and already show results.

Nay, what is most important of all, France has (unconsciously, or by
mere help of Noailles and luck) got a real General to her Armies: Comte
de Saxe, now Marechal de Saxe; who will shine very splendent in these
Netherland operations,--counter-shone by mere Wades, D'Ahrembergs,
Cumberlands,--in this and the Four following Years. Noailles had
always recognized Comte de Saxe; had long striven for him, in Official
quarters; and here gets the light of him unveiled at last, and set on a
high place: loyal Noailles.

This was the Year, this 1744, when Louis XV., urged by his Chateauroux,
the high-souled unfortunate female, appeared in person at the head
of his troops: "Go, Sire, go, MON CHOU (and I will accompany); show
yourself where a King should be, at the head of your troops; be a second
Louis-le-Grand!" Which he did, his Chateauroux and he; actually went to
the Netherlands, with baggage-train immeasurable, including not cooks
only, but play-actors with their thunder-barrels (off from Paris, May
3d), to the admiration of the Universe. [Adelung, iv. 113; Barbier,
ii. 391, 394; Dulaure, _Hist. de Paris;_ &c.] Took the command,
nominal-command, first days of June; and captured in no-time Menin,
Ipres, Furnes, and the Fort of Knock, and as much of the Austrian
Netherlands as he liked,--that is to say, saw Noailles and Saxe do
it;--walking rapidly forward from Siege to Siege, with a most thundering
artillery; old Marshal Wade and consorts dismally eating their victuals,
and looking on from the distance, unable to attempt the least stroke in
opposition. So that the Dutch Barrier, if anybody now cared for it,
did go all flat; and the Balance of Power gets kicked out of its sacred
pivot: to such purpose have the Dutch been hoisted! Terrible to think
of;--had not there, from the opposite quarter, risen a surprising
counterpoise; had not there been a Prince Karl, with his 70,000,
pressing victoriously over the Rhine; which stayed the French in these
sacrilegious procedures.




PRINCE KARL GETS ACROSS THE RHINE (20 JUNE-2 JULY, 1744).

Prince Karl, some weeks ago, at Heilbronn, joined his Rhine Army, which
had gathered thither from the Austrian side, through Baiern, and from
the Hither-Austrian or Swabian Winter-quarters; with full intent to be
across the Rhine, and home upon Elsass and the Compensation Countries,
this Summer, under what difficulties soever. Karl, or, as some whisper,
old Marshal Traun, who is nominally second in command, do make a
glorious campaign of it, this Year;--and lift the Cause of Liberty, at
one time, to the highest pitch it ever reached. Here, in brief terms, is
Prince Karl's Operation on the Rhine, much admired by military men:--

"STOCKSTADT, JUNE 20th, 1744. Some thirty and odd miles north of
Mannheim, the Rhine, before turning westward at Mainz, makes one other
of its many Islands (of which there are hundreds since the leap at
Schaffhausen): one other, and I think the biggest of them all; perhaps
two miles by five; which the Germans call KUHKOPF (Cowhead), from the
shape it has,--a narrow semi-ellipse; River there splitting in two, one
split (the western) going straight, the other bending luxuriantly round:
so that the HIND-head or straight end of the Island lies towards France,
and the round end, or cow-LIPS (so to speak) towards native Teutschland,
and the woody Hills of the Berg-Strasse thereabouts. Stockstadt, chief
little Town looking over into this Cowhead Island, lies under the
CHIN: understand only farther that the German branch carries more than
two-thirds of the River; that on the Island itself there is no town,
or post of defence; and that Stockstadt is the place for getting over.
Coigny and the French, some 40,000, are guarding the River hereabouts,
with lines, with batteries, cordons, the best they can; Seckendorf, with
20,000 more ('Imperial' Old Bavarian Troops, revivified, recruited
by French pay), is in his garrison of Philipsburg, ready to help when
needed:"--not moulting now, at Wembdingen, in that dismal manner;
new-feathered now into "Kaiser's Army;" waiting in his Philipsburg to
guard the River there. "Coigny's French have ramparts, ditches, not
quite unfurnished, on their own shore, opposite this Cowhead Island
(ISLE DE HERON, as they call it); looking over to the hind-head, namely:
but they have nothing considerable there; and in the Island itself,
nothing whatever. 'If now Stockstadt were suddenly snatched by us,'
thinks Karl;--'if a few pontoons were nimbly swung in?'

"JUNE 20th,--Coigny's people all shooting FEU-DE-JOIE, for that never
enough to be celebrated Capture of Menin and the Dutch Barrier
a fortnight ago,--this is managed to be done. The active General
Barenklau, active Brigadier Daun under him, pushes rapidly across into
Kuhkopf; rapidly throws up intrenchments, ramparts, mounts cannon, digs
himself in,--greatly to Coigny's astonishment; whose people hereabouts,
and in all their lines and posts, are busy shooting FEU-DE-JOIE for
those immortal Dutch victories, at the moment, and never dreaming of
such a thing. Fresh force floods in, Prince Karl himself arrives next
day, in support of Barenklau; Coigny (head-quarters at Speyer, forty
miles south) need not attempt dislodging him; but must stand upon his
guard, and prepare for worse. Which he does with diligence; shifting
northward into those Stockstadt-Mainz parts; calling Seckendorf across
the River, and otherwise doing his best,--for about ten days more, when
worse, and almost worst, did verily befall him.

"No attempt was made on Barenklau; nor, beyond the alarming of the
Coigny-Seckendorf people, did anything occur in Cowhead Island,--unless
it were the finis of an ugly bully and ruffian, who has more than once
afflicted us: which may be worth one word. Colonel Mentzel [copper-faced
Colonel, originally Play-actor, "Spy in Persia," and I know not what]
had been at the seizure of Kuhkopf; a prominent man. Whom, on the fifth
day after ('June 25th'), Prince Karl overwhelmed with joy, by handing
him a Patent of Generalcy: 'Just received from Court, my Friend,
on account of your merits old and late.'--'Aha,' said Barenklau,
congratulating warmly: 'Dine with me, then, Herr General Mentzel,
this very day. The Prince himself is to be there, Highness of
Hessen-Darmstadt, and who not; all are impatient to drink your health!'
Mentzel had a glorious dinner; still more glorious drink,--Prince
Karl and the others, it is said, egging him into much wild bluster and
gasconade, to season their much wine. Eminent swill of drinking, with
the loud coarse talk supposable, on the part of Mentzel and consorts did
go on, in this manner, all afternoon: in the evening, drunk Mentzel came
out for air; went strutting and staggering about; emerging finally on
the platform of some rampart, face of him huge and red as that of
the foggiest rising Moon;--and stood, looking over into the Lorraine
Country; belching out a storm of oaths, as to his taking it, as to
his doing this and that; and was even flourishing his sword by way of
accompaniment; when, lo, whistling slightly through the summer air, a
rifle-ball from some sentry on the French side (writers say, it was a
French drummer, grown impatient, and snatching a sentry's piece) took
the brain of him, or the belly of him; and he rushed down at once, a
totally collapsed monster, and mere heap of dead ruin, never to trouble
mankind more." [_Guerre de Boheme,_ iii. 165.] For which my readers and
I are rather thankful. Voltaire, and perhaps other memorable persons,
sometimes mention this brute (miraculous to the Plebs and Gazetteers);
otherwise eternal oblivion were the best we could do with him. Trenck
also, readers will be glad to understand, ends in jail and bedlam by and
by.

"Prince Karl had not the least intention of crossing by this Cowhead
Island. Nevertheless he set about two other Bridges in the neighborhood,
nearer Mainz (few miles below that City); kept manoeuvring his Force,
in huge half-moon, round that quarter, and mysteriously up and down;
alarming Coigny wholly into the Mainz region. For the space of ten
days; and then, stealing off to Schrock, a little Rhine Village above
Philipsburg, many miles away from Coigny and his vigilantes, he--

"NIGHT OF 30th JUNE-1st JULY, Suddenly shot Pandour Trenck, followed
by Nadasti and 6,000, across at Schrock who scattered Seckendorf's poor
outposts thereabouts to the winds; 'built a bridge before morning, and
next day another.' Next day Prince Karl in person appeared; and on the
3d of July, had his whole Army with its luggages across; and had seized
the Lines of Lauterburg and Weissenburg (celebrated northern defence of
Elsass),--much to Coigny's amazement; and remained inexpugnable there,
with Elsass open to him, and to Coigny shut, for the present! [Adelung,
iv. 139-141.] Coigny made bitter wail, accusation, blame of Seckendorf,
blame of men and of things; even tried some fighting, Seckendorf too
doing feats, to recover those Lines of Weissenburg: but could not do it.
And, in fact, blazing to and fro in that excited rather than luminous
condition, could not do anything; except retire into the strong posts
of the background; and send express on express, swifter than the wind if
you can, to a victorious King overturning the Dutch Barrier: 'Help, your
Majesty, or we are lost; and France is--what shall I say!'"

"Admirable feat of Strategy! What a General, this Prince Karl!"
exclaimed mankind,--Cause-of-Liberty mankind with special enthusiasm;
and took to writing LIVES of Prince Karl, [For instance, _The Life of
his Highness Prince Charles of &c., with &c. &c._ (London, 1746); one
of the most distracted Blotches ever published under the name of
Book;--wakening thoughts of a public dimness very considerable indeed,
to which this could offer itself as lamp!] as well as tar-burning and
TE-DEUM-ing on an extensive scale. For it had sent the Cause of Liberty
bounding up again to the top of things, this of crossing the Rhine,
in such fashion. And, in effect, the Cause of Liberty, and Prince
Karl himself, had risen hereby to their acme or culminating point in
World-History; not to continue long at such height, little as they
dreamt of that, among their tar-burnings. The feat itself--contrived
by Nadasti, people say, and executed (what was the real difficulty) by
Traun--brought Prince Karl very great renown, this Year; and is praised
by Friedrich himself, now and afterwards, as masterly, as Julius
Caesar's method, and the proper way of crossing rivers (when executable)
in face of an enemy. And indeed Prince Karl, owing to Traun or not,
is highly respectable in the way of Generalship at present; and did in
these Five Months, from June onward, really considerable things. At his
very acme of Life, as well as of Generalship; which, alas, soon changed,
poor man; never to culminate again. He had got, at the beginning of the
Year, the high Maria Theresa's one Sister, Archduchess Maria Anna, to
Wife; [Age then twenty-five gone: "born 14th September, 1718; married to
Prince Karl 7th January, 1744; died, of childbirth, 16th December same
year" (Hormayr, _OEsterreichischer Plutarch,_ iv. erstes Baudchen, 54).]
the crown of long mutual attachment; she safe now at Brussels,
diligent Co-Regent, and in a promising family-way; he here walking on
victorious:--need any man be happier? No man can be supremely happy
long; and this General's strategic felicity and his domestic were
fatally cut down almost together. The Cause of Liberty, too, now at the
top of its orbit, was--But let us stick by our Excerpting:

"DUNKIRK, 19th JULY, 1744 [Princess Ulrique's Wedding, just two days
ago]. King Louis, on hearing of the Job's-news from Elsass, instantly
suspended his Conquests in Flanders; detached Noailles, detached this
one and that, double-quick, Division after Division (leaving Saxe, with
45,000, to his own resources, and the fatuities of Marshal Wade);
and, 19th July, himself hastens off from Dunkirk (leaving much of the
luggage, but not the Chateauroux behind him), to save his Country, poor
soul. But could not, in the least, save it; the reverse rather. August
4th, he got to Metz, Belleisle's strong town, about 100 miles from the
actual scene; his detached reinforcements, say 50,000 men or so, hanging
out ahead like flame-clouds, but uncertain how to act;--Noailles being
always cunctatious in time of crisis, and poor Louis himself nothing of
a Cloud-Compeller;--and then,

"METZ, AUGUST 8th, The Most Christian King fell ill; dangerously,
dreadfully, just like to die. Which entirely paralyzed Noailles and
Company, or reduced them to mere hysterics, and excitement of the
unluminous kind. And filled France in general, Paris in particular,
with terror, lamentation, prayers of forty hours; and such a paroxysm
of hero-worship as was never seen for such an object before." [Espagnac,
ii. 12; Adelung, iv. 180; _Fastes de Louis XV.,_ ii. 423; &c. &c.]

For the Cause of Liberty here, we consider, was the culminating moment;
Elsass, Lorraine and the Three Bishoprics lying in their quasi-moribund
condition; Austrian claims of Compensation ceasing to be visions of the
heated brain, and gaining some footing on the Earth as facts. Prince
Karl is here actually in Elsass, master of the strong passes; elate in
heart, he and his; France, again, as if fallen paralytic, into temporary
distraction; offering for resistance nothing hitherto but that universal
wailing of mankind, Hero-worship of a thrice-lamentable nature, and the
Prayers of Forty-Hours! Most Christian Majesty, now IN EXTREMIS, centre
of the basest hubbub that ever was, is dismissing Chateauroux. Noailles,
Coigny and Company hang well back upon the Hill regions, and strong
posts which are not yet menaced; or fly vaguely, more or less
distractedly, hither and thither; not in the least like fighting Karl,
much less like beating him. Karl has Germany free at his back (nay it is
a German population round him here); neither haversack nor cartridge-box
like to fail: before him are only a Noailles and consorts, flying
vaguely about;--and there is in Karl, or under the same cloak with him
at present, a talent of manoeuvring men, which even Friedrich finds
masterly. If old Marshal Wade, at the other end of the line, should
chance to awaken and press home on Saxe, and his remnant of French, with
right vigor? In fact, there was not, that I can see, for centuries past,
not even at the Siege of Lille in Marlborough's time, a more imminent
peril for France.




FRIEDRICH DECIDES TO INTERVENE.

King Friedrich, on hearing of these Rhenish emergencies and of King
Louis's heroic advance to the rescue, perceived that for himself too the
moment was come; and hastened to inform heroic Louis, That though the
terms of their Bargain were not yet completed, Sweden, Russia and other
points being still in a pendent condition, he, Friedrich,--with an eye
to success of their Joint Adventure, and to the indispensability of
joint action, energy, and the top of one's speed now or never,--would,
by the middle of this same August, be on the field with 100,000 men. "An
invasion of Bohemia, will not that astonish Prince Karl; and bring him
to his Rhine-Bridges again? Over which, if your Most Christian Majesty
be active, he will not get, except in a half, or wholly ruined state.
Follow him close; send the rest of your force to threaten Hanover; sit
well on the skirts of Prince Karl. Him as he hurries homeward, ruined or
half-ruined, him, or whatever Austrian will fight, I do my best to beat.
We may have Bohemia, and a beaten Austria, this very Autumn: see,--and,
in one Campaign, there is Peace ready for us!" This is Friedrich's
scheme of action; success certain, thinks he, if only there be energy,
activity, on your side, as there shall be on mine;--and has sent Count
Schmettau, filled with fiery speed and determination, to keep the French
full of the like, and concert mutual operations.

"Magnanimous!" exclaim Noailles and the paralyzed French Gentlemen (King
Louis, I think, now past speech, for Schmettau only came August 9th):
"Most sublime behavior, on his Prussian Majesty's part!" own they. And
truly it is a fine manful indifference (by no means so common as it
should be) to all interests, to all considerations, but that of a Joint
Enterprise one has engaged in. And truly, furthermore, it was immediate
salvation to the paralyzed French Gentlemen, in that alarming crisis;
though they did not much recognize it afterwards as such: and indeed
were conspicuously forgetful of all parts of it, when their own danger
was over.

Maria Theresa's feelings may be conceived; George II's feelings; and
what the Cause of Liberty in general felt, and furiously said and
complained, when--suddenly as a DEUS EX MACHINA, or Supernal Genie
in the Minor Theatres--Friedrich stept in. Precisely in this supreme
crisis, 7th August, 1744, Friedrich's Minister, Graf von Dohna, at
Vienna, has given notice of the Frankfurt Union, and solemn Engagement
entered into: "Obliged in honor and conscience; will and must now step
forth to right an injured Kaiser; cannot stand these high procedures
against an Imperial Majesty chosen by all the Princes of the Reich, this
unheard-of protest that the Kaiser is no Kaiser, as if all Germany were
but Austria and the Queen of Hungary's. Prussian Majesty has not the
least quarrel of his own with the Queen of Hungary, stands true, and
will stand, by the Treaty of Berlin and Breslau;--only, with certain
other German Princes, has done what all German Princes and peoples not
Austrian are bound to do, on behalf of their down-trodden Kaiser,
formed a Union of Frankfurt; and will, with armed hand if indispensable,
endeavor to see right done in that matter." [In _Adelung,_ iv. 155, 156,
the Declaration itself (Audience, "7th August, 1744." Dohna off homeward
"on the second day after").]

This is the astonishing fact for the Cause of Liberty; and no clamor and
execration will avail anything. This man is prompt, too; does not
linger in getting out his Sword, when he has talked of it. Prince
Karl's Operation is likely to be marred amazingly. If this swift King
(comparable to the old Serpent for devices) were to burst forth from
his Silesian strengths; tread sharply on the TAIL of Prince Karl's
Operation, and bring back the formidably fanged head of IT out of
Alsace, five hundred miles all at once,--there would be a business!

We will now quit the Rhine Operations, which indeed are not now of
moment; Friedrich being suddenly the key of events again. I add only,
what readers are vaguely aware of, that King Louis did not die; that he
lay at death's door for precisely one week (8th-15th August), symptoms
mending on the 15th. In the interim,--Grand-Almoner Fitz-James (Uncle
of our Conte di Spinelli) insisting that a certain Cardinal, who had got
the Sacraments in hand, should insist; and endless ministerial intrigue
being busy,--moribund Louis had, when it came to the Sacramental
point, been obliged to dismiss his Chateauroux. Poor Chateauroux; an
unfortunate female; yet, one almost thinks, the best man among them:
dismissed at Metz here, and like to be mobbed! That was the one issue
of King Louis's death-sickness. Sublime sickness; during which all Paris
wept aloud, in terror and sorrow, like a child that has lost its mother
and sees a mastiff coming; wept sublimely, and did the Prayers
of Forty-Hours; and called King Louis Le BIEN-AIME (The
Well-beloved):--merely some obstruction in the royal bowels, it turned
out;--a good cathartic, and the Prayers of Forty-Hours, quite reinstated
matters. Nay reinstated even Chateauroux, some time after,--"the Devil
being well again," and, as the Proverb says, quitting his monastic view.
Reinstated Chateauroux: but this time, poor creature, she continued only
about a day:--"Sudden fever, from excitement," said the Doctors: "Fever?
Poison, you mean!" whispered others, and looked for changes in the
Ministry. Enough, oh, enough!--

Old Marshal Wade did not awaken, though bawled to by his Ligoniers and
others, and much shaken about, poor old gentleman. "No artillery to
speak of," murmured he; "want baggage-wagons, too!" and lay still. "Here
is artillery!" answered the Official people; "With my own money I will
buy you baggage-wagons!" answered the high Maria Anna, in her own name
and her Prince Karl's, who are Joint-Governors there. Possibly he would
have awakened, had they given him time. But time, in War especially, is
the thing that is never given. Once Friedrich HAD struck in, the moment
was gone by. Poor old Wade! Of him also enough.




Chapter II.--FRIEDRICH MARCHES UPON PRAG, CAPTURES PRAG.

It was on Saturday, "early in the morning," 15th August, 1744, that
Friedrich set out, attended by his two eldest Brothers, Prince of
Prussia and Prince Henri, from Potsdam, towards this new Adventure,
which proved so famous since. Sudden, swift, to the world's
astonishment;--actually on march here, in three Columns (two through
Saxony by various routes southeastward, one from Silesia through Glatz
southwestward), to invade Bohemia: rumor says 100,000 strong, fact
itself says upwards of 80,000, on their various routes, converging
towards Prag. [--Helden-Geschichte,--ii. 1165. Orlich (ii. 25, 27)
enumerates the various regiments.] His Columns, especially his Saxon
Columns, are already on the road; he joins one Column, this night,
at Wittenberg; and is bent, through Saxony, towards the frontiers of
Bohemia, at the utmost military speed he has.

Through Saxony about 60,000 go: he has got the Kaiser's Order to the
Government of Saxony, "Our august Ally, requiring on our Imperial
business a transit through you;"--and Winterfeld, an excellent soldier
and negotiator, has gone forward to present said Order. A Document which
flurries the Dresden Officials beyond measure. Their King is in Warsaw;
their King, if here, could do little; and indeed has been inclining
to Maria Theresa this long while. And Winterfeld insists on such
despatch;--and not even the Duke of Weissenfels is in Town, Dresden
Officials "send off five couriers and thirteen estafettes" to the poor
old Duke; [_Helden-Geschichte,_ ii. 1163.] get him at last; and--The
march is already taking effect; they may as well consent to it: what can
they do but consent! In the uttermost flurry, they had set to fortifying
Dresden; all hands driving palisades, picking, delving, making COUPURES
(trenches, or sunk barricades) in the streets;--fatally aware that it
can avail nothing. Is not this the Kaiser's Order? Prussians, to the
amount of 60,000, are across our Frontiers, rapidly speeding on.

"Friedrich's Manifesto--under the modest Title, 'ANZEIGE DER URSACHEN
(Advertisement of the Causes which have induced his Prussian Majesty to
send the Romish Kaiser's Majesty some Auxiliary Troops)'--had appeared
in the Berlin Newspapers Thursday, 13th, only two days before. An
astonishment to all mankind; which gave rise to endless misconceptions
of Friedrich: but which, supporting itself on proofs, on punctually
excerpted foot-notes, is intrinsically a modest, quiet Piece; and, what
is singular in Manifestoes, has nothing, or almost nothing, in it that
is not, so far as it goes, a perfect statement of the fact. 'Auxiliary
troops, that is our essential character. No war with her Hungarian
Majesty, or with any other, on our own score. But her Hungarian Majesty,
how has she treated the Romish Kaiser, her and our and the Reich's
Sovereign Head, and to what pass reduced him; refusing him Peace on any
terms, except those of self-annihilation; denying that he is a Kaiser at
all;'--and enumerates the various Imperial injuries, with proof given,
quiet footnotes by way of proof; and concludes in these words: 'For
himself his Majesty requires nothing. The question here is not of his
Majesty's own interest at all [everything his Majesty required, or
requires, is by the Treaty of Berlin solemnly his, if the Reich and its
Laws endure]: and he has taken up arms simply and solely in the view of
restoring to the Reich its freedom, to the Kaiser his Headship of the
Reich, and to all Europe the Peace which is so desirable.' [Given in
Seyfarth, _Beylage,_ i. 121-136, with date "August, 1744."]

"'Pretences, subterfuges, lies!' exclaimed the Austrian and Allied
Public everywhere, or strove to exclaim; especially the English Public,
which had no difficulty in so doing;--a Public comfortably blank as to
German facts or non-facts; and finding with amazement only this a very
certain fact, That hereby is their own Pragmatic thunder checked in
mid-volley in a most surprising manner, and the triumphant Cause of
Liberty brought to jeopardy again. 'Perfidious, ambitious, capricious!'
exclaimed they: 'a Prince without honor, without truth, without
constancy;'--and completed, for themselves, in hot rabid humor, that
English Theory of Friedrich which has prevailed ever since. Perhaps the
most surprising item of which is this latter, very prominent in
those old times, That Friedrich has no 'constancy,' but follows his
'caprices,' and accidental whirls of impulse:--item which has dropped
away in our times, though the others stand as stable as ever. A monument
of several things! Friedrich's suddenness is an essential part of what
fighting talent he has: if the Public, thrown into flurry, cannot judge
it well, they must even misjudge it: what help is there?

"That the above were actually Friedrich's reasons for venturing into
this Big Game again, is not now disputable. And as to the rumor, which
rose afterwards (and was denied, and could only be denied diplomatically
to the ear, if even to the ear), That Friedrich by Secret Article was
'to have for himself the Three Bohemian Circles, Konigsgratz,
Bunzlau, Leitmeritz, which lie between Schlesien and Sachsen,'
[_Helden-Geschichte,_ i. 1081; Scholl, ii. 349.]--there is not a doubt
but Friedrich had so bargained, 'Very well, if we can get said Circles!'
and would right cheerfully have kept and held them, had the big game
gone in all points completely well (game, to reinstate the Kaiser BOTH
in Bohemia and Bavaria) by Friedrich's fine playing. Not a doubt of all
this:--nor of what an extremely hypothetic outlook it then and always
was; greatly too weak for enticing such a man."

Friedrich goes in Three Columns. One, on the south or left shore of the
Elbe, coming in various branches under Friedrich himself; this alone
will touch on Dresden, pass on the south side of Dresden; gather itself
about Pirna (in the Saxon Switzerland so called, a notable locality);
thence over the Metal Mountains into Bohmen, by Toplitz, by Lowositz,
Leitmeritz, and the Highway called the Pascopol, famous in War. The
Second Column, under Leopold the Young Dessauer, goes on the other or
north side of the Elbe, at a fair distance; marching through the Lausitz
(rendezvous or starting-point was Bautzen in the Lausitz) straight
south, to meet the King at Leitmeritz, where the grand Magazine is to
be; and thence, still south, straight upon Prag, in conjunction with his
Majesty or parallel to him. [_Helden-Geschichte,_ i. 1081.] These are
the Two Saxon Columns. The Third Column, under Schwerin, collects itself
in the interior of Silesia; is issuing, by Glatz Country, through the
Giant Mountains, BOHMISCHE KAMME (Bohemian COMBS as they are called,
which Tourists know), by the Pass of Braunau,--disturbing the dreams of
Rubezahl, if Rubezahl happen to be there. This, say 20,000, will come
down upon Prag from the eastern side; and be first on the ground (31st
August),--first by one day. In the home parts of Silesia, well eastward
of Glatz, there is left another Force of 20,000, which can go across the
Austrian Border there, and hang upon the Hills, threatening Olmutz and
the Moravian Countries, should need be.

And so, in its Three Columns, from west, from north, from east, the
march, with a steady swiftness, proceeds. Important especially those
Two Saxon Columns from west and north: 60,000 of them, "with a frightful
(ENTSETZLICH) quantity of big guns coming up the Elbe." Much is coming
up the Elbe; indispensable Highway for this Enterprise. Three months'
provisions, endless artillery and provender, is on the Elbe; 480 big
boats, with immense VORSPANN (of trace-horses, dreadful swearing, too,
as I have heard), will pass through the middle of Dresden: not landing
by any means. "No, be assured of it, ye Dresdeners, all flurried,
palisaded, barricaded; no hair of you shall be harmed." After a day or
two, the flurry of Saxony subsided; Prussians, under strict discipline,
molest no private person; pay their way; keep well aloof, to south and
to north, of Dresden (all but the necessary ammunition-escorts do);--and
require of the Official people nothing but what the Law of the
Reich authorizes to "Imperial Auxiliaries" in such case. "The Saxons
themselves," Friedrich observes, "had some 40,000, but scattered
about; King in Warsaw:--dreadful terror; making COUPURES and
TETES-DE-PONT;--could have made no defence." Had we diligently spent
eight days on them! reflects he afterwards. "To seize Saxony [and hobble
it with ropes, so that at any time you could pin it motionless, and
even, if need were, milk the substance out of it], would not have
detained us eight days." [ _OEuvres de Frederic,_ iii. 53.] Which would
have been the true plan, had we known what was getting ready there!
Certain it is, Friedrich did no mischief, paid for everything; anxious
to keep well with Saxony; hoping always they might join him again,
in such a Cause. "Cause dear to every Patriot German Prince," urges
Friedrich,--though Bruhl, and the Polish, once "Moravian," Majesty are
of a very different opinion:--

"Maria Theresa, her thoughts at hearing of it may be imagined: 'The Evil
Genius of my House afoot again! My high projects on Elsass and Lorraine;
Husband for Kaiser, Elsass for the Reich and him, Lorraine for myself
and him; gone probably to water!' Nevertheless she said (an Official
person heard her say), 'My right is known to God; God will protect me,
as He has already done.' [ _Helden-Geschichte,_ ii. 1024.] And rose very
strong, and magnanimously defiant again; perhaps, at the bottom of her
heart, almost glad withal that she would now have a stroke for her
dear Silesia again, unhindered by Paladin George and his Treaties
and notions. What measures, against this nefarious Prussian outbreak,
hateful to gods and men, are possible, she rapidly takes: in Bohemia,
in Bavaria and her other Countries, that are threatened or can help. And
abates nothing of heart or hope;--praying withal, immensely, she and
her People, according to the mode they have. Sending for Prince Karl, we
need not say, double-quick, as the very first thing.

"Of Maria Theresa in Hungary,--for she ran to Presburg again with her
woes (August 16th, Diet just assembling there),--let us say only that
Hungary was again chivalrous; that old Palfy and the general Hungarian
Nation answered in the old tone,--VIVAT MARIA; AD ARMA, AD ARMA! with
Tolpatches, Pandours, Warasdins;--and, in short, that great and small,
in infinite 'Insurrection,' have still a stroke of battle in them
PRO REGE NOSTRO. Scarcely above a District or two (as the JASZERS and
KAUERS, in their over-cautious way) making the least difficulty. Much
enthusiasm and unanimity in all the others; here and there a Hungarian
gentleman complaining scornfully that their troops, known as among
the best fighters in Nature, are called irregular troops,--irregular,
forsooth! In one public consultation [District not important, not very
spellable, though doubtless pronounceable by natives to it], a gentleman
suggests that 'Winter is near; should not there be some slight provision
of tents, of shelter in the frozen sleety Mountains, to our gallant
fellows bound thither?' Upon which another starts up, 'When our
Ancestors came out of Asia Minor, over the Palus Maeotis bound in winter
ice; and, sabre in hand, cut their way into this fine Country which
is still ours, what shelter had they? No talk of tents, of barracks or
accommodation there; each, wrapt in his sheep skin, found it shelter
sufficient. Tents!' [ _Helden-Geschichte,_  ii. 1030.] And the thing was
carried by acclamation.

"Wide wail in Bohemia that War is coming back. Nobility all making off,
some to Vienna or the intermediate Towns lying thitherward, some to
their Country-seats; all out of Prag. Willing mind on the part of the
Common People; which the Government strains every nerve to make the most
of. Here are fasts, processions, Prayers of Forty-Hours; here, as in
Vienna and elsewhere. In Vienna was a Three Days' solemn Fast: the like
in Prag, or better; with procession to the shrine of St. Vitus,--little
likely to help, I should fear. 'Rise, all fencible men,' exclaims the
Government,--'at least we will ballot, and make you rise:'--Militia
people enter Prag to the extent of 10,000; like to avail little, one
would fear. General Harsch, with reinforcement of real soldiers,
is despatched from Vienna; Harsch, one of our ablest soldiers since
Khevenhuller died, gets in still in time; and thus increases the
Garrison of regulars to 4,000, with a vigorous Captain to guide it.
Old Count Ogilvy, the same whom Saxe surprised two years ago in
the moonlight, snatching ladders from the gallows,--Ogilvy is again
Commandant; but this time nominal mainly, and with better outlooks,
Harsch being under him. In relays, 3,000 of the Militia men dig and
shovel night and day; repairing, perfecting the ramparts of the place.
Then, as to provisions, endless corn is introduced,--farmers forced, the
unwilling at the bayonet's point, to deliver in their corn; much of
it in sheaf, so that we have to thrash it in the market-place, in the
streets that are wide: and thus in Prag is heard the sound of flails,
among the Militia-drums and so many other noises. With the great
church-organs growling; and the bass and treble MISERERE of the poor
superstitious People rising, to St. Vitus and others. In fact, it is a
general Dance of St. Vitus,--except that of the flails, and Militia-men
working at the ramparts,--mostly not leading any-whither." ["LETTER from
a Citizen of Prag," date, 21st Sept. (in _Helden-Geschichte,_  ii. 1168),
which gives several curious details.]

Meanwhile Friedrich's march from west, from north, from east, is flowing
on; diligent, swift; punctual to its times, its places; and meets no
impediment to speak of. At Tetschen on the Saxon-Bohemian Frontier,--a
pleasant Schloss perched on its crags, as Tourists know, where the
Elbe sweeps into Saxon Switzerland and its long stone labyrinths,--at
Tetschen the Austrians had taken post; had tried to block the River,
driving piles into it, and tumbling boulders into it, with a view to
stop the 480 Prussian Boats. These people needed to be torn out, their
piles and they: which was done in two days, the soldier part of it;
and occupied the boatmen above a week, before all was clear again.
Prosperous, correct to program, all the rest; not needing mention from
us;--here are the few sparks from it that dwell in one's memory:--

"AUGUST 15th, 1744, King left Potsdam; joined his First Column that
night, at Wittenberg. Through Mieissen, Torgau, Freyberg; is at
Peterswalde, eastern slope of the Metal Mountains, August 25th; all the
Columns now on Bohemian ground.

"Friedrich had crossed Elbe by the Bridge of Meissen: on the
southern shore, politely waiting to receive his Majesty, there stood
Feldmarschall the Duke of Weissenfels; to whom the King gave his hand,"
no doubt in friendly style, "and talked for above half an hour,"--with
such success! thinks Friedrich by and by. We have heard of Weissenfels
before; the same poor Weissenfels who was Wilhelmina's Wooer in old
time, now on the verge of sixty; an extremely polite but weakish old
gentleman; accidentally preserved in History. One of those conspicuous
"Human Clothes-Horses" (phantasmal all but the digestive part), which
abound in that Eighteenth Century and others like it; and distress
your Historical studies. Poor old soul; now Feldmarschall and
Commander-in-Chief here. Has been in Turk and other Wars; with little
profit to himself or others. Used to like his glass, they say; is still
very poor, though now Duke in reality as well as title (succeeded two
egregious Brothers, some years since, who had been spendthrift): he has
still one other beating to get in this world,--from Friedrich next year.
Died altogether, two years hence; and Wilhelmina heard no more of him.

"At Meissen Bridge, say some, was this Half-hour's Interview; at
Pirna, the Bridge of Pirna, others say; [See Orlich, ii. 25;
and _Helden-Geschichte,_  ii. 1166.]--quite indifferent to us which. At
Pirna, and hither and thither in Saxon Switzerland, Friedrich certainly
was. 'Who ever saw such positions, your Majesty?' For Friedrich is
always looking out, were it even from the window of his carriage, and
putting military problems to himself in all manner of scenery, 'What
would a man do, in that kind of ground, if attacking, if attacked? with
that hill, that brook, that bit of bog?' and advises every Officer to
be continually doing the like. [MILITARY INSTRUCTIONS? RULES FOR A
GOOD COMMANDER OF &c.?--I have, for certain, read this Passage; but the
reference is gone again, like a sparrow from the house-top!] That is the
value of picturesque or other scenery to Friedrich, and their effect on
good Prussian Officers and him.

"... At Tetschen, Colonel Kahlbutz," diligent Prussian Colonel, "plucks
out those 100 Austrians from their rock nest there; makes them prisoners
of war;--which detained the Leitmeritz branch of us two days. August
28th, junction at Leitmeritz thereupon. Magazine established there.
Boats coming on presently. Friedrich himself camped at Lobositz in this
part,"--Lobositz, or Lowositz, which he will remember one day.

"AUGUST 29th, March to Budin; that is, southward, across the Eger,
arrive within forty miles of Prag. Austrian Bathyani, summoned hastily
out of his Bavarian posts, to succor in this pressing emergency,
has arrived in these neighborhoods,--some 12,000 regulars under him,
preceded by clouds of hussars, whom Ziethen smites a little, by way of
handsel;--no other Austrian force to speak of hereabouts; and we are now
between Bathyani and Prag.

"SEPTEMBER 1st, To Mickowitz, near Welwarn, twenty miles from Prag.
September 2d, Camp on the Weissenberg there." [ _Helden-Geschichte,_  i.
1080.]

And so they are all assembled about Prag, begirdling the poor
City,--third Siege it has stood within these three years (since that
moonlight November night in 1741);--and are only waiting for their heavy
artillery to begin battering. The poor inhabitants, in spite of three
sieges; the 10,000 raw militia-men, mostly of Hungarian breed; the 4,000
regulars, and Harsch and old Ogilvy, are all disposed to do their best.
Friedrich is naturally in haste to get hold of Prag. But he finds, on
taking survey: that the sword-in-hand method is not now, as in 1741,
feasible at all; that the place is in good posture of strength; and
will need a hot battering to tear it open. Owing to that accident at
Tetschen, the siege-cannon are not yet come up: "Build your batteries,
your Moldau-bridges, your communications, till the cannon come; and
beware of Bathyani meddling with your cannon by the road!"

"Bathyani is within twenty miles of us, at Beraun, a compact little Town
to southwest; gathering a Magazine there; and ready for enterprises,--in
more force than Friedrich guesses. 'Drive him out, seize that Magazine
of his!' orders Friedrich (September 5th); and despatches General
Hacke on it, a right man,"--at whose wedding we assisted (wedding to
an heiress, long since, in Friedrich Wilhelm's time), if anybody now
remembered. "And on the morrow there falls out a pretty little 'Action
of Beraun,' about which great noise was made in the Gazettes PRO and
CONTRA: which did not dislodge Bathyani by airy means; but which might
easily have ruined the impetuous Hacke and his 6,000, getting into
masked batteries, Pandour whirlwinds, charges of horses 'from
front, from rear, and from both flanks,'--had not he, with masterly
promptitude, whirled himself out of it, snatched instantly what best
post there was, and defended himself inexpugnably there, for six
hours, till relief came." [DIE BEY BERAUN VORGEFALLENE ACTION (in
Seyfarth, _Beylage,_ i. 136, 137).] Brilliant little action, well
performed on both sides, but leading to nothing; and which shall not
concern us farther. Except to say that Bathyani did now, more at his
leisure, retire out of harm's way; and begin collecting Magazines at
Pilsen far rearward, which may prove useful to Prince Karl, in the route
Prince Karl is upon.

Siege-cannon having at last come (September 8th), the batteries are all
mounted:--on Wednesday, 9th, late at night, the Artillery, "in enormous
quantity," opens its dread throat; poor Prag is startled from its bed
by torrents of shot, solid and shell, from three different quarters; and
makes haste to stand to its guns. From three different quarters;
from Bubenetsch northward; from the Upland of St. Lawrence (famed
WEISSENBERG, or White-Hill) westward; and from the Ziscaberg eastward
(Hill of Zisca, where iron Zisca posted himself on a grand occasion
once),--which latter is a broad long Hill, west end of it falling
sheer over Prag; and on another point of it, highest point of all, the
Praguers have a strong battery and works. The Prag guns otherwise are
not too effectual; planted mostly on low ground. By much the best Prag
battery is this of the Ziscaberg. And this, after two days' experience
had of it, the Prussians determine to take on the morrow.

SEPTEMBER 12th, Schwerin, who commands on that side, assaults
accordingly; with the due steadfastness and stormfulness: throwing
shells and balls by way of prelude. Friedrich, with some group of
staff-officers and dignitaries, steps out on the Bubenetsch post, to see
how this affair of the Ziscaberg will prosper: the Praguers thereabouts,
seeing so many dignitaries, turn cannon on them. "Disperse, IHR HERREN;
have a care!" cried Friedrich; not himself much minding, so intent upon
the Ziscaberg. And could have skipt indifferently over your cannon-balls
ploughing the ground,--had not one fateful ball shattered out the life
of poor Prince Wilhelm; a good young Cousin of his, shot down here at
his hand. Doubtless a sharp moment for the King. Prince Margraf Wilhelm
and a poor young page, there they lie dead; indifferent to the Ziscaberg
and all coming wars of mankind. Lamentation, naturally, for this young
man,--Brother to the one who fell at Mollwitz, youngest Brother of the
Margraf Karl, who commands in this Bubenetsch redoubt:--But we must lift
our eye-glass again; see how Schwerin is prospering. Schwerin, with due
steadfastness and stormfulness, after his prelude of bomb-shells, rushes
on double-quick; cannot be withstood; hurls out the Praguers, and seizes
their battery; a ruinous loss to them.

Their grand Zisca redoubt is gone, then; and two subsidiary small
redoubts behind it withal, which the French had built, and named "the
magpie-nests (NIDS A PIE);" these also are ours. And we overhang, from
our Zisca Hill, the very roofs, as it were; and there is nothing but a
long bare curtain now in this quarter, ready to be battered in breach,
and soon holed, if needful. It is not needful,--not quite. In the course
of three days more, our Bubenetsch battery, of enormous power, has been
so diligent, it has set fire to the Water-mill; burns irretrievably the
Water-mill, and still worse, the wooden Sluice of the Moldau; so that
the river falls to the everywhere wadable pitch. And Governor Harsch
perceives that all this quarter of the Town is open to any comer;--and,
in fact, that he will have to get away, the best he can.

White flag accordingly (Tuesday, 15th): "Free withdrawal, to the
Wischerad; won't you?" "By no manner of means!" answers Friedrich.
Bids Schwerin from his Ziscaberg make a hole or two in that "curtain"
opposite him; and gets ready for storm. Upon which Harsch, next morning,
has to beat the chamade, and surrender Prisoner of War. And thus,
Wednesday, 16th, it is done: a siege of one week, no more,--after
all that thrashing of grain, drilling of militia, and other spirited
preparation. Harsch could not help it; the Prussian cannonading was
so furious. [Orlich, ii. 36-39; _Helden-Geschichte,_  i. 1082, and ii.
1168; _OEuvres de Frederic,_ iii. 56; &c. &c.]

Prag has to swear fealty to the Kaiser; and "pay a ransom of 200,000
pounds." Drilled militia, regulars, Hungarians, about 16,000,--only that
many of the Tolpatches contrived to whisk loose,--are marched prisoners
to Glatz and other strong places. Prag City, with plenty of provision in
it, is ours. A brilliant beginning of a Campaign; the eyes of all Europe
turned again, in very various humor, on this young King. If only the
French do their duty, and hang well on the skirts of Marshal Traun (or
of Prince Karl, the Cloak of Traun), who is hastening hitherward all he
can.




Chapter III.--FRIEDRICH, DILIGENT IN HIS BOHEMIAN CONQUESTS,
UNEXPECTEDLY COMES UPON PRINCE KARL, WITH NO FRENCH ATTENDING HIM.

This electrically sudden operation on Prag was considered by astonished
mankind, whatever else they might think about it, a decidedly brilliant
feat of War: falling like a bolt out of the blue,--like three bolts,
suddenly coalescing over Prag, and striking it down. Friedrich himself,
though there is nothing of boast audible here or anywhere, was evidently
very well satisfied; and thought the aspects good. There is Prince Karl
whirling instantly back from his Strasburg Prospects; the general St.
Vitus Dance of Austrian things rising higher and higher in these home
parts:--reasonable hope that "in the course of one Campaign," proud
obstinate Austria might feel itself so wrung and screwed as to be glad
of Peace with neighbors not wishing War. That was the young
King's calculation at this time. And, had France done at all as it
promised,--or had the young King himself been considerably wiser than he
was,--he had not been disappointed in the way we shall see!

Friedrich admits he did not understand War at this period. His own
scheme now was: To move towards the southwest, there to abolish Bathyani
and his Tolpatches, who are busy gathering Magazines for Prince Karl's
advent; to seize the said Magazines, which will be very useful to us;
then advance straight towards the Passes of the Bohemian Mountains.
Towns of Furth, Waldmunchen, unfortunate Town of Cham (burnt by Trenck,
where masons are now busy); these stand successive in the grand Pass,
through which the highway runs; some hundred miles or so from where
we are: march, at one's swiftest, thitherward, Bathyani's Magazines to
help; and there await Prince Karl? It was Friedrich's own notion; not a
bad one, though not the best. The best, he admits, would have been:
To stay pretty much where he was; abolish Bathyani's Tolpatch people,
seizing their Magazines, and collecting others; in general, well rooting
and fencing himself in Prag, and in the Circles that lie thereabouts
upon the Elbe,--bounded to southward by the Sazawa (branch of the
Moldau), which runs parallel to the Elbe;--but well refusing to stir
much farther at such an advanced season of the year.

That second plan would have been the wisest:--then why not, follow it?
Too tame a plan for the youthful mind. Besides, we perceive, as indeed
is intimated by himself, he dreaded the force of public opinion in
France. "Aha, look at your King of Prussia again. Gone to conquer
Bohemia; and, except the Three Circles he himself is to have of it,
lets Bohemia go to the winds!" This sort of thing, Friedrich admits, he
dreaded too much, at that young period; so loud had the criticisms
been on him, in the time of the Breslau Treaty: "Out upon your King of
Prussia; call you that an honorable Ally!" Undoubtedly a weakness in the
young King; inasmuch, says he, as "every General [and every man, add we]
should look to the fact, not to the rumor of the fact." Well; but, at
least, he will adopt his own other notion; that of making for the Passes
of the Bohemian Mountains; to abolish Bathyani at least, and lock the
door upon Prince Karl's advent? That was his own plan; and, though
second-best, that also would have done well, had there been no third.

But there was, as we hinted, a third plan, ardently favored by
Belleisle, whose war-talent Friedrich much respected at this time: plan
built on Belleisle's reminiscences of the old Tabor-Budweis businesses,
and totally inapplicable now. Belleisle said, "Go southeast, not
southwest; right towards the Austrian Frontier itself; that will
frighten Austria into a fine tremor. Shut up the roads from Austria:
Budweis, Neuhaus; seize those two Highroad Towns, and keep them, if you
would hold Bohemia; the want of them was our ruin there." Your ruin,
yes: but your enemy was not coming from Alsace and the southwest then.
He was coming from Austria; and your own home lay on the southwest: it
is all different now! Friedrich might well think himself bewitched not
to have gone for Cham and Furth, and the Passes of the Bohmer-Wald,
according to his own notion. But so it was; he yielded to the big
reputation of Belleisle, and to fear of what the world would say of him
in France; a weakness which he will perhaps be taught not to repeat. In
fact, he is now about to be taught several things;--and will have to pay
his school-wages as he goes.




FRIEDRICH, LEAVING SMALL GARRISON IN PRAG, RUSHES SWIFTLY UP THE MOLDAU
VALLEY, UPON THE TABOR-BUDWEIS COUNTRY; TO PLEASE HIS FRENCH FRIENDS.

Friedrich made no delay in Prag; in haste at this late time of year.
September 17th, on the very morrow of the Siege, the Prussians get in
motion southward; on the 19th, Friedrich, from his post to north of the
City, defiles through Prag, on march to Kunraditz,--first stage on that
questionable Expedition up the Moldau Valley, right bank; towards Tabor,
Budweis, Neuhaus; to threaten Austria, and please Belleisle and the
French.

Prag is left under General Einsiedel with a small garrison of
5,000;--Einsiedel, a steady elderly gentleman, favorite of Friedrich
Wilhelm's, has brief order, or outline of order to be filled up by his
own good sense. Posadowsky follows the march, with as many meal-wagons
as possible,--draught-cattle in very ineffectual condition. Our main
Magazine is at Leitmeritz (should have been brought on to Prag, thinks
Friedrich); Commissariat very ill-managed in comparison to what it ought
to be,--to what it shall be, if we ever live to make another Campaign.
Heavy artillery is left in Prag (another fault); and from each regiment,
one of its baggage-wagons. [ _Helden-Geschichte,_  i. 1083; Orlich, ii.
41 et seqq.; _Frederic,_ iii. 59; &c.] "We rest a day here at Kunraditz:
21st September, get to the Sazawa River;--22d, to Bistritz (rest a
day);--26th, to Miltschin; and 27th, to Tabor:"--But the Diary would be
tedious.

Friedrich goes in two Columns; one along the great road towards Tabor,
under Schwerin this, and Friedrich mainly with him; the other to the
right, along the River's bank, under Leopold, Young Dessauer, which has
to go by wild country roads, or now and then roads of its own making;
and much needs the pioneer (a difficult march in the shortening days).
Posadowsky follows with the proviant, drawn by cattle of the horse and
ox species, daily falling down starved: great swearing there too,
I doubt not! General Nassau is vanguard, and stretches forward
successfully at a much lighter pace.

There are two Rivers, considerable branches of the Moldau, coming from
eastward; which, and first of them the Sazawa, concern us here. After
mounting the southern Uplands from Prag for a day or two, you then begin
to drop again, into the hollow of a River called Sazawa, important in
Bohemian Wars. It is of winding course, the first considerable branch
of the Moldau, rising in Teutschbrod Country, seventy or eighty miles
to east of us: in regard to Sazawa, there is, at present, no difficulty
about crossing; the Country being all ours. After the Sazawa, mount
again, long miles, day after day, through intricate stony desolation,
rocks, bogs, untrimmed woods, you will get to Miltschin, thence to
Tabor: Miltschin is the crown of that rough moor country; from Prag to
Tabor is some sixty miles. After Miltschin the course of those brown
mountain-brooks is all towards the Luschnitz, the next considerable
branch of the Moldau; branch still longer and more winding than the
Sazawa; Tabor towers up near this branch; Budweis, on the Moldau itself,
is forty miles farther; and there at last you are out of the stony
moors, and in a rich champaign comfortable to man and horse, were you
but once there, after plodding through the desolations. But from that
Sazawa by the Luschnitz on to Budweis, mounting and falling in such
fashion, there must be ninety miles or thereby. Plod along; and keep
a sharp eye on the whirling clouds of Pandours, for those too have got
across upon us,--added to the other tempests of Autumn.

On the ninth day of their march, the Prussians begin to descry on
the horizon ahead the steeples and chimney-tops of Tabor, on its high
scarped rock, or "Hill of Zisca,"--for it was Zisca and his Hussites
that built themselves this Bit of Inexpugnability, and named it Tabor
from their Bibles,--in those waste mountain regions. On the tenth day
(27th September), the Prussians without difficulty took Tabor; walls
being ruined, garrison small. We lie at Tabor till the 30th, last day
of September. Thence, 2d October, part of us to Moldau-Tein rightwards;
where cross the Moldau by a Bridge,--"Bridge" one has heard of, in old
Broglio times;--cross there, with intent (easily successful) to snatch
that "Castle of Frauenberg," darling of Broglio, for which he fought his
Pharsalia of a Sahay to no purpose!

Both Columns got united at Tabor; and paused for a day or two, to rest,
and gather up their draggled skirts there. The Expedition does not
improve in promise, as we advance in it; the march one of the
most untowardly; and Posadowsky comes up with only half of his
provision-carts,--half of his cattle having fallen down of bad weather,
hill-roads and starvation; what could he do? That is an ominous
circumstance, not the less.

Three things are against the Prussians on this march; two of them
accidental things. FIRST, there is, at this late season too, the
intrinsic nature of the Country; which Friedrich with emphasis describes
as boggy, stony, precipitous; a waste, hungry and altogether barren
Country,--too emphatically so described. But then SECONDLY, what might
have been otherwise, the Population, worked upon by Austrian officials,
all fly from the sight of us; nothing but fireless deserted hamlets; and
the corn, if they ever had any, all thrashed and hidden. No amount
of money can purchase any service from them. Poor dark creatures; not
loving Austria much, but loving some others even less, it would appear.
Of Bigoted Papist Creed, for one thing; that is a great point. We do not
meddle with their worship more or less; but we are Heretics, and they
hate us as the Night. Which is a dreadful difficulty you always have
in Bohemia: nowhere but in the Circle of Konigsgraz, where there
are Hussites (far to the rear of us at this time), will you find it
otherwise. This is difficulty second.

Then, THIRDLY, what much aggravates it,--we neglected to abolish
Bathyani! And here are Bathyani's Pandours come across the Moldau on
us. Plenty of Pandours;--to whom "10,000 fresh Hungarians," of a new
Insurrection which has been got up there, are daily speeding forward to
add themselves:--such a swarm of hornets, as darkens the very daylight
for you. Vain to scourge them down, to burn them off by blaze of
gunpowder: they fly fast; but are straightway back again. They lurk in
these bushy wildernesses, scraggy woods: no foraging possible, unless
whole regiments are sent out to do it; you cannot get a letter safely
carried for them. They are an unspeakable contemptible grief to the
earnest leader of men.--Let us proceed, however; it will serve nothing
to complain. Let us hope the French sit well on the skirts of Prince
Karl: these sorrowful labors may all turn to good, in that case.

Friedrich pushes on from Tabor; shoots partly (as we have seen) across
the Moldau, to the left bank as well; captures romantic Frauenberg on
its high rock, where Broglio got into such a fluster once. We could
push to Pisek, too, and make a "Bivouac of Pisek," if we lost our wits!
Nassau is in Budweis, in Neuhaus; and proper garrisons are gone thither:
nothing wanting on our side of the business. But these Pandours, these
10,000 Insurrection Hungarians, with their Trencks spurring them! A
continual unblessed swarm of hornets, these; which shut out the very
light of day from us. Too literally the light of day: we can get no
free messaging from part to part of our own Army even. "As many as six
Orderlies have been despatched to an outlying General; and not one of
them could get through to him. They have snapt up three Letter-bags
destined for the King himself. For four weeks he is absolutely shut out
from the rest of Europe;" knows not in the least what the Kaiser, or the
Most Christian or any other King, is doing; or whether the French are
sitting well on Prince Karl's skirts, or not attempting that at all.
This also is a thing to be amended, a thing you had to learn, your
Majesty? An Army absolutely shut out from news, from letters, messages
to or fro, and groping its way in darkness, owing to these circumambient
thunder-clouds of Tolpatches, is not a well-situated Army! And alas,
when at last the Letter-bag did get through, and--But let us not
anticipate!

At Tabor there arose two opinions; which, in spite of the King's
presence, was a new difficulty. South from Tabor a day's march, the
Highway splits; direct way for Vienna; left-hand goes to Neuhaus,
right-hand, or straightforward rather, goes to Budweis, bearing upon
Linz: which of these two? Nassau has already seized Budweis; and it is
a habitable champaign country in comparison. Neuhaus, farther from the
Moldau and its uses, but more imminent on Austria, would be easy to
seize; and would frighten the Enemy more. Leopold the Young Dessauer is
for Budweis; rapid Schwerin, a hardy outspoken man, is emphatic for the
other place as Head-quarter. So emphatic are both, that the two Generals
quarrel there; and Friedrich needs his authority to keep them from
outbreaks, from open incompatibility henceforth, which would be
destructive to the service. For the rest, Friedrich seizes both places;
sends a detachment to Neuhaus as well; but holds by Budweis and the
Moldau region with his main Army; which was not quite gratifying to the
hardy Schwerin. On the opposite or left bank, holding Frauenberg, the
renowned Hill-fortress there, we make inroads at discretion: but the
country is woody, favorable to Pandours; and the right bank is our chief
scene of action. How we are to maintain ourselves in this country? To
winter in these towns between the Sazawa and the Luschnitz? Unless the
French sit well on Prince Karl's skirts, it will not be possible.




THE FRENCH ARE LITTLE GRATEFUL FOR THE PLEASURE DONE THEM AT SUCH
RUINOUS EXPENSE.

French sitting well on Prince Karl's skirts? They are not molesting
Prince Karl in the smallest; never tried such a thing;--are turned away
to the Brisgan, to the Upper Rhine Country; gone to besiege Freyburg
there, and seize Towns; about the Lake of Constance, as if there were no
Friedrich in the game! It must be owned the French do liberally pay off
old scores against Friedrich,--if, except in their own imagination,
they had old scores against him. No man ever delivered them from a more
imminent peril; and they, the rope once cut that was strangling
them, magnificently forget who cut it; and celebrate only their own
distinguished conduct during and after the operation. To a degree truly
wonderful.

It was moonlight, clear as day that night, 23d August, when Prince Karl
had to recross the Rhine, close in their neighborhood; [_Guerre de
Boheme,_ iii. 196.]--and instead of harassing Prince Karl "to half or to
whole ruin," as the bargain was, their distinguished conduct consisted
in going quietly to their beds (old Marechal de Noailles even calling
back some of his too forward subalterns), and joyfully leaving Prince
Karl, then and afterwards, to cross the Rhine, and march for Bohmen, at
his own perfect convenience.

"Seckendorf will sit on Karl's skirts," they said: "too late for US,
this season; next season, you shall see!" Such was their theory,
after Louis got that cathartic, and rose from bed. Schmettau, with his
importunities, which at last irritated everybody, could make nothing
more of it. "Let the King of France crown his glories by the Siege of
Freyburg, the conquest of Brisgau:--for behoof of the poor Kaiser, don't
you observe? Hither Austria is the Kaiser's;--and furthermore, were
Freyburg gone, there will be no invading of Elsass again" (which is
another privately very interesting point)!

And there, at Freyburg, the Most Christian King now is, and his Army up
to the knees in mud, conquering Hither Austria; besieging Freyburg, with
much difficulty owing to the wet,--besieging there with what energy;
a spectacle to the world! And has, for the present, but one wife, no
mistress either! With rapturous eyes France looks on; with admiration
too big for words. Voltaire, I have heard, made pilgrimage to Freyburg,
with rhymed Panegyric in his pocket; saw those miraculous operations
of a Most Christian King miraculously awakened; and had the honor to
present said Panegyric; and be seen, for the first time, by the royal
eyes,--which did not seem to relish him much. [The Panegyric (EPITRE AU
ROI DEVANT FRIBOURG) is in _OEuvres de Voltaire,_ xvii. 184.] Since the
first days of October, Freyburg had been under constant assault; "amid
rains, amid frosts; a siege long and murderous" (to the besieging
party);--and was not got till November 5th; not quite entirely, the
Citadels of it, till November 25th; Majesty gone home to Paris, to
illuminations and triumphal arches, in the interim. [Adelung, iv. 266;
Barbier, ii. 414 (13th November, &c.), for the illuminations, grand in
the extreme, in spite of wild rains and winds.] It had been a difficult
and bloody conquest to him, this of Freyburg and the Brisgau Country;
and I never heard that either the Kaiser or he got sensible advantage by
it,--though Prince Karl, on the present occasion, might be said to get a
great deal.

"Seckendorf will do your Prince Karl," they had cried always:
"Seckendorf and his Prussian Majesty! Are not we conquering Hither
Austria here, for the Kaiser's behoof?" Seckendorf they did officially
appoint to pursue; appoint or allow;--and laid all the blame on
Seckendorf; who perhaps deserved his share of it. Very certain it is,
Seckendorf did little or nothing to Prince Karl; marched "leisurely
behind him through the Ober-Pfalz,"--skirting Baireuth Country, Karl and
he, to Wilhelmina's grief; [Her Letters ( _OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxvii.
i. 133, &c.).]--"leisurely behind him at a distance of four days," knew
better than meddle with Prince Karl. So that Prince Karl, "in twenty-one
marches," disturbed only by the elements and bad roads, reached
Waldmunchen 26th September, in the Furth-Cham Country; [Ranke, iii.
187.] and was heard to exclaim: "We are let off for the fright, then
(NOUS VOILA QUITTES POUR LA PEUR)!"--Seckendorf, finding nothing to live
upon in Ober-Pfalz, could not attend Prince Karl farther; but turned
leftwards home to Bavaria; made a kind of Second "Reconquest of Bavaria"
(on exactly the same terms as the First, Austrian occupants being all
called off to assist in Bohmen again);--concerning which, here is an
Excerpt:--

"Seckendorf, following at his leisure, and joined by the Hessians and
Pfalzers, so as now to exceed 30,000, leaves Prince Karl and the rest of
the enterprise to do as it can; and applies himself, for his own share,
as the needfulest thing, to getting hold of Bavaria again, that his poor
Kaiser may have where to lay his head, and pay old servants their wages.
Dreadfully exclaimed against, the old gentleman, especially by the
French co-managers: 'Why did not the old traitor stick in the rear of
Prince Karl, in the difficult passes, and drive him prone,--while we
went besieging Freyburg, and poaching about, trying for a bit of the
Brisgau while chance served!' A traitor beyond doubt; probably bought
with money down: thinks Valori. But, after all, what could Seckendorf
do? He is now of weight for Barenklau and Bavaria, not for much more. He
does sweep Barenklau and his Austrians from Bavaria, clear out (in the
course of this October), all but Ingolstadt and two or three strong
towns,--Passau especially, 'which can be blockaded, and afterwards
besieged if needful.' For the rest, he is dreadfully ill-off for
provisions, incapable of the least, attempt on Passau (as Friedrich
urged, on hearing of him again); and will have to canton himself in
home-quarters, and live by his shifts till Spring.

"The noise of French censure rises loud, against not themselves,
but against Seckendorf:--Friedrich, before that Tolpatch eclipse of
Correspondence [when three of his Letter-bags were seized, and he fell
quite dark], had too well foreboded, and contemptuously expressed his
astonishment at the blame BOTH were well earning: Passau, said he,
cannot you go at least upon Passau; which might alarm the Enemy a
little, and drag him homewards? 'Adieu, my dear Seckendorf, your Officer
will tell you how we did the Siege of Prag. You and your French are
wetted hens (POULES MOUILLEES),'--cowering about like drenched hens in a
day of set rain. 'As I hear nothing of either of you, I must try to get
out of this business without your help;'"--otherwise it will be ill for
me indeed! [Excerpted Fragment of a Letter from Friedrich,--(exact
date not given, date of EXCERPT is, Donanworth Country, 23d September,
1744),--which the French Agent in Seckendorf's Army had a reading of
(_Campagnes de Coigny,_ iv. 185-187; ib. 216-219: cited in Adelung, iv.
225).] "Which latter expression alarmed the French, and set them upon
writing and bustling, but not upon doing anything."

"Prince Karl had crossed the Rhine unmolested, in the clearest
moonlight, August 23d-24th; Seckendorf was not wholly got to Heilbronn,
September 8th: a pretty way behind Prince Karl! The 6,000 Hessians,
formerly in English pay, indignant Landgraf Wilhelm [who never could
forgive that Machiavellian conduct of Carteret at Hanau, never till he
found out what it really was] has, this year, put into French pay. And
they have now joined Seckendorf; [Espagnac, ii. 13; Buchholz, ii. 123.]
Prince Friedrich [Britannic Majesty's Son-in-law], not good fat Uncle
George, commanding them henceforth:--with extreme lack of profit to
Prince Friedrich, to the Hessians, and to the French, as will appear in
time. These 6,000, and certain thousands of Pfalzers likewise in French
pay, are now with Seckendorf, and have raised him to above 30,000;--it
is the one fruit King Friedrich has got by that 'Union of Frankfurt,'
and by all his long prospective haggling, and struggling for a 'Union
of German Princes in general.' Two pears, after that long shaking of
the tree; both pears rotten, or indeed falling into Seckendorf, who is
a basket of such quality! 'Seckendorf, increased in this munificent
manner, can he still do nothing?' cry the French: 'the old traitor!'--'I
have no magazines,' said Seckendorf, 'nothing to live upon, to shoot
with; no money!' And it is a mutual crescendo between the 'perfidious
Seckendorf' and them; without work done. In the Nurnberg Country, some
Hussars of his picked up Lord Holderness, an English Ambassador making
for Venice by that bad route. 'Prisoner, are not you?' But they did not
use him ill; on consideration, the Heads of Imperial Departments gave
him a Pass, and he continued his Venetian Journey (result of it zero)
without farther molestation that I heard of. [Adelung, iv. 222.]

"These French-Seckendorf cunctations, recriminations and drenched-hen
procedures are an endless sorrow to poor Kaiser Karl; who at length
can stand it no longer; but resolves, since at least Bavaria, though
moneyless and in ruins, is his, he will in person go thither; confident
that there will be victual and equipment discoverable for self and Army
were he there. Remonstrances avail not: 'Ask me to die with honor, ask
me not to lie rotting here;' [Ib. iv. 241.]--and quits Frankfurt, and
the Reich's-Diet and its babble, 17th October, 1744 (small sorrow, were
it for the last time),--and enters his Munchen in the course of a week.
[17th October, 1744, leaves Frankfurt; arrives in Munchen 23d (Adelung,
iv. 241-244).] Munchen is transported with joy to see the Legitimate
Sovereign again; and blazes into illuminations,--forgetful who caused
its past wretchednesses, hoping only all wretchedness is now ended.
Let ruined huts, and Cham and the burnt Towns, rebuild themselves; the
wasted hedges make up their gaps again: here is the King come home!
Here, sure enough, is an unfortunate Kaiser of the Holy Romish Reich,
who can once more hope to pay his milk-scores, being a loved Kurfurst of
Bavaria at least. Very dear to the hearts of these poor people;--and
to their purses, interests and skins, has not he in another sense been
dear? What a price the ambitions and cracked phantasms of that weak
brain have cost the seemingly innocent population! Population harried,
hungered down, dragged off to perish in Italian Wars; a Country burnt,
tribulated, torn to ruin, under the harrow of Fate and ruffian Trenck
and Company. Britannic George, rather a dear morsel too, has come
much cheaper hitherto. England is not yet burnt; nothing burning
there,--except the dull fire of deliriums; Natural Stupidities all set
flaming, which (whatever it may BE in the way of loss) is not felt as a
loss, but rather as a comfort for the time being;--and in fact there are
only, say, a forty or fifty thousand armed Englishmen rotted down, and
scarcely a Hundred Millions of money yet spent. Nothing to speak of,
in the cause of Human Liberty. Why Populations suffer for their guilty
Kings? My friend, it is the Populations too that are guilty in having
such Kings. Reverence, sacred Respect for Human Worth, sacred Abhorrence
of Human Unworth, have you considered what it means? These poor
Populations have it not, or for long generations have had it less and
less. Hence, by degrees, this sort of 'Kings' to them, and enormous
consequences following!"--

Karl VII. got back to Munchen 23d October, 1744; and the tar-barrels
being once burnt, and indispensable sortings effected, he went to the
field along with Seckendorf, to encourage his men under Seckendorf, and
urge the French by all considerations to come on. And really did what
he could, poor man. But the cordage of his life had been so strained and
torn, he was not now good for much; alas, it had been but little he was
ever good for. A couple of dear Kurfursts, his Father and he; have stood
these Bavarian Countries very high, since the Battle of Blenheim and
downwards!




Chapter IV.--FRIEDRICH REDUCED TO STRAITS; CANNOT MAINTAIN HIS MOLDAU
CONQUESTS AGAINST PRICE KARL.

One may fancy what were Friedrich's reflections when he heard that
Prince Karl had, prosperously and unmolested, got across, by those
Passes from the Ober-Pfalz, into Bohmen and the Circle of Pilsen, into
junction with Bathyani and his magazines; ["At Mirotitz, October 2d"
(Ranke, iii. 194); Orlich, ii. 49.] heard, moreover, that the Saxons,
20,000 strong, under Weissenfels, crossing the Metal Mountains, coming
on by Eger and Karlsbad regions, were about uniting with him (bound by
Treaty to assist the Hungarian Majesty when invaded);--and had finally,
what confirms everything, that the said Prince Karl in person (making
for Budweis, "just seen his advanced guard," said rumor under mistake)
was but few miles off. Few miles off, on the other side of the
Moldau;--of unknown strength, hidden in the circumambient clouds of
Pandours.

Suppressing all the rages and natural reflections but those needful for
the moment, Friedrich (October 4th, by Moldau-Tein) dashes across the
Moldau, to seek Prince Karl, at the place indicated, and at once smite
him down if possible;--that will be a remedy for all things. Prince Karl
is not there, nor was; the indication had been false; Friedrich searches
about, for four days, to no purpose. Prince Karl, he then learns for
certain, has crossed the Moldau farther down, farther northward, between
Prag and us. Means to cut us off from Prag, then, which is our fountain
of life in these circumstances? That is his intention:--"Old Traun, who
is with him, understands his trade!" thinks Friedrich. Traun, or the
Prince, is diligently forming magazines, all the Country carrying to
him, in the Town of Beneschau, hither side of the Sazawa, some seventy
miles north of us, an important Town where roads meet:--unless we can
get hold of Beneschau, it will be ill with us here! Across the River
again, at any rate; and let us hasten thither. That is an affair which
must be looked to; and speed is necessary!

OCTOBER 8th, After four days' search ending in this manner, Friedrich
swiftly crosses towards Tabor again, to Bechin (over on the Luschnitz,
one march), there to collect himself for Beneschau and the other
intricacies. Towards Tabor again, by his Bridge of Moldau-Tein;--clouds
of Pandour people, larger clouds than usual, hanging round; hidden by
the woods till Friedrich is gone. Friedrich being gone, there occurs the
AFFAIR OF MOLDAU-TEIN, much talked of in Prussian Books. Of which, in
extreme condensation, this is the essence:--

"OCTOBER 9th. Friedrich once off to Bechin, the Pandour clouds gather
on his rearguard next day at Tein Bridge here, to the number of about
10,000 [rumor counts 14,000]; and with desperate intent, and more
regularity than usual, attack the Tein-Bridge Party, which consists
of perhaps 2,000 grenadiers and hussars, the whole under Ziethen's
charge,--obliged to wait for a cargo of Bread-wagons here. 'Defend your
Bridge, with cannon, with case-shot:' that is what the grenadiers do.
The Pandour cloud, with horrid lanes cut in it, draws back out of this;
then plunges at the River itself, which can be ridden above or below;
rides it, furious, by the thousand: 'Off with your infantry; quit the
Bridge!' cries Ziethen to his Captain there: 'Retire you, Parthian-like;
thrice-steady,' orders Ziethen: 'It is to be hoped our hussars can deal
with this mad-doggery!' And they do it; cutting in with iron discipline,
with fierceness not undrilled; a wedge of iron hussars, with ditto
grenadiers continually wheeling, like so many reapers steady among
wind-tossed grain; and gradually give the Pandours enough. Seven hours
of it, in all: 'of their sixty cartridges the grenadiers had fired
fifty-four,' when it ended, about 7 P.M. The coming Bread-wagons,
getting word, had to cast their loaves into the River (sad to think of);
and make for Bechin at their swiftest. But the rearguard got off with
its guns, in this victorious manner: thanks to Major-General Ziethen,
Colonel Reusch and the others concerned. [_Feldzuge der Preussen,_  i.
268; Orlich, ii. 55.]

"Ziethen handsels his Major-Generalcy in this fine way: [Patent given
him "3d October, 1744," only a week ago, "and ordered to be dated eight
months back" (Rodenbeck, i. 109).] a man who has had promotion, and also
has had none, and may again come to have none;--and is able to do either
way. Never mind, my excellent tacit friend! Ziethen is five-and-forty
gone; has a face which is beautiful to me, though one of the coarsest.
Face thrice-honest, intricately ploughed with thoughts which are well
kept silent (the thoughts, indeed, being themselves mostly inarticulate;
thoughts of a simple-hearted, much-enduring, hot-tempered son of
iron and oatmeal);--decidedly rather likable, with its lazily hanging
under-lip, and respectable bearskin cylinder atop."




FRIEDRICH TRIES TO HAVE BATTLE FROM PRINCE KARL, IN THE MOLDAU
COUNTRIES; CANNOT, OWING TO THE SKILL OF PRINCE KARL OR OF OLD
FELDMARSCHALL TRAUN;--HAS TO RETIRE BEHIND THE SAZAWA, AND ULTIMATELY
BEHIND THE ELBE, WITH MUCH LABOR IN VAIN.

OCTOBER 14th-18th: RETREAT FROM BECHIN-TABOR COUNTRY TO BENESCHAU. ...
"These Pandours give us trouble enough; no Magazine here, no living to
be had in this Country beside them. Unfortunate Colonel Jahnus went out
from Tabor lately, to look after requisitioned grains: infinite Pandours
set upon him [Muhlhausen is the memorable place]; Jahnus was obstinate
(too obstinate, thinks Friedrich), and perished on the ground, he and
200 of his. [ _OEuvres de Frederic,_ iii. 61.] Nay, next, a swarm of
them came to Tabor itself, Nadasti at their head; to try whether Tabor,
with its small garrison, could not be escaladed, and perhaps Prince
Henri, who lies sick there, be taken? Tabor taught them another lesson;
sent them home with heads broken;--which Friedrich thinks was an
extremely suitable thing. But so it stands: Here by the thousand and the
ten thousand they hang round us; and Prince Karl--It is of all things
necessary we get hold of that Beneschau, and the Magazine he is
gathering there!

"Rapidity is indispensable,--and yet how quit Tabor? We have detachments
out at Neuhaus, at Budweis, and in Tabor 300 men in hospital, whom there
are no means of carrying. To leave them to the Tolpaches? Friedrich
confesses he was weak on this occasion; he could not leave these 300
men, as was his clear duty, in this extremity of War. He ordered in his
Neuhaus Detachment; not yet any of the others. He despatched Schmerin
towards Beneschau with all his speed; Schwerin was lucky enough to
take Beneschau and its provender,--a most blessed fortune,--and fences
himself there. Hearing which, Friedrich, having now got the Neuhaus
Detachment in hand, orders the other Three, the Budweis, the Tabor here,
and the Frauenberg across the River, to maintain themselves; and
then, leaving those southern regions to their chance, hastens towards
Beneschau and Schwerin; encamps (October 18th) near Beneschau,--'Camp of
Konopischt,' unattackable Camp, celebrated in the Prussian Books;--and
there, for eight days, still on the south side of Sazawa, tries every
shift to mend the bad posture of affairs in that Luschnitz-Sazawa
Country. His Three Garrisons (3,000 men in them, besides the 300 sick)
he now sees will not be able to maintain themselves; and he sends in
succession 'eight messengers,' not one messenger of whom could get
through, to bid them come away. His own hope now is for a Battle
with Prince Karl; which might remedy all things. [_OEuvres de
Frederic,_ iii. 62-64.]"

That is Friedrich's wish; but it is by no means Traun's, who sees that
hunger and wet weather will of themselves suffice for Friedrich. There
ensues accordingly, for three weeks to come, in that confused Country,
a series of swift shufflings, checkings and manoeuvrings between these
two, which is gratifying and instructive to the strategic mind, but
cannot be inflicted upon common readers. Two considerable chess-players,
an old and a young; their chess-board a bushy, rocky, marshy
parallelogram, running fifty miles straight east from Prag, and twenty
or fewer south, of which Prag is the northwest angle, and Beneschau, or
the impregnable Konopischt the southwest: the reader must conceive it;
and how Traun will not fight Friedrich, yet makes him skip hither and
thither, chiefly by threatening his victuals. Friedrich's main magazine
is now at Pardubitz, the extreme northeast angle of the parallelogram.
Parallelogram has one river in it, with the innumerable rocks and
brooks and quagmires, the river Sazawa; and on the north side, where are
Kuttenberg, Czaslau, Chotusitz, places again become important in
this business, it is bounded by another river, the Elbe. Intricate
manoeuvring there is here, for three weeks following: "old Traun an
admirable man!" thinks Friedrich, who ever after recognized Traun as his
Schoolmaster in the art of War. We mark here and there a date, and leave
it to readers.

"RADICZ, OCTOBER 21st-22d. At Radicz, a march to southwest of us, and on
our side of the Moldau, the Saxons, under Weissenfels, 20,000 effective,
join Prince Karl; which raises his force to 69,514 men, some 10,000 more
than Friedrich is master of. [Orlich, ii. 66.] Prospect of wintering
between the Luschnitz and the Sazawa there is now little; unless they
will fight us, and be beaten. Friedrich, from his inaccessible Camp of
Konopischt, manoeuvres, reconnoitres, in all directions, to produce
this result; but to no purpose. An Austrian Detachment did come, to look
after Beneschau and the Magazines there; but rapidly drew back again,
finding Konopischt on their road, and how matters were. Friedrich
will guard the door of this Sazawa-Elbe tract of Country; hope of the
Sazawa-Luschnitz tract has, in few days, fallen extinct. Here is
news come to Konopischt: our Three poor Garrisons, Budweis, Tabor,
Frauenberg, already all lost; guns and men, after defence to the
last cartridge,--in Frauenberg their water was cut off, it was
eight-and-forty hours of thirst at Frauenberg:--one way or other, they
are all Three gone; eight couriers galloping with message, 'Come away,'
were all picked up by the Pandours; so they stood, and were lost. 'Three
thousand fighting men gone, for the weak chance of saving three hundred
who were in hospital!' thinks Friedrich: War is not a school of the
weak pities. For the chance of ten, you lose a hundred and the ten too.
Sazawa-Elbe tract of country, let us vigilantly keep the door of that!

"SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24th, Friedrich out reconnoitring from Konopischt
discovers of a certainty that the whole Austrian-Saxon force is
now advaucing towards Beneschau, and will, this night, encamp at
Marschowitz, to southwest, only one march from us! On the instant
Friedrich hurries back; gets his Army on march thitherward, though the
late October sun is now past noon; off instantly; a stroke yonder will
perhaps be the cure of all. Such roads we had, says Friedrich, as never
Army travelled before: long after nightfall, we arrive near the Austrian
camp, bivouac as we can till daylight return. At the first streak of
day, Friedrich and his chief generals are on the heights with their
spy-glasses: Austrian Army sure enough; and there they have altered
their posture overnight (for Traun too has been awake); they lie now
opposite our RIGHT flank; 'on a scarped height, at the foot of which,
through swamps and quagmires, runs a muddy stream.' Unattackable on this
side: their right flank and foot are safe enough. Creep round and see
their left:--Nothing but copses, swampy intricacies! We may shoulder
arms again, and go back to Konopischt: no fight here! [_OEuvres
de Frederic,_ iii. 63, 64; Orlich, ii. 69.] Speaking of defensive
Campaigns, says Friedrich didactically, years afterwards, 'If such
situations are to answer the purpose intended, the front and flanks must
be equally strong, but the rear entirely open. Such, for instance,
are those heights which have an extensive front, and whose flanks are
covered by morasses:--as was Prince Karl's Camp at Marschowitz in the
year 1744, with its front covered by a stream, and the wings by deep
hollows; or that which we ourselves then occupied at Konopischt,--as you
well remember. [_Military Instructions_ (above cited), p. 44.]

"OCTOBER 26th-NOVEMBER 1st. The Sazawa-Luschnitz tract of Country is
quite lost, then; lost with damages: the question now is, Can we keep
the Sazawa-Elbe tract? For about three weeks more, Friedrich struggles
for that object; cannot compass that either. Want of horse-provender is
very great:--country entirely eaten, say the peasants, and not a truss
remaining. October 26th, Friedrich has to cross the Sazawa; we must quit
the door of that tract (hunger driving us), and fight for the interior
in detail. Traun gets to Beneschau in that cheap way; and now, in behalf
of Traun, the peasants find forage enough, being zealous for Queen and
creed. Pandours spread themselves all over this Sazawa-Elbe country;
endanger our subsistences, make our lives miserable. It is the old
story: Friedrich, famine and mud and misery of Pandours compelling,
has to retire northward, Elbe-ward, inch by inch; whither the Austrians
follow at a safe distance, and, in spite of all manoeuvring, cannot be
got to fight.

"Brave General Nassau, who much distinguishes himself in these
businesses, has (though Friedrich does not yet know it) dexterously
seized Kolin, westward in those Elbe parts,--ground that will be notable
in years coming. Important little feat of Nassau's; of which anon. On
the other hand, our Magazine at Pardubitz, eastward on the Elbe, is
not out of danger: Pandours and regulars 2,000 and odd, 'sixty of the
Pandour kind disguised as peasants leading hay-carts,' made an attempt
there lately; but were detected by the vigilant Colonel, and blown to
pieces, in the nick of time, some of them actually within the gate.
[ _OEuvres de Frederic,_ iii. 65.] Nay, a body of Austrian regulars were
in full march for Kolin lately, intending to get hold of the Elbe
itself at that point (midway between Prag and Pardubitz): but the prompt
General Nassau, as we remarked, had struck in before them; and now holds
Kolin;--though, for several days, Friedrich could not tell what had
become of Nassau, owing to the swarms of Pandours.

"Friedrich, standing with his back to Prag, which is fifty miles from
him, and rather in need of his support than able to give him any; and
drawing his meal from the uncertain distance, with Pandours hovering
round,--is in difficult case. While old Traun is kept luminous as
mid-day; the circumambient atmosphere of Pandours is tenebrific to
Friedrich, keeps him in perpetual midnight. He has to read his position
as with flashes of lightning, for most part. A heavy-laden, sorely
exasperated man; and must keep his haggard miseries strictly secret;
which I believe he does. Were Valori here, it is very possible he might
find the countenance FAROUCHE again; eyes gloomy, on damp November
mornings! Schwerin, in a huff, has gone home: Since your Majesty is
pleased to prefer his young Durchlaucht of Anhalt's advice, what can
an elderly servant (not without rheumatisms) do other?--'Well!' answers
Friedrich, not with eyes cheered by the phenomenon. The Elbe-Sazawa
tract, even this looks as if it would be hard to keep. A world very dark
for Friedrich, enveloped so by the ill chances and the Pandours. But
what help?

"From the French Camp far away, there comes, dated 17th October
(third week of their Siege of Freyburg), by way of help to Friedrich,
magnanimous promise: 'So soon as this Siege is done, which will be
speedily, though it is difficult, we propose to send fifty battalions
and a hundred squadrons,'"--say only 60,000 horse and foot (not a hoof
or toe of which ever got that length, on actually trying it),--"towards
Westphalia, to bring the Elector of Koln to reason [poor Kaiser's lanky
Brother, who cannot stand the French procedures, and has lately sold
himself, that is sold his troops, to England], and keep the King of
England and the Dutch in check,"--by way of solacement to your Majesty.
Will you indeed, you magnanimous Allies?--This was picked up by the
Pandours; and I know not but Friedrich was spared the useless pain of
reading it. [Orlich, ii. 73.]

"NOVEMBER 1st-9th: FRIEDRICH LOSES SAZAWA-ELBE COUNTRY TOO. On the first
day of November, here is a lightning-flash which reveals strange things
to Friedrich. Traun's late manoeuvrings, which have been so enigmatic,
to right and to left, upon Prag and other points, issue now in an
attempt towards Pardubitz; which reveals to Friedrich the intention
Traun has formed, of forcing him to choose one of those two places, and
let go the other. Formidable, fatal, thinks Friedrich; and yet admirable
on the part of Traun: 'a design beautiful and worthy of admiration.' If
we stay near Prag, what becomes of our communication with Silesia; what
becomes of Silesia itself? If we go towards Pardubitz, Prag and Bohmen
are lost! What to do? 'Despatch reinforcement to Pardubitz; thanks to
Nassau, the Kolin-Pardubitz road is ours!' That is done, Pardubitz saved
for the moment. Could we now get to Kuttenberg before the old Marshal,
his design were overset altogether. Alas, we cannot march at once, have
to wait a day for the bread. Forward, nevertheless; and again forward,
and again; three heavy marches in November weather: let us make a fourth
forced march, start to-morrow before dawn,--Kuttenberg above all things!
In vain; to-morrow, 4th November, there is such a fog, dark as London
itself, from six in the morning onwards, no starting till noon: and then
impossible, with all our efforts, to reach Kuttenberg. We have to halt
an eight miles short of it, in front of Kolin; and pitch tents there. On
the morrow, 5th November, Traun is found encamped, unattackable, between
us and our object; sits there, at his ease in a friendly Country, with
Pandour whirlpools flowing out and in; an irreducible case to Friedrich.
November 5th, and for three days more, Friedrich, to no purpose, tries
his utmost;--finds he will have to give up the Elbe-Sazawa region, like
the others. Monday, November 9th, Friedrich gathers himself at Kolin;
crosses the Elbe by Kolin Bridge, that day. Point after point of the
game going against him."

Kolin was, of course, attacked, that Monday evening, so soon as the main
Army crossed: but, so soon as the Army left, General Nassau had taken
his measures; and, with his great guns and his small, handled the
Pandours in a way that pleased us. [ _OEuvres de Frederic,_ iii. 68.]
Thursday night following, they came back, with regular grenadiers to
support; under cloud of night, in great force, ruffian Trenck at the
head of them: a frightful phenomenon to weak nerves. But this also
Nassau treated in such a fiery fashion that it vanished without return;
three hundred dead left on the ground, and ruffian Trenck riding off
with his own crown broken,--beautiful indigo face streaking itself into
GINGHAM-pattern, for the moment!

Except Pardubitz, where also the due battalions are left, Friedrich now
holds no post south of the Elbe in this quarter; Elbe-Sazawa Tract is
gone like the others, to all appearance. And we must now say, Silesia
or Prag? Prince Leopold, Council-of-War being held on the matter, is for
keeping hold of Prag: "Pity to lose all the excellent siege-artillery we
brought thither," says he. True, too true; an ill-managed business
that of Prag! thinks Friedrich sadly to himself: but what is Prag and
artillery, compared to Silesia? Parthian retreat into Silesia; and
let Prag and the artillery go: that, to Friedrich, is clearly the sure
course. Or perhaps the fatal alternative will not actually arrive? So
long as Pardubitz and Kolin hold; and we have the Elbe for barrier?
Truth is, Prince Karl has himself written to Court that, having now
pushed his Enemy fairly over the Elbe, and winter being come with its
sleets and slushes, ruinous to troops that have been so marched about,
the Campaign ought to end;--nay, his own young Wife is in perilous
interesting circumstances, and the poor Prince wishes to be home. To
which, however, it is again understood, Maria Theresa has emphatically
answered, "No,--finish first!"

NOVEMBER 9th-19th: WE DEFEND THE ELBE RIVER. Friedrich has posted
himself on the north shore of the Elbe, from Pardubitz to the other side
of Kolin; means to defend that side of the River, where go the Silesian
roads. At Bohdenetz, short way across from Pardubitz, he himself is;
Prince Leopold is near Kolin: thirty miles of river-bank to dispute.
The controversy lasts ten days; ends in ELBE-TEINITZ, a celebrated
"passage," in Books and otherwise. Friedrich is in shaggy, intricate
country; no want of dingles, woods and quagmires; now and then pleasant
places too,--here is Kladrup for example, where our Father came three
hundred miles to dine with the Kaiser once. The grooms and colts are
all off at present; Father and Kaiser are off; and much is changed since
then. Grim tussle of War now; sleety winter, and the Giant Mountains in
the distance getting on their white hoods! Friedrich doubtless has
his thoughts as he rides up and down, in sight of Kladrup, among other
places, settling many things; but what his thoughts were, he is careful
not to say except where necessary. Much is to be looked after, in this
River controversy of thirty miles. Detachments lie, at intervals, all
the way; and mounted sentries, a sentry every five miles, patrol the
River-bank; vigilant, we hope, as lynxes. Nothing can cross but alarm
will be given, and by degrees the whole Prussian force be upon it. This
is the Circle of Konigsgratz, this that now lies to rear; and happily
there are a few Hussites in it, not utterly indisposed to do a little
spying for us, and bring a glimmering of intelligence, now and then.

It is now the second week that Frietrich has lain so, with his mounted
patrols in motion, with his Hussite spies; guarding Argus-like this
thirty miles of River; and the Austrians attempt nothing, or nothing
with effect. If the Austrians go home to their winter-quarters, he hopes
to issue from Kolin again before Spring, and to sweep the Elbe-Sazawa
Tract clear of them, after all. Maria Theresa having answered No, it is
likely the Austrians will try to get across: Be vigilant therefore,
ye mounted sentries. Or will they perhaps make an attempt on Prag?
Einsiedel, who has no garrison of the least adequacy, apprises us That
"in all the villages round Prag people are busy making ladders,"--what
can that mean? Friedrich has learned, by intercepted letters, that
something great is to be done on Wednesday, 18th: he sends Rothenburg
with reinforcement to Einsiedel, lest a scalade of Prag should be on
the cards. Rothenburg is right welcome in the lines of Prag, though with
reinforcement still ineffectual; but it is not Prag that is meant, nor
is Wednesday the day. Through Wednesday, Friedrich, all eye and ear,
could observe nothing: much marching to and fro on the Austrian side of
the River; but apparently it comes to nothing? The mounted patrols had
better be vigilant, however.

On the morrow, 5 A.M., what is this that is going on? Audible booming of
cannon, of musketry and battle, echoing through the woods, penetrates to
Friedrich's quarters at Bohdenetz in the Pardubitz region: Attack upon
Kolin, Nassau defending himself there? Out swift scouts, and see! Many
scouts gallop out; but none comes back. Friedrich, for hours, has to
remain uncertain; can only hope Nassau will defend himself. Boom go the
distant volleyings; no scout comes back. And it is not Nassau or Kolin;
it is something worse: very glorious for Prussian valor, but ruinous to
this Campaign.

The Austrians, at 2 o'clock this morning, Austrians and Saxons, came in
great force, in dead silence, to the south brink of the River, opposite
a place called Teinitz (Elbe-Teinitz), ten miles east of Kolin; that
was the fruit of their marching yesterday. They sat there forbidden to
speak, to smoke tobacco or do anything but breathe, till all was ready;
till pontoons, cannons had come up, and some gleam of dawn had broken.
At the first gleam of dawn, as they are shoving down their pontoon
boats, there comes a "WER-DA, Who goes?" from our Prussian patrol across
the River. Receiving no answer, he fires; and is himself shot down. One
Wedell, Wedell and Ziethen, who keep watch in this part, start instantly
at sound of these shots; and make a dreadful day of it for these
invasive Saxon and Austrian multitudes. Naturally, too, they send off
scouts, galloping for more help, to the right and to the left. But that
avails not. Wild doggery of Pandours, it would seem, have already swum
or waded the River, above Teinitz and below:--"Want of vigilance!" barks
Friedrich impatiently: but such a doggery is difficult to watch with
effect. At any rate, to the right and to the left, the woods are already
beset with Pandours; every scout sent out is killed: and to east or to
west there comes no news but an echoing of musketry, a boom of distant
cannon. [Orlich, ii. 82-85.] Saxon-Austrian battalions, four or five,
with unlimited artillery going, VERSUS Wedell's one battalion, with
musketry and Ziethen's hussars: it is fearful odds. The Prussians stand
to it like heroes; doggedly, for four hours, continue the
dispute,--till it is fairly desperate; "two bridges of the enemy's now
finished;"--whereupon they manoeuvre off, with Parthian or Prussian
countenance, into the woods, safe, towards Kolin; "despatching definite
news to Friedrich, which does arrive about 11 A.M., and sets him at once
on new measures."

This is a great feat in the Prussian military annals; for which, sad
as the news was, Wedell got the name of Leonidas attached to him by
Friedrich himself. And indeed it is a gallant passage of war; "Forcing
of the Elbe at Teinitz;" of which I could give two Narratives, one from
the Prussian, and one from the Saxon side; [Seyfarth, _Beylage,_ i.
595-598; _Helden-Geschichte,_  ii. 1175-1181.] didactic, admonitory
to the military mind, nay to the civic reader that has sympathy with
heroisms, with work done manfully, and terror and danger and difficulty
well trampled under foot. Leonidas Wedell has an admirable silence, too;
and Ziethen's lazily hanging under-lip is in its old attitude again, now
that the spasm is over. "WAS THUTS? They are across, without a doubt. We
would have helped it, and could not. Steady!"--




FRIEDRICH'S RETREAT; ESPECIALLY EINSIEDEL'S FROM PRAG.

Seeing, then, that they are fairly over, Friedrich, with a creditable
veracity of mind, sees also that the game is done; and that same
night he begins manoeuvring towards Silesia, lest far more be lost by
continuing the play. One column, under Leopold the Young Dessauer, goes
through Glatz, takes the Magazine of Pardubitz along with it: good to go
in several columns, the enemy will less know which to chase. Friedrich,
with another column, will wait for Nassau about Konigsgratz, then go by
the more westerly road, through Nachod and the Pass of Braunau. Nassau,
who is to get across from Kolin, and join us northwards, has due
rendezvous appointed him in the Konigsgratz region. Einsiedel, in Prag,
is to spike his guns, since he cannot carry them; blow up his
bastions, and the like; and get away with all discretion and all
diligence,--northwestward first, to Leitmeritz, where our magazines are;
there to leave his heavier goods, and make eastward towards Friedland,
and across the "Silesian Combs" by what Passes he can. Will have
a difficult operation; but must stand to it. And speed; steady,
simultaneous, regular, unresting velocity; that is the word for all. And
so it is done,--though with difficulty, on the part of poor Einsiedel
for one. It was Thursday, 19th November, when the Austrians got across
the Elbe: on Monday, 23d, the Prussian rendezvousings are completed; and
Friedrich's column, and the Glatz one under Leopold, are both on march;
infinite baggage-wagons groaning orderly along ("sick-wagons well
ahead," and the like precautions and arrangements), on both these
highways for Silesia: and before the week ends, Thursday, 26th, even
Einsiedel is under way. Let us give something of poor Einsiedel,
whose disasters made considerable noise in the world, that Winter and
afterwards.

"The two main columns were not much molested; that which went by Glatz,
under Leopold, was not pursued at all. On the rear of Friedrich's own
column, going towards Braunau, all the way to Nachod or beyond, there
hung the usual doggery of Pandours, which required whipping off from
time to time; but in the defiles and difficult places due precaution was
taken, and they did little real damage. Truchsess von Waldburg [our old
friend of the Spartan feat near Austerlitz in the MORAVIAN-FORAY time,
whom we have known in London society as Prussian Envoy in bygone years]
was in one of the divisions of this column; and one day, at a village
where there was a little river to cross (river Mietau, Konigsgratz
branch of the Elbe), got provoked injudiciously into fighting with
a body of these people. Intent not on whipping them merely, but on
whipping them to death, Truchsess had already lost some forty men, and
the business with such crowds of them was getting hot; when, all at
once a loud squeaking of pigs was heard in the village,"--apprehensive
swineherd hastily penning his pigs belike, and some pig refractory;--"at
sound of which, the Pandour multitude suddenly pauses, quits fighting,
and, struck by a new enthusiasm, rushes wholly into the village; leaving
Truchsess, in a tragi-comic humor, victorious, but half ashamed
of himself. [ _OEuvres de Frederic,_ iii. 73.] In the beginning of
December, Friedrich's column reached home, by Braunau through the
Mountains, the same way part of it had come in August; not quite so
brilliant in equipment now as then.

"It was upon Einsiedel's poor Garrison, leaving Prag in such haste, that
the real stress of the retreat fell; its difficulties great indeed, and
its losses great. Einsiedel did what was possible; but all things are
not possible on a week's warning. He spiked great guns, shook endless
hundredweights of powder, and 10,000 stand of arms, into the River;
he requisitioned horses, oxen, without number; put mines under the
bastions, almost none of which went off with effect. He kept Prag
accurately shut, the Praguers accurately in the dark; took his measures
prudently; and labored night and day. One measure I note of him:
stringent Proclamation to the inhabitants of Prag, 'Provision yourselves
for three months; nothing but starvation ahead otherwise.' Alas, we
are to stand a fourth siege, then? say the Praguers. But where are
provisions to be had? At such and such places; from the Royal Magazines
only, if you bring a certificate and ready money! Whereby Einsiedel
got delivered of his meal-magazine, for one thing. But his difficulties
otherwise were immense.

"On the Thursday morning, 26th November, 1744, he marched. His wagons
had begun the night before; and went all night, rumbling continuous
(Anonymous of Prag [Second "LETTER from a Citizen, &c." (date, 27th
November, see supra, p. 348), in _Helden-Geschichte,_  ii. 1181-1188.]
hearing them well), through the Karlthor, northwest gate of Prag, across
the Moldau Rridge. All night across that bridge,--Leitmeritz road, great
road to the northwest:--followed finally by the march of horse and foot.
But news had already fled abroad. Five hundred Pandours were in the
City, backed by the Butchers' lads and other riotous GESINDEL, before
the rear-guard got away. Sad tugging and wriggling in consequence, much
firing from windows, and uproarious chaos;--so that Rothenburg had at
last to remount a couple of guns, and blow it off with case-shot. A
drilled Prussian rear-guard struggling, with stern composure, through a
real bit of burning chaos. With effect, though not without difficulty.
Here is the scene on the Noldau Bridge, and past that high Hradschin
[Old Palace of the Bohemian Kings (pronounce RADsheen); one of the
steepest Royal Sites in the world.] mass of buildings; all Prag, not the
Hradschin only, struggling to give us fatal farewell if it durst. River
is covered with Pandours firing out of boats; Bridge encumbered to
impassability by forsaken wagons, the drivers of which had cut traces
and run; shot comes overhead from the Hradschin on our left, much shot,
infinite tumult all round; thoroughfare impossible for two-wheeled
vehicle, or men in rank. 'Halt!' cries Colonel Brandes, who has charge
of the thing; divides them in three: 'First one party, deal with these
river-boats, that Pandour doggery; second party, pull these stray wagons
to right and left, making the way clear; third party, drag our
own wagons forward, shoulder to shaft, and yoke them out of
shot-range;--you, Captain Carlowitz,' and calls twenty volunteers to go
with Carlowitz, and drag their own cannon, 'step you forward, keep the
gate of that Hradschin till we all pass!' In this manner, rapid, hard of
stroke, clear-headed and with stern regularity, drilled talent gets the
burning Nessus'-shirt wriggled off; and tramps successfully forth with
its baggages. About 11 A.M., this rearguard of Brandes's did; should
have been at seven,--right well that it could be at all.

"Einsiedel, after this, got tolerably well to Leitmeritz; left his heavy
baggage there; then turned at an acute angle right eastward, towards the
Silesian Combs, as ordered: still a good seventy miles to do, and the
weather getting snowy and the days towards their shortest. Worse still;
old Weissenfels, now in Prag with his Saxons, is aware that Einsiedel,
before ending, will touch on a wild high-lying corner of the Lausitz
which is Saxon Country; and thitherward Weissenfels has despatched
Chevalier de Saxe (in plenty of time, November 29th), with horse and
foot, to waylay Einsiedel, and block the entrance of the Silesian
Mountains for him. Whereupon, in the latter end of his long march,
and almost within sight of home, ensues the hardest brush of all for
Einsiedel. And, in the desolation of that rugged Hill country of the
Lausitz, 'HOCHWALD (Upper Weld),' twenty or more miles from Bohemian
Friedland, from his entrance on the Mountain Barrier and Silesian Combs,
there are scenes--which gave rise to a Court-Martial before long.
For unexpectedly, on the winter afternoon (December 9th), Einsiedel,
struggling among the snows and pathless Hills, comes upon Chevalier de
Saxe and his Saxon Detachment,--intrenched with trees, snow-redoubts,
and a hollow bog dividing us; plainly unassailable;--and stands there,
without covering, without 'food, fire, or salt,' says one Eye-witness,
'for the space of fourteen hours.' Gazing gloomily into it, exchanging a
few shots, uncertain what more to do; the much-dubitating Einsiedel. 'At
which the men were so disgusted and enraged, they deserted [the foreign
part of them, I fancy] in groups at a time,' says the above
Eye-witness. Not to think what became of the equipments, baggage-wagons,
sick-wagons:--too evident Einsiedel's loss, in all kinds, was very
considerable. Nassau, despatched by Leopold out of Glatz, from the other
side of the Combs, is marching to help Einsiedel;--who knows, at this
moment, where or whitherward? For the peasants are all against us;
our very guides desert, and become spies. 'Push to the left, over the
Hochwald top, must not we?' thinks Einsiedel: 'that is Lausitz, a Saxon
Country; and Saxony, though the Saxons stand intrenched here, with the
knife at our throat, are not at war with us, oh no, only allies of her
Majesty of Hungary, and neutral otherwise!' And here, it is too clear,
the Chevalier de Saxe stands intrenched behind his trees and snow; and
it is the fourteenth hour, men deserting by the hundred, without fire
and without salt; and Nassau is coming,--God knows by what road!

"Einsiedel pushes to the left, the Hochwald way; finds, in the Hochwald
too, a Saxon Commandant waiting him, with arms strictly shouldered.
'And we cannot pass through this moor skirt of Lausitz, say you, then?'
'Unarmed, yes; your muskets can come in wagons after you,' replies the
Saxon Commandant of Lausitz. 'Thousand thanks, Herr Commandant; but we
will not give you all that trouble,' answer Einsiedel and his Prussians;
'and march on, overwhelming him with politenesses,' says Friedrich;--the
approach of Nassau, above all, being a stringent civility. Of course,
despatch is very requisite to Einsiedel; the Chevalier, with his force,
being still within hail. The Prussians march all night, with pitch-links
flaring,--nights (I think) of the 13th-15th December, 1744, up among the
highlands there, rugged buttresses of the Silesian Combs: a sight enough
to astonish Rubezahl, if he happened to be out! As good chance would
have it, Nassau and Einsiedel, by preconcert, partly by lucky guess of
their own, were hurrying by the same road: three heaven-rending cheers
(December 16th) when we get sight of Nassau; and find that here is land!
December 16th, we are across,--by Ruckersdorf, not far from Friedland
(Bohmisch Friedland, not the Silesian town of that name, once
Wallenstein's);--and rejoice now to look back on labor done."
[ _Helden-Geschichte,_  ii. 1181-1190, 1191-1194;--Feldzuge,--i.
278-280.]

These were intricate strange scenes, much talked of at the time:
Rothenburg, ugly Walrave, Hacke, and other known figures, concerned in
them. Scenes in which Friedrich is not well informed; who much blames
Einsiedel, as he is apt to do the unsuccessful. Accounts exist, both
from the Prussian and from the Saxon side, decipherable with industry;
not now worth deciphering to English readers. Only that final scene
of the pitch-links, the night before meeting with Nassau, dwells
voluntarily in one's memory. And is the farewell of Einsiedel withal.
Friedrich blames him to the last: though a Court-Martial had sat on his
case, some months after, and honorably acquitted him. Good solid, silent
Einsiedel;--and in some months more, he went to a still higher court,
got still stricter justice: I do not hear expressly that it was the
winter marches, or strain of mind; but he died in 1745; and that
flare of pitch-links in Rubezahl's country is the last scene of him
to us,--and the end of Friedrich's unfortunate First Expedition in the
Second Silesian War.

"Foiled, ultimately, then, on every point; a totally ill-ordered game on
our part! Evidently we, for our part, have been altogether in the wrong,
in various essential particulars. Amendment, that and no other, is the
word now. Let us take the scathe and the scorn candidly home to us;--and
try to prepare for doing better. The world will crow over us. Well, the
world knows little about it; the world, if it did know, would be partly
in the right!"--Wise is he who, when beaten, learns the reasons of it,
and alters these. This wisdom, it must be owned, is Friedrich's; and
much distinguishes him among generals and men. Veracity of mind, as
I say, loyal eyesight superior to sophistries; noble incapacity of
self-delusion, the root of all good qualities in man. His epilogue to
this Campaign is remarkable;--too long for quoting here, except the
first word of it and the last:--

"No General committed more faults than did the King in this Campaign....
The conduct of M. de Traun is a model of perfection, which every soldier
that loves his business ought to study, and try to imitate, if he have
the talent. The king has himself admitted that he regarded this Campaign
as his school in the Art of War, and M. de Traun as his teacher." But
what shall we say? "Bad is often better for Princes than good;--and
instead of intoxicating them with presumption, renders them circumspect
and modest." [_OEuvres,_ iii.76, 77.] Let us still hope!--




Chapter V.--FRIEDRICH, UNDER DIFFICULTIES, PREPARES FOR A NEW CAMPAIGN.

To the Court of Vienna, especially to the Hungarian Majesty, this
wonderful reconquest of Bohemia, without battle fought,--or any cause
assignable but Traun's excellent manoeuvring and Friedrich's imprudences
and trust in the French,--was a thing of heavenly miracle; blessed omen
that Providence had vouchsafed to her prayers the recovery of Silesia
itself. All the world was crowing over Friedrich: but her Majesty of
Hungary's views had risen to a clearly higher pitch of exultation
and triumphant hope, terrestrial and celestial, than any other living
person's. "Silesia back again," that was now the hope and resolution of
her Majesty's high heart: "My wicked neighbor shall be driven out, and
smart dear for the ill he has done; Heaven so wills it!" "Very little
uplifts the Austrians," says Valori; which is true, under such a Queen;
"and yet there is nothing that can crush them altogether down," adds he.

No sooner is Bohemia cleared of Friedrich, than Maria, winter as it is,
orders that there be, through the Giant-Mountains, vigorous assault upon
Silesia. Highland snows and ices, what are these to Pandour people,
who, at their first entrance on the scene of History, "crossed the
Palus-Maeotis itself [Father of Quagmires, so to speak] in a frozen
state," and were sufficiently accommodated each in his own dirty
sheepskin? "Prosecute the King of Prussia," ordered she; "take your
winter-quarters in Silesia!"--and Traun, in spite of the advanced
season, and prior labors and hardships, had to try, from the
southwestern Bohemian side, what he could do; while a new Insurrection,
coming through the Jablunka, spread itself over the southeast and east.
Seriously invasive multitudes; which were an unpleasant surprise to
Friedrich; and did, as we shall see, require to be smitten back again,
and re-smitten; making a very troublesome winter to the Prussians and
themselves; but by no means getting winter-quarters, as they once hoped.

In a like sense, Maria Theresa had already (December 2d) sent forth
her Manifesto or Patent, solemnly apprising her ever-faithful Silesian
Populations, "That the Treaty of Breslau, not by her fault, is broken;
palpably a Treaty no longer. That they, accordingly, are absolved
from all oaths and allegiance to the King of Prussia; and shall hold
themselves in readiness to swear anew to her Majesty, which will be
a great comfort to such faithful creatures; suffering, as her Majesty
explains to them that they have done, under Prussian tyranny for these
two years past. Immediate dead-lift effort there shall be; that is
certain: and 'the Almighty God assisting, who does not leave such
injustices unpunished, We have the fixed Christian hope, Omnipotence
blessing our arms, of almost immediately (EHESTENS) delivering you from
this temporary Bondage (BISHERIGEN JOCH).' You can pray, in the mean
while, for the success of her Majesty's arms; good fighting, aided by
prayer, in a Cause clearly Heaven's, will now, to appearance, bring
matters swiftly round again, to the astonishment and confusion of
bad men." [In _Helden-Geschichte,_  ii. 1194-1198; Ib. 1201-1206, is
Friedrich's Answer, "19th December, 1744."]

These are her Majesty's views; intensely true, I doubt not, to her
devout heart. Robinson and the English seem not to be enthusiastic in
that direction; as indeed how can they? They would fain be tender of
Silesia, which they have guaranteed; fain, now and afterwards, restrain
her Majesty from driving at such a pace down hill: but the declivity is
so encouraging, her Majesty is not to be restrained, and goes faster
and faster for the time being. And indeed, under less devout forms, the
general impression, among Pragmatic people, Saxon, Austrian, British
even, was, That Friedrich had pretty much ruined himself, and deserved
to do so; that this of his being mere "Auxiliary" to a Kaiser in
distress was an untenable pretext, now justly fallen bankrupt upon him.
The evident fact, That he had by his "Frankfurt Union," and struggles
about "union," reopened the door for French tribulations and
rough-ridings in the Reich, was universally distasteful; all chance of
a "general union of German Princes, in aid of their Kaiser," was extinct
for the present.

Friedrich's rapidity had served him ill with the Public, in this as
in some other instances! Friedrich, contemplating his situation, not
self-delusively, but with the candor of real remorse, was by no means
yet aware how very bad it was. For six months coming, partly as existing
facts better disclosed themselves, as France, Saxony and others showed
what spirit they were of; partly as new sinister events and facts
arrived one after the other,--his outlook continued to darken and
darken, till it had become very dark indeed. There is perennially the
great comfort, immense if you can manage it, of making front against
misfortune; of looking it frankly in the face, and doing with a
resolution, hour by hour, your own utmost against it. Friedrich never
lacked that comfort; and was not heard complaining. But from December
13th, 1744, when he hastened home to Berlin, under such aspects, till
June 4th, 1745, when aspects suddenly changed, are probably the worst
six months Friedrich had yet had in the world. During which, his affairs
all threatening to break down about him, he himself, behooving to stand
firm if the worst was not to realize itself, had to draw largely on
what silent courage, or private inexpugnability of mind, was in him,--a
larger instalment of that royal quality (as I compute) than the Fates
had ever hitherto demanded of him. Ever hitherto; though perhaps nothing
like the largest of all, which they had upon their Books for him, at a
farther stage! As will be seen. For he was greatly drawn upon in that
way, in his time. And he paid always; no man in his Century so well; few
men, in any Century, better. As perhaps readers may be led to guess or
acknowledge, on surveying and considering. To see, and sympathetically
recognize, cannot be expected of modern readers, in the present great
distance, and changed conditions of men and things.

Friedrich, after despatching Nassau to cut out Einsiedel, had delivered
the Silesian Army to the Old Dessauer, who is to command in chief during
Winter; and had then hastened to Berlin,--many things there urgently
requiring his presence; preparations, reparations, not to speak of
diplomacies, and what was the heaviest item of all, new finance for the
coming exertions. In Schweidnitz, on Leopold's appearance, there had
been an interview, due consultings, orderings; which done, Friedrich at
once took the road; and was at Berlin, Monday, December 14th,--precisely
in the time while Nassau and Einsiedel were marching with torchlights in
Rubezahl's Country, and near ending their difficult enterprise better or
worse.

Friedrich, fastening eagerly on Home business, is astonished and
provoked to learn that the Austrians, not content with pushing him
out of Bohmen, are themselves pushing into Schlesien,--so Old Leopold
reports, with increasing emphasis day by day; to whom Friedrich sends
impatient order: Hurl them out again; gather what force you need, ten
thousand, or were it twenty or thirty thousand, and be immediate about
it; "I will as soon be pitched (HERAUSGESCHMISSEN) out of the Mark of
Brandenburg as out of Schlesien:" no delay, I tell you! And as the Old
Dessauer still explains that the ten or fifteen thousand he needs are
actually assembling, and cannot be got on march quite in a moment,
Friedrich dashes away his incipient Berlin Operations; will go himself
and do it. Haggle no more, you tedious Old Dessauer:--

BERLIN, "19th DECEMBER," 1744. "On the 21st [Monday, one week after
my arriving], I leave Berlin, and mean to be at Neisse on the 24th at
latest. Your Serenity will in the interim make out the Order-of-Battle
[which is also Order-of-March] for what regiments are come in. For I
will, on the 25th, without delay, cross the Neisse, and attack those
people, cost what it may,--to chase them out of Schlesien and Glatz, and
follow them so far as possible. Your Serenity will therefore take your
measures, and provide everything, so far as in this short time you can,
that the project may be executable the moment I arrive." [Friedrich to
the Old Dessauer (_Orlich,_ ii. 356).]

And rushed off accordingly, in a somewhat flamy humor; but at
Schweidnitz, where the Old Dessauer met him again, became convinced that
the matter was weightier than he thought; not one of Tolpatchery alone,
but had Traun himself in it. Upon which Friedrich candidly drew bridle;
hastened back, and, with a loss of four days, was at his Potsdam Affairs
again. To which he stuck henceforth, ardently, and I think rather with
increase of gloom, though without spurt of impatience farther, for three
months to come. Before his return,--nay, had he known, it was the
night before he went away,--a strange little thing had happened in the
opposite or Western parts: surprising accident to Marechal de Belleisle;
which now lies waiting his immediate consideration. But let us finish
Silesia first.




OLD DESSAUER REPELS THE SILESIAN INVASION (Winter, 1744-45).

"This Silesian Affair includes due inroad of Pandours; or indeed
two inroads, southwest and southeast; and in the southwest, or Traun
quarter, regulars are the main element of it. Traun, 20,000 strong, PLUS
stormy-enough Pandour ACCOMPANIMENT, is by this time through into Glatz;
in three columns;--is master of all Glatz, except the Rock-Fortress
itself; and has spread himself, right and left, along the Neisse River,
and from the southwest northwards, in a skilful and dangerous manner. In
concert with whom, far to the east, are Pandour whirlwinds on their own
footing (brand-new 'Insurrection' of them, got thus far) starting from
Olmutz and Brunn; scouring that eastern country, as far as Namslau
northward [a place we were at the taking of, in old Brieg times]; much
more, infesting the Mountains of the South. A rather serious thing; with
Traun for general manager of it."

With Traun, we say: poor Prince Karl is off, weeks ago; on the saddest
of errands. His beautiful young Wife,--Hungarian Majesty's one Sister,
Vice-Regents of the Netherlands he and she, conspicuous among the bright
couples of the world,--she had a bad lying-in (child still-born), while
those grand Moldau Operations went on; has been ill, poor lady, ever
since; and, at Brussels, on December 16th, she herself lies dead, Prince
Karl weeping over her and the days that will not return. Prince Karl's
felicities, private and public, had been at their zenith lately, which
was very high indeed; but go on declining from this day. Never more the
Happiest of Husbands (did not wed again at all); still less the Greatest
of Captains, equal or superior to Caesar in the Gazetteer judgment, with
distracted EULOGIES, BIOGRAPHIES and such like filling the air: before
long, a War-Captain of quite moderate renown; which we shall see
sink gradually into no renown at all, and even (unjustly) into MINUS
quantities, before all end. A mad world, my masters!

"Between Traun on the southwest hand, and his Pandours on the southeast,
the small Prussian posts have all been driven in upon Troppau-Jagerndorf
region; more and more narrowed there;--and, in fine (two days before
this new Interview of Leopold and the impatient King at Schweidnitz),
have had to quit the Troppau-Jagerndorf position; to quit the Hills
altogether, and are now in full march towards Brieg. Of which march I
should say nothing, were it not that Marwitz, Father of Wilhelmina's
giggling Marmitzes, commanded;--and came by his death in the course of
it; though our Wilhelmina is not now there, pen in hand, to tell us
what the effects at Baireuth were. Marwitz had been left for dead on
the Field of Mollwitz; lay so all night, but was nursed to some kind
of strength again by those giggling young women; and came back to
Schlesien, to posts of chief trust, for the last year or two,--was
guarding the Mountains, and even invading Mahren, during the late
Campaign;--but saw himself reduced latterly to Jagerndorf and Troppau;
and had even to retreat out of these. And in the whirlpool of hurries
thereupon,--how is not very clear; by apoplexy, say some; by accidental
pistol from a servant of his own; in actual skirmish with Pandours,--too
certainly, one way or the other, on December 23d (just during that
second Interview at Schweidnitz), brave old Marwitz did suddenly sink
dead, and is ended. [_Helden-Geschichte,_ ii. 1201.] Even so, ye poor
giggling creatures, and your loud weeping will not mend it at all!

"Friedrich, looking candidly into these phenomena, could not but see
that: what with Tolpatcheries, what with Traun's 20,000 regulars, and
the whole Army at their back, his Silesian Border is girt in by a very
considerable inroad of Austrians,--huge Chain of them, in horse-shoe
form, 300 miles long, pressing in; from beyond Glatz and Landshut, round
by the southern Mountains, and up eastward again as far as Namslau,
nothing but war whirlwinds in regular or irregular form, in the centre
of them Traun;--and that the Old Dessauer really must have time to gird
himself for dealing with Traun and them.

"It was not till January 9th that Old Leopold, 25,000 strong, equipped
to his mind, which was a difficult matter, crossed the Neisse River;
and marched direct upon Traun, with Ziethen charging ahead. Actually
marched; after which the main wrestle was done in a week. January 16th,
Old Leopold got to Jagerndorf; found the actual Traun concentrated at
Jagerndorf; and drew up, to be ready for assault to-morrow morning,--had
not Traun, candidly computing, judged it better to glide wholly away in
the night-time, diligently towards Mahren, breaking the bridges behind
him. And so, in effect, to give up the Silesian Invasion for this time.
After which, though there remained a good deal of rough tussling with
Pandour details, and some rugged exploits of fight, there is--except
that of Lehwald in clearing of Glatz--nothing farther that we can afford
to speak of. Lehwald's exploit, Lehwald VERSUS Wallis (same Wallis who
defended Glogau long since), which came to be talked of, and got name
and date, 'Action of Habelschwert, February 14th,' something almost like
a pitched fight on the small scale, is to the following effect:--

"PLOMNITZ, NEAR HABELSCHWERT, 14th FEBRUARY, 1745. Old General Lehwald,
marching in the hollow ground near Habelschwert (hollow of the young
Neisse River, twenty miles south of Glatz), with intent to cut that
Country free; the Enemy, whom he is in search of, appears in great
force,--posted on the uphill ground ahead, half-frozen difficult stream
in front of them, cannon on flank, Pandour multitude in woods; all
things betokening inexpugnability on the part of the Enemy. So that
Lehwald has to take his measures; study well where the vital point is,
the root of that extensive Austrian junglery, and cut in upon the same.
By considerable fire of effort, the uphill ground, half-frozen stream,
sylvan Pandours, cannon-batteries, and what inexpugnabilities there may
be, are subdued; Austrian wide junglery, the root of it slit asunder
rolls homeward simultaneously, not too fast: nay it halted, and
re-ranked itself twice over, finding woods and quaggy runlets to its
mind; but was always slit out again, disrooted, and finally tumbled
home, having had enough. 'Wenzel Wallis,' Friedrich asserts with due
scorn, 'was all this while in a Chapel; praying ardently,' to St.
Vitus, or one knows not whom; 'without effect; till they shouted to him,
"Beaten, Sir! Off, or you are lost!" upon which he sprang to saddle, and
spurred with both heels (PIQUA DES DEUX).' [ _OEuvres de Frederic,_ iii.
79. 80.] That was the feat of Lehwald, clearing the Glatz Country with
one good cut: a skilful Captain; now getting decidedly oldish, close on
sixty; whom we shall meet again a dozen years hence, still in harness.

"The old Serene Highness himself, face the color of gun-powder, and
bluer in the winter frost, went rushing far and wide in an open vehicle,
which he called his 'cart;' pushing out detachments, supervising
everything; wheeling hither and thither as needful; sweeping out the
Pandour world, and keeping it out: not much of fighting needed, but 'a
great deal of marching [murmurs Friedrich], which in winter is as bad,
and wears down the force of the battalions.' Of all which we give no
detail: sufficient to fancy, in this manner, the Old Dessauer flapping
his wide military wings in the faces of the Pandour hordes, with here
and there a hard twitch from beak or claws; tolerably keeping down the
Pandour interest all Winter. His sons, Leopold and Dietrich, were under
him, occasionally beside him; the Junior Leopold so worn down with
feverish gout he could hardly sit on horseback at all, while old
Papa went tearing about in his cart at that rate." [_Unternehmung in
Ober-Schlesien, unter dem Fursten Leopold von Anhalt-Dessau, im Januar
und Februar,_ 1745 (Seyfarth, _Beylage,_ i. 141-152); Stenzel, iv. 232;
&c.]

There was, on the 21st of February, TE-DEUM sung in the churches of
Berlin "for the Deliverance of Silesia from Invasion." Not that even
yet the Pandours would be quite quiet, or allow Old Leopold to quit his
cart; far from it. And they returned in such increased and
tempestuous state, as will again require mention, with the earliest
Spring:--precursors to a second, far more serious and deadly "Invasion
of Silesia;" for which it hangs yet on the balance whether there will be
a TE-DEUM or a MISERERE to sing!

Hungarian Majesty, disappointed of Silesia,--which, it seems, is not to
be had "all at once (EHESTENS)," in the form of miracle,--makes amends
by a rush upon Seckendorf and Bavaria; attacks Seckendorf furiously
("Bathyani pressing up the Donau Valley, with Browne on one hand, and
Barenklau on the other") in midwinter; and makes a terrible hand of him;
reducing his "Reconquest of Bavaria" to nothing again, nay to less. Of
which in due time.




THE FRENCH FULLY INTEND TO BEHAVE BETTER NEXT SEASON TO FRIEDRICH AND
THEIR GERMAN ALLIES;--BUT ARE PREVENTED BY VARIOUS ACCIDENTS (November,
1744-April, 1745; April-August, 1745).

It is not divine miracle, Friedrich knows well, that has lost him his
late Bohemian Conquests without battle fought: it was rash choosing of
a plan inexecutable without French co-operation,--culpable blindness to
the chance that France would break its promises, and not co-operate. Had
your Majesty forgotten the Joint-Stock Principle, then? His Majesty has
sorrowful cause to remember it, from this time, on a still larger scale!

Reflections, indignant or exculpatory, on the conduct of the French in
this Business are useless to Friedrich, and to us. The performance, on
their part, has been nearly the worst;--though their intentions,
while the Austrian Dragon had them by the throat, were doubtless
enthusiastically good! But, the big Austrian Dragon being jerked away
from Elsass, by Friedrich's treading on his tail, 500 miles off, they
were charmed, quite into new enthusiasm, to be rid of said Dragon: and,
instead of chasing HIM according to bargain, took to destroying his DEN,
that he might be harmless thenceforth. Freyburg is a captured Town, to
the joy and glory of admiring France; and Friedrich's Campaign has gone
the road we see! The Freyburg Illuminations having burnt out,
there might rise, in the triumphant mind, some thought of Friedrich
again,--perhaps almost of a remorseful nature? Certain it is, the French
intentions are now again magnanimous, more so than ever; coupled now
with some attempts at fulfilment, too; which obliges us to mention them
here. They were still a matter of important hope to Friedrich; hope
which did not quite go out till August coming. Though, alas, it did then
go out, in gusts of indignation on Friedrich's part! And as the whole of
these magnanimous French intentions, latter like former, again came to
zero, we are interested only in rendering them conceivable to readers
for Friedrich's sake,--with the more brevity, the better for everybody.
Two grand French Attempts there were; listen, on the threshold, a
little:--

... "It is certain the French intend gloriously; regardless of expense.
They are dismantling Freyburg, to render it harmless henceforth. But,
withal, in answer to the poor Kaiser's shrieks, they have sent Segur
[our old Linz friend], with 12,000, to assist Seckendorf; 'the
bravest troops in the world,'"--who did bravely take one beating (at
Pfaffenhofen, as will be seen), and go home again. ("They have Coigny
guarding those fine Brisgau Conquests. And are furthermore diplomatizing
diligently, not to say truculently, in the Rhine Countries; bullying
poor little fat Kur-Trier, lean Kur-Koln and others, 'To join the
Frankfurt Union' not one of whom would, under menace),--though 'it
is the clear duty of all Reich's-Princes with a Kaiser under
oppression:'--and have marched Maillebois, directly after Freyburg, into
the Middle-Rhine Countries, to Koln Country, to Mainz Country, and to
and fro, in support of said compulsory diplomacies;--but without the
least effect."

To the "Middle-Rhine Countries," observe, and under Maillebois, then
under Conti, little matter under whom: only let readers recollect the
name of it;--for it is the FIRST of the French Attempts to do something
of a joint-stock nature; something for self AND Allies, instead of for
self only. It caused great alarm in those months, to Britannic George
and others; and brought out poor Duc d'Ahremberg with portions (no
English included) of the poor Pragmatic Army, to go marching about in
the winter slushes, instead of resting in bed, [Adelung, iv. 276, 420
("December, 1744-June, 1745").]--and is indeed a very loud business in
the old Gazettes and books, till August coming. Business which almost
broke poor D'Ahremberg's heart, he says, "till once I got out of
it" (was TURNED out, in fact): Business of Pragmatic Army, under
D'Ahremberg, VERSUS Middle-Rhine Army under Maillebois, under Conti;
Business now wholly of Zero VERSUS Zero to us,--except for a few dates
and reflex glimmerings upon King Friedrich. Result otherwise--We shall
see the Result!

"Attempt SECOND was still more important to Friedrich; being directed
upon the Kaiser and Bavaria. Belleisle is to go thither and take survey;
Belleisle thither first: you may judge if the intention is sincere!
Valori is quite eloquent upon it. Directly after Freyburg, says he,
Sechelles, that first of Commissaries, was sent to Munchen. Sechelles
cleared up the chaos of Accounts; which King Louis then instantly
paid. 'Your Imperial Majesty shall have Magazines also,' said Louis,
regardless of expense; 'and your Army, with auxiliaries (Segur and
25,000 of them French), shall be raised to 60,000.' Belleisle then came:
'We will have Ingolstadt, the first thing, in Spring.' Alas, Belleisle
had his Accident in the Harz; and all went aback, from that time."
[Valori, i. 322-329.] Aback, too indisputably, all!--"And Belleisle's
Accident?" Patience, readers.

"The truth is, Attempt SECOND, and chief, broke down at once [Bathyani
beating it to pieces, as will be seen],--the ruins of it painfully
reacting on Attempt FIRST; which had the like fate some months
later;--and there was no THIRD made. And, in fact, from the date of that
latter down-break, August, or end of July, 1745 [and quite especially
from "September 13th," by which time several irrevocable things had
happened, which we shall hear of], the French withdrew altogether out of
German entanglements; and concentrated themselves upon the Netherlands,
there to demolish his Britannic Majesty, as the likelier enterprise.
This was a course to which, ever since the Exit of Broglio and the
Oriflamme, they had been more and more tending and inclining, 'Nothing
for us but loss on loss, to be had in Germany!' and so they at last
frankly gave up that bad Country. They fought well in the Netherlands,
with great splendor of success, under Saxe VERSUS Cumberland and
Company. They did also some successful work in Italy;--and left
Friedrich to bear the brunt in Germany; too glad if he or another
were there to take Germany off their hand! Friedrich's feelings on his
arriving at this consummation, and during his gradual advance towards
it, which was pretty steady all along from those first 'drenched-hen
(POULES MOUILLEES)' procedures, were amply known to Excellency Valori,
and may be conceived by readers,"--who are slightly interested in the
dates of them at farthest. And now for the Belleisle Accident, with
these faint preliminary lights.




STRANGE ACCIDENT TO MARECHAL DE BELLEISLE IN THE HARZ MOUNTAINS (20th
December, 1744).

Siege of Freyburg being completed, and the River and most other things
(except always the bastions, which we blow up) being let into their old
channels there, Marechal de Belleisle, who is to have a chief management
henceforth,--the Most Christian King recognizing him again as his ablest
man in war or peace,--sets forth on a long tour of supervision, of
diplomacy and general arrangement, to prepare matters for the next
Campaign. Need enough of a Belleisle: what a business we have made of
it, since Friedrich trod on the serpent's tail for us.! Nothing but
our own Freyburg to show for ourselves; elsewhere, mere down-rush of
everything whitherward it liked;--and King Friedrich got into such a
humor! Friedrich must be put in tune again; something real and good to
be agreed on at Berlin: let that be the last thing, crown of the whole.
The first thing is, look into Bavaria a little; and how the Kaiser,
poor gentleman, in want of all requisites but good-will, can be put into
something of fighting posture.

"In the end of November, Marechal Duc de Belleisle, with his Brother the
Chevalier (now properly the Count, there having been promotions), and
a great retinue more, alights at Munchen; holds counsel with the poor
Kaiser for certain days:--Money wanted; many things wanted; and all
things, we need not doubt, much fallen out of square. 'Those Seckendorf
troops in their winter-quarters,' say our French Inspectors and Segur
people, as usual, 'do but look on it, your Excellency! Scattered, along
the valleys, into the very edge of Austria; Austria will swallow them,
the first thing, next year; they will never rendezvous again except in
the Austrian prisons. Surely, Monseigneur, only a man ignorant of war,
or with treasonous intention [or ill-off for victuals],--could post
troops in that way? Seckendorf is not ignorant of war!' say they.
[Valori, i. 206.] For, in fact, suspicion runs high; and there is no end
to the accusations just and unjust; and Seckendorf is as ill treated as
any of us could wish. Poor old soul. Probably nobody in all the Earth,
but his old Wife in the Schloss of Altenburg, has any pity for him,--if
even she, which I hope. He has fought and diplomatized and intrigued
in many countries, very much; and in his old days is hard bested.
Monseigueur, whose part is rather that of Jove the Cloud-compeller,
is studious to be himself noiseless amid this noise; and makes no
alteration in the Seckendorf troops; but it is certain he meant to do
it, thinks Valori."

And indeed Seckendorf, tired of the Bavarian bed-of-roses, had privately
fixed with himself to quit the same;--and does so, inexorable to the
very Kaiser, on New-Year arriving. [_Seckendorfs Leben,_ p. 365.]
Succeeded by Thorring (our old friend DRUM Thorring), if that be an
improvement. Marechal de Belleisle has still a long journey ahead,
and infinitely harder problems than these,--assuagement of the King of
Prussia, for example. Let us follow his remarkable steps.

"WEDNESDAY, 9th DECEMBER, 1744, the Marechal leaves Munchen,
northwards through OEttingen and the Bamberg-Anspach regions towards
Cassel;--journey of some three hundred and fifty miles: with a great
retinue of his own; with an escort of two hundred horse from the Kaiser;
these latter to prevent any outfall or insult in the Ingolstadt quarter,
where the Austrians have a garrison, not at all very tightly blocked by
the Seckendorf people thereabouts. No insult or outfall occurring, the
Marechal dismisses his escort at OEttingen; fares forward in his twenty
coaches and fourgons, some score or so of vehicles:--mere neutral
Imperial Countries henceforth, where the Kaiser's Agent, as Marechal
de Belleisle can style himself, and Titular Prince of the German Empire
withal, has only to pay his way. By Donauworth, by OEttingen; over
the Donau acclivities, then down the pleasant Valley of the Mayn. [See
REVIEW OF THE CASE OF MARSHAL BELLEISLE (or Abstract of it, _Gentleman's
Magazine,_ 1745, pp. 366-373); &c. &c.]

"SUNDAY, 13th DECEMBER, Marechal de Belleisle arrives at Hanau [where
we have seen Conferences held before now, and Carteret, Prince Karl and
great George our King very busy], there to confer with Marshals Coigny,
Maillebois and other high men, Commanders in those Rhine parts. Who
all come accordingly, except Marechal Maillebois, who is sorry that he
absolutely cannot; but will surely do himself the honor as Monseigneur
returns." As Monseigneur returns! "And so, on Monday, 14th, Monseigneur
starts for Cassel; say a hundred miles right north; where we shall meet
Prince Wilhelm of Hessen-Cassel, a zealous Ally; inform him how his
Troops, under Seckendorf, are posted [at Vilshofen yonder; hiding how
perilous their post is, or promising alterations]; perhaps rest a day or
two, consulting as to the common weal: How the King of Prussia takes
our treatment of him? How to smooth the King of Prussia, and turn him
to harmony again? We are approaching the true nodus of our business,
difficulty of difficulties; and Wilhelm, the wise Landgraf, may afford
a hint or two. Thus travels magnanimous Belleisle in twenty vehicles, a
man loaded with weighty matters, in these deep Winter months; suffering
dreadfully from rheumatic neuralgic ailments, a Doctor one of his
needfulest equipments; and has the hardest problem yet ahead of him.

"Prince Wilhelm's consultations are happily lost altogether; buried from
sight forever, to the last hint,--all except as to what road to Berlin
would be the best from Cassel. By Leipzig, through low-lying country, is
the great Highway, advisable in winter; but it runs a hundred and thirty
miles to right, before ever starting northward; such a roundabout. Not
to say that the Saxons are allies of Austria,--if there be anything in
that. Enemies, they, to the Most Christian King: though surely, again,
we are on Kaiser's business, nay we are titular 'Prince of the Reich,'
for that matter, such the Kaiser's grace to us? Well; it is better
perhaps to AVOID the Saxon Territory. And, of course, the Hanoverian
much more; through which lies the other Great Road! 'Go by the Harz,'
advises Landgraf Wilhelm: 'a rugged Hill Country; but it is your
hypotenuse towards Berlin; passes at once, or nearly so, from Cassel
Territory into Prussian: a rugged road, but a shorter and safer.' That
is the road Belleisle resolves upon. Twenty carriages; his Brother the
Chevalier and himself occupy one; and always the courier rides before,
ordering forty post-horses to be ready harnessed.

"SUNDAY, 20th DECEMBER, 1744. In this way they have climbed the eastern
shin of the Harz Range, where the Harz is capable of wheel-carriages;
and hope now to descend, this night, to Halberstadt; and thence rapidly
by level roads to Berlin. It is sinking towards dark; the courier is
forward to Elbingerode, ordering forty horses to be out. Roughish
uphill road; winter in the sky and earth, winter vapors and tumbling
wind-gusts: westward, in torn storm-cloak, the Bracken, with its
witch-dances; highland Goslar, and ghost of Henry the Fowler, on the
other side of it. A multifarious wizard Country, much overhung by goblin
reminiscences, witch-dances, sorcerers'-sabbaths and the like,--if a
rheumatic gentleman cared to look on it, in the cold twilight. Brrh!
Waste chasmy uplands, snow-choked torrents; wild people, gloomy firs!
Here at last, by one's watch 5 P.M., is Elbingerode, uncomfortable
little Town; and it is to be hoped the forty post-horses are ready.

"Behold, while the forty post-horses are getting ready, a thing takes
place, most unexpected;--which made the name of Elbingerode famous for
eight months to come. Of which let us hastily give the bare facts,
Fancy making of them what she can. Was Monseigneur aware that this
Elbingerode, with a patch of territory round it, is Hanoverian ground;
one of those distracted patches or ragged outskirts frequent in the
German map? Prussia is not yet, and Hessen-Cassel has ceased to be.
Undoubtedly Hanoverian! Apparently the Landgraf and Monseigneur had not
thought of that. But Munchhausen of Hanover, spies informing him,
had. The Bailiff (Vogt, AdVOCATus) has gathered twenty JAGER [official
Game-keepers] with their guns, and a select idle Sunday population of
the place with or without guns: the Vogt steps forward, and inquires for
Monseigneur's passport. 'No passport, no need of any!'--'Pardon!' and
signifies to Monseigneur, on the part of George Elector of Hanover, King
of Great Britain, France and Ireland, that Monseigneur is arrested!

"Monseigneur, with compressed or incompressible feelings, indignantly
complies,--what could he else, unfortunate rheumatic gentleman?--and is
plucked away in such sudden manner, he for one, out of that big German
game of his raising. The twenty vehicles are dragged different roads;
towards Scharzfels, Osterode, or I know not where,--handiest roads to
Hanover;--and Monseigneur himself has travelling treatment which might
be complained of, did not one disdain complaint: 'my Brother parted from
me, nay my Doctor, and my Interpreter;'"--not even speech possible to
me. [Letter of Belleisle next morning, "Neuhof, 21st December, 9 A.M."
(in _Valori,_ i. 204), to Munchhausen at Hanover,--by no possibility
"to Valori," as the distracted French Editor has given it!] That was the
Belleisle Accident in the Harz, Sunday Evening, 20th December, 1744.

"Afflicted indignant Valori, soon enough apprised, runs to Friedrich
with the news,--greets Friedrich with it just alighting from that
Silesian run of his own. Friedrich, not without several other things to
think of, is naturally sorry at such news; sorry for his own sake even;
but not overmuch. Friedrich refuses 'to despatch a party of horse,' and
cut out Marechal de Belleisle. "That will never do, MON CHER!'--and even
gets into FROIDES PLAISANTERIES: 'Perhaps the Marechal did it
himself? Tallard, prisoner after Blenheim, made PEACE, you know, in
England?'--and the like; which grieved the soul of Valori, and convinced
him of Friedrich's inhumanity, in a crying case.

"Belleisle is lugged on to Hanover; his case not doubtful to
Munchhausen, or the English Ministry,--though it raised great argument,
(was the capture fair, was it unfair? Is he entitled to exchange by
cartel, or not entitled?' and produced, in the next eight months, much
angry animated pamphleteering and negotiation. For we hear by and by,
he is to be forwarded to Stade, on the Hamburg sea-coast, where English
Seventy-fours are waiting for him; his case still undecided;--and,
in effect, it was not till after eight months that he got dismissal.
'Lodged handsomely in Windsor Palace,' in the interim; free on his
parole, people of rank very civil to him, though the Gazetteers were
sometimes ill-tongued,--had he understood their PATOIS, or concerned
himself about such things

["TUESDAY, 18th FEBRUARY [1st March, 1745], Marshal Belleisle landed at
Harwich; lay at Greenwich Palace, having crossed Thames at the Isle of
Dogs: next morning, about 10, set out, in a coach-and-six, Colonel
Douglas and two troops of horse escorting; arrived 3 P.M.,--by
Camberwell, Clapham, Wandsworth, over Kingston and Staines Bridges,--at
Windsor Castle, and the apartments ready for him." (_Gentleman's
Magazine,_ 1745, p 107.) Was let go 13th (24th) August, again with great
pomp and civilities (ib. p. 442). See Adelung, iv. 299, 346; v. 83, 84.]

"It was a current notion among contemporary mankind, this of Friedrich,
that Belleisle's capture might be a mere collusion, meant to bring about
a Peace in that Tallard fashion,--wide of the truth as such a notion
is, far as any Peace was from following. To Britannic George and his
Hanoverians it had merely seemed, Here was a chief War-Captain and
Diplomatist among the French; the pivot of all these world-wide
movements, as Valori defines him; which pivot, a chance offering, it
were well to twitch from its socket, and see what would follow. Perhaps
nothing will follow; next to nothing? A world, all waltzing in mad war,
is not to be stopped by acting on any pivot; your waltzing world will
find new pivots, or do without any, and perhaps only waltz the more
madly for wanting the principal one."

This withdrawal of Belleisle, the one Frenchman respected by Friedrich,
or much interested for his own sake in things German, is reckoned a main
cause why the French Alliance turned out so ill for Friedrich; and why
French effort took more and more a Netherlands direction thenceforth,
and these new French magnanimities on Friedrich's behalf issued in
futility again. Probably they never could have issued in very much: but
it is certain that, from this point, they also do become zero; and that
Friedrich, from his French alliance, reaped from first to last nothing
at all, except a great deal of obloquy from German neighbors, and from
the French side endless trouble, anger and disappointment in every
particular. Which 'might be a joy (though not unmixed) to Britannic
Majesty and the subtle followers who had ginned this fine Belleisle bird
in its flight over the Harz Range? Though again, had they passively let
him wing his way, and he had GOT "to be Commander and Manager," as was
in agitation,--he, Belleisle and in Germany, instead of Marechal de Saxe
with the Netherlands as chief scene,--what an advantage might that have
been to them!




THE KAISER KARL VII. GETS SECURED FROM OPPRESSIONS, IN A TRAGIC WAY.
FRIEDRICH PROPOSES PEACE, BUT TO NO PURPOSE.

A still sadder cross for Friedrich, in the current of foreign Accidents
and Diplomacies, was the next that befell; exactly a month later,--at
Munchen, 20th January, 1745. Hardly was Belleisle's back turned, when
her Hungarian Majesty, by her Bathyani and Company, broke furiously in
upon the poor Kaiser and his Seckendorf-Segur defences. Belleisle had
not reached the Harz, when all was going topsy-turvy there again, and
the Donau-Valley fast falling back into Austrian hands. Nor is that the
worst, or nearly so.

"MUNCHEN, 20th JANUARY, 1745. This day poor Kaiser Karl laid down his
earthly burden here, and at length gave all his enemies the slip. He
had been ill of gout for some time; a man of much malady always, with no
want of vexations and apprehensions. Too likely the Austrians will drive
him out of Munchen again; then nothing but furnished lodgings, and the
French to depend upon. He had been much chagrined by some Election,
just done, in the Chapter of Salzburg. [Adelung, iv. 249, 276, 313.]
The Archbishop there--it was Firmian, he of the SALZBURG EMIGRATION,
memorable to readers--had died, some while ago. And now, in flat
contradiction to Imperial customs, prerogatives, these people had
admitted an Austrian Garrison; and then, in the teeth of our express
precept, had elected an Austrian to their benefice: what can one account
it but an insult as well as an injury? And the neuralgic maladies press
sore, and the gouty twinges; and Belleisle is seized, perhaps with
important papers of ours; and the Seckendorf-Segur detachments were ill
placed; nay here are the Austrians already on the throat of them, in
midwinter! It is said, a babbling valet, or lord-in-waiting, happened to
talk of some skirmish that had fallen out (called a battle, in the valet
rumor), and how ill the French and Bavarians had fared in it, owing to
their ill behavior. And this, add they, proved to be the ounce-weight
too much for the so heavy-laden back.

"The Kaiser took to bed, not much complaining; patient, mild, though
the saddest of all mortals; and, in a day or two, died. Adieu, adieu,
ye loved faithful ones; pity me, and pray for me! He gave his Wife, poor
little fat devout creature, and his poor Children (eldest lad, his Heir,
only seventeen), a tender blessing; solemnly exhorted them, To eschew
ambition, and be warned by his example;--to make their peace with
Austria; and never, like him, try COM' E DURO CALLE, and what the
charity of Christian Kings amounts to. This counsel, it is thought, the
Empress Dowager zealously accedes to, and will impress upon her Son.
That is the Austrian and Cause-of-Liberty account: King Friedrich, from
the other side, has heard a directly opposite one. How the Kaiser, at
the point of death, exhorted his son, 'Never forget the services which
the King of France and the King of Prussia have done us, and do not
repay them with ingratitude.' [ _OEuvres de Frederic,_ iii. 92;--and see
(PER CONTRA) in Adelung, iv. 314 A; in Coxe, &c.] The reader can choose
which he will, or reject both into the region of the uncertain. 'Karl
Albert's pious and affectionate demeanor drew tears from all eyes,' say
the by-standers: 'the manner in which he took leave of his Empress would
have melted a heart of stone.' He was in his forty-eighth year; he had
been, of all men in his generation, the most conspicuously unhappy."

What a down-rush of confusion there ensued on this event, not to Bavaria
alone, but to all the world, and to King Friedrich more than another,
no reader can now take the pains of conceiving. The "Frankfurt Union,"
then, has gone to air! Here is now no "Kaiser to be delivered from
oppression:" here is a new Kaiser to be elected,--"Grand-Duke Franz the
man," cry the Pragmatic Potentates with exultation, "no Belleisle to
disturb!"--and questions arise innumerable thereupon, Will France go
into electioneering again? The new Kur-Baiern, only seventeen, poor
child, cannot be set up as candidate. What will France do with HIM;
what he with France? Whom can the French try as Candidate against the
Grand-Duke? Kur-Sachsen, the Polish Majesty again? Belleisle himself
must have paused uncertain over such a welter,--and probably have done,
like the others, little or nothing in it, but left it to collapse by
natural gravitation.

Hungarian Majesty checked her Bavarian Armaments a little: "If perhaps
this young Kur-Baiern will detach himself from France, and on submissive
terms come over to us?" Whereupon, at Munchen, and in the cognate
quarters, such wriggling, dubitating and diplomatizing, as seldom
was,--French, Anti-French (Seckendorf busiest of all), straining every
nerve in that way, and for almost three months, nothing coming of
it,--till Hungarian Majesty sent her Barenklaus and Bathyanis upon them
again; and these rapidly solved the question, in what way we shall see!

Friedrich has still his hopes of Bavaria, so grandiloquent are the
French in regard to it; who but would hope? The French diplomatize to
all lengths in Munchen, promising seas and mountains; but they perform
little; in an effectual manner, nothing. Bavarian "Army raised to
60,000;" counts in fact little above half that number; with no General
to it but an imaginary one; Segur's actual French contingent, instead
of 25,000, is perhaps 12,000;--and so of other things. Add to all which,
Seckendorf is there, not now as War-General, but as extra-official
"Adviser;" busier than ever,--"scandalous old traitor!" say the
French;--and Friedrich may justly fear that Bavaria will go, by
collapse, a bad road for him.

Friedrich, a week or two after the Kaiser's death, seeing Bavarian and
French things in such a hypothetic state, instructs his Ambassador
at London to declare his, Friedrich's, perfect readiness and wish for
Peace: "Old Treaty of Breslau and Berlin made indubitable to me; the
rest of the quarrel has, by decease of the Kaiser, gone to air."
To which the Britannic Majesty, rather elated at this time, as all
Pragmatic people are, answers somewhat in a careless way, "Well, if
the others like it!" and promises that he will propose it in the proper
quarter. So that henceforth there is always a hope of Peace through
England; as well as contrariwise, especially till Bavaria settle itself
(in April next), a hope of great assistance from the French. Here are
potentialities and counter-potentialities, which make the Bavarian
Intricacy very agitating to the young King, while it lasts. And indeed
his world is one huge imbroglio of Potentialities and Diplomatic
Intricacies, agitating to behold. Concerning which we have again to
remark how these huge Spectres of Diplomacy, now filling Friedrich's
world, came mostly in result to Nothing;--shaping themselves wholly,
for or against, in exact proportion, direct or inverse, to the actual
Quantity of Battle and effective Performance that happened to be found
in Friedrich himself. Diplomatic Spectralities, wide Fatamorganas of
hope, and hideous big Bugbears blotting out the sun: of these, few
men ever had more than Friedrich at this time. And he is careful, none
carefuler, not to neglect his Diplomacies at any time;--though he
knows, better than most, that good fighting of his own is what alone
can determine the value of these contingent and aerial quantities,--mere
Lapland witchcraft the greater part of them.

A second grand Intricacy and difficulty, still more enigmatic, and
pressing the tighter by its close neighborhood, was that with the
Saxons. "Are the Saxons enemies; are they friends? Neutrals at lowest;
bound by Treaty to lend Austria troops; but to lend for defence merely,
not for offence! Could not one, by good methods, make friends with his
Polish Majesty?" Friedrich was far from suspecting the rages that lurked
in the Polish Majesty, and least of all owing to what. Owing to that old
MORAVIAN-FORAY business; and to his, Friedrich's, behavior to the Saxons
in it; excellent Saxons, who had behaved so beautifully to Friedrich!
That is the sad fact, however. Stupid Polish Majesty has his natural
envies, jealousies, of a Brandenburg waxing over his head at this rate.
But it appears, the Moravian Foray entered for a great deal into the
account, and was the final overwhelming item. Bruhl, by much descanting
on that famous Expedition,--with such candid Eye-witnesses to appeal to,
such corroborative Staff-officers and appliances, powerful on the idle
heart and weak brain of a Polish Majesty,--has brought it so far. Fixed
indignation, for intolerable usage, especially in that Moravian-Foray
time: fixed; not very malignant, but altogether obstinate (as, I am
told, that of the pacific sheep species usually is); which carried Bruhl
and his Polish Majesty to extraordinary heights and depths in years
coming! But that will deserve a section to itself by and by.

A third difficulty, privately more stringent than any, is that of
Finance. The expenses of the late Bohemian Expedition, "Friedrich's
Army costing 75,000 pounds a month," have been excessive. For our
next Campaign, if it is to be done in the way essential, there are, by
rigorous arithmetic, "900,000 pounds" needed. A frugal Prussia raises
no new taxes; pays its Wars from "the Treasure," from the Fund saved
beforehand for emergencies of that kind; Fund which is running low,
threatening to be at the lees if such drain on it continue. To fight
with effect being the one sure hope, and salve for all sores, it is
not in the Army, in the Fortresses, the Fighting Equipments, that there
shall be any flaw left! Friedrich's budget is a sore problem upon him;
needing endless shift and ingenuity, now and onwards, through this
war:--already, during these months, in the Berlin Schloss, a great deal
of those massive Friedrich-Wilhelm plate Sumptuosities, especially
that unparalleled Music-Balcony up stairs, all silver, has been, under
Fredersdorf's management, quietly taken away; "carried over, in the
night-time, to the Mint." [Orlich, ii. 126-128.]

And, in fact, no modern reader, not deeper in that distressing story
of the Austrian-Succession War than readers are again like to be, can
imagine to himself the difficulties of Friedrich at this time, as they
already lay disclosed, and kept gradually disclosing themselves,
for months coming; nor will ever know what perspicacity, patience
of scanning, sharpness of discernment, dexterity of management, were
required at Friedrich's hands;--and under what imminency of peril, too;
victorious deliverance, or ruin and annihilation, wavering fearfully
in the balance for him, more than once, or rather all along. But it
is certain the deeper one goes into that hideous Medea's Caldron of
stupidities, once so flamy, now fallen extinct, the more is one
sensible of Friedrich's difficulties; and of the talent for all kinds
of Captaincy,--by no means in the Field only, or perhaps even
chiefly,--that was now required of him. Candid readers shall accept
these hints, and do their best:--Friedrich himself made not the least
complaint of men's then misunderstanding him; still less will he now!
We, keeping henceforth the Diplomacies, the vaporous Foreshadows, and
general Dance of Unclean Spirits with their intrigues and spectralities,
well underground, so far as possible, will stick to what comes up as
practical Performance on Friedrich's part, and try to give intelligible
account of that.

Valori says, he is greatly changed, and for the better, by these late
reverses of fortune. All the world notices it, says Valori. No longer
that brief infallibility of manner; that lofty light air, that politely
disdainful view of Valori and mankind: he has now need of men. Complains
of nothing, is cheerful, quizzical;--ardently busy to "grind out the
notches," as our proverb is; has a mild humane aspect, something of
modesty, almost of piety in him. Help me, thou Supreme Power, Maker of
men, if my purposes are manlike! Though one does not go upon the Prayers
of Forty-Hours, or apply through St. Vitus and such channels, there may
be something of authentic petition to Heaven in the thoughts of that
young man. He is grown very amiable; the handsomest young bit of Royalty
now going. He must fight well next Summer, or it will go hard with him!




Chapter VI.--VALORI GOES ON AN ELECTIONEERING MISSION TO DRESDEN.

Some time in January, a new Frenchman, a "Chevalier de Courten," if the
name is known to anybody, was here at Berlin; consulting, settling about
mutual interests and operations. Since Belleisle is snatched from us,
it is necessary some Courten should come; and produce what he has got:
little of settlement, I should fear, of definite program that will
hold water; in regard to War operations chiefly a magazine of clouds.
[Specimens of it, in Ranke, iii. 219.] For the rest, the Bavarian
question; and very specially, Who the new Emperor is to be?"King of
Poland, thinks your Majesty?"--"By all means," answers Friedrich, "if
you can! Detach him from Austria; that will be well!" Which was reckoned
magnanimous, at least public-spirited, in Friedrich; considering what
Saxony's behavior to him had already been. "By all means, his Polish
Majesty for Kaiser; do our utmost, Excellencies Valori, Courten and
Company!" answers Friedrich,--and for his own part, I observe, is
intensely busy upon Army matters, looking after the main chance.

And so Valori is to go to Dresden, and manage this cloud or cobwebbery
department of the thing; namely, persuade his Polish Majesty to stand
for the Kaisership: "Baiern, Pfalz, Koln, Brandenburg, there are four
votes, Sire; your own is five: sure of carrying it, your Polish Majesty;
backed by the Most Christian King, and his Allies and resources!" And
Polish Majesty does, for his own share, very much desire to be Kaiser.
But none of us yet knows how he is tied up by Austria, Anti-Friedrich,
Anti-French considerations; and can only "accept if it is offered me:"
thrice-willing to accept, if it will fall into my mouth; which, on those
terms, it has so little chance of doing!--Saxony and its mysterious
affairs and intentions having been, to Friedrich, a riddle and trouble
and astonishment, during all this Campaign, readers ought to know the
fact well;--and no reader could stand the details of such a fact. Here,
in condensed form, are some scraps of Excerpt; which enable us to go
with Valori on this Dresden Mission, and look for ourselves:--




1. FRIEDRICH'S POSITION TOWARDS SAXONY.

"... By known Treaty, the Polish Majesty is bound to assist the
Hungarian with 12,000 men, 'whenever invaded in her own dominions.'
Polish Majesty had 20,000 in the field for that object lately,--part
of them, 8,000 of them, hired by Britannic subsidy, as he alleges. The
question now is, Will Saxony assist Austria in invading Silesia, with
or without Britannic subsidy? Friedrich hopes that this is impossible!
Friedrich is deeply unaware of the humor he has raised against himself
in the Saxon Court-circles; how the Polish Majesty regards that Moravian
Foray; with what a perfect hatred little Bruhl regards him, Friedrich;
and to what pitch of humor, owing to those Moravian-Foray starvings,
marchings about and inhuman treatment of the poor Saxon Army, not to
mention other offences and afflictive considerations, Bruhl has raised
the simple Polish Majesty against Friedrich. These things, as they
gradually unfolded themselves to Friedrich, were very surprising. And
proved very disadvantageous at the present juncture and for a long time
afterwards. To Friedrich disadvantageous and surprising; and to Saxony,
in the end, ruinous; poor Saxony having got its back broken by them, and
never stood up in the world since! Ruined by this wretched little Bruhl;
and reduced, from the first place in Northern Teutschland, to a second
or third, or no real place at all."




2. THERE IS A, "UNION OF WARSAW" (8th January, 1745); AND STILL MORE
SPECIALLY A "TREATY OF WARSAW" (8th January-18th May, 1745).

"January 8th, 1745, before the Old Dessauer got ranked in Schlesien
against Traun, there had concluded itself at Warsaw, by way of
counterpoise to the 'Frankfurt Union,' a 'Union of Warsaw,' called
also 'Quadruple Alliance of Warsaw;' the Parties to which were Polish
Majesty, Hungarian ditto, Prime-Movers, and the two Sea-Powers as
Purseholders; stipulating, to the effect: 'We Four will hold together in
affairs of the Reich VERSUS that dangerous Frankfurt Union; we will'--do
a variety of salutary things; and as one practical thing, 'There shall
be, this Season, 30,000 Saxons conjoined to the Austrian Force, for
which we Sea-Powers will furnish subsidy.'--This was the one practical
point stipulated, January 8th; and farther than this the Sea-Powers did
not go, now or afterwards, in that affair.

"But there was then proposed by the Polish and Hungarian Majesties,
in the form of Secret Articles, an ulterior Project; with which the
Sea-Powers, expressing mere disbelief and even abhorrence of it, refused
to have any concern now or henceforth. Polish Majesty, in hopes it
would have been better taken, had given his 30,000 soldiers at a rate
of subsidy miraculously low, only 150,000 pounds for the whole: but the
Sea-Powers were inexorable, perhaps almost repented of their 150,000
pounds; and would hear nothing farther of secret Articles and delirious
Projects.

"So that the 'Union of Warsaw' had to retire to its pigeon-hole, content
with producing those 30,000 Saxons for the immediate occasion; and
there had to be concocted between the Polish and Hungarian Majesties
themselves what is now, in the modern Pamphlets, called a 'TREATY of
Warsaw,'--much different from the innocent, 'UNION of Warsaw;' though it
is merely the specifying and fixing down of what had been shadowed
out as secret codicils in said 'Union,' when the Sea-Power parties
obstinately recoiled. Treaty of Warsaw let us continue to call it;
though its actual birth-place was Leipzig (in the profoundest secrecy,
18th May, 1745), above four months after it had tried to be born at
Warsaw, and failed as aforesaid. Warsaw Union is not worth speaking
of; but this other is a Treaty highly remarkable to the reader,--and to
Friedrich was almost infinitely so, when he came to get wind of it long
after.

"Treaty which, though it proved abortional, and never came to fulfilment
in any part of it, is at this day one of the remarkablest bits of
sheepskin extant in the world. It was signed 18th May, 1745; [Scholl,
ii. 350.] and had cost a great deal of painful contriving, capable still
of new altering and retouching, to hit mutual views: Treaty not only for
reconquering Silesia (which to the Two Majesties, though it did not
to the Sea-Powers, seems infallible, in Friedrich's now ruined
circumstances), but for cutting down that bad Neighbor to something like
the dimensions proper for a Brandenburg Vassal;--in fact, quite the old
'Detestable Project' of Spring, 1741, only more elaborated into detail
(in which Britannic George knows better than to meddle!)--Saxony to have
share of the parings, when we get them. 'What share?' asked Saxony, and
long keeps asking. 'A road to Warsaw; Strip of Country carrying us from
the end of the Lausitz, which is ours, into Poland, which we trust will
continue ours, would be very handy! Duchy of Glogau; some small paring
of Silesia, won't your Majesty?' 'Of my Silesia not one hand-breadth,'
answered the Queen impatiently (though she did at last concede
some outlying hand-breadths, famed old 'Circle of Schwiebus,' if I
recollect); and they have had to think of other equivalent parings for
Saxony's behoof (Magdeburg, Halberstadt, Saale-Circle, or one knows
not what); and have had, and will have, their adoes to get it fixed.
Excellent bearskin to be slit into straps; only the bear is still on his
feet!--Polish Majesty and Hungarian, Polish with especial vigor, Bruhl
quite restless upon it, are--little as Valori or any mortal could dream
of it--engaged in this partition of the bearskin, when Valori arrives.
Of their innocent Union of Warsaw, there was, from the first, no secret
made; but the Document now called 'TREATY of Warsaw' needs to lie secret
and thrice-secret; and it was not till 1756 that Friedrich, having
unearthed it by industries of his own, and studied it with great
intensity for some years, made it known to the world." [Adelung, v. 308.
397; Ranke, iii. 231 (who, for some reason of his own, dates "3d May"
instead of 18th].

Treaties, vaporous Foreshadows of Events, have oftenest something of the
ghost in them; and are importune to human nature, longing for the Events
themselves; all the more if they have proved abortional Treaties, and
become doubly ghost-like or ghastly. Nevertheless the reader is to
note well this Treaty of Warsaw, as important to Friedrich and him; and
indeed it is perhaps the remarkablest Treaty, abortional or realized,
which got to parchment in that Century. For though it proved abortional,
and no part of it, now or afterwards, could be executed, and even the
subsidy and 30,000 Saxons (stipulated in the "UNION of Warsaw") became
crow's-meat in a manner,--this preternatural "Treaty of Warsaw," trodden
down never so much by the heel of Destiny, and by the weight of
new Treaties, superseding it or presupposing its impossibility or
inconceivability, would by no means die (such the humor of Bruhl, of
the Two Majesties and others); but lay alive under the ashes, carefully
tended, for Ten or Twenty Years to come;--and had got all Europe kindled
again, for destruction of that bad Neighbor, before it would itself
consent to go out! And did succeed in getting Saxony's back broken,
if not the bad Neighbor's,--in answer to the humor of little Bruhl;
unfortunate Saxony to possess such a Bruhl!

In those beautiful Saxon-Austrian developments of the Treaty of
Warsaw, Czarina Elizabeth, bobbing about in that unlovely whirlpool of
intrigues, amours, devotions and strong liquor, which her History is,
took (ask not for what reason) a lively part:--and already in this
Spring of 1745, they hope she could, by "a gift of two millions for
her pleasures" (gift so easy to you Sea-Powers), be stirred up to anger
against Friedrich. And she did, in effect, from this time, hover about
in a manner questionable to Friedrich; though not yet in anger, but
only with the wish to be important, and to make herself felt in Foreign
affairs. Whether the Sea-Powers gave her that trifle of pocket-money
("for her pleasures"), I never knew; but it is certain they spent, first
and last, very large amounts that way, upon her and hers; especially the
English did, with what result may be considered questionable.

As for Graf von Bruhl, most rising man of Saxony, once a page; now by
industry King August III.'s first favorite and factotum; the fact that
he cordially hates Friedrich is too evident; but the why is not known to
me. Except indeed, That no man--especially no man with three hundred
and sixty-five fashionable suits of clothes usually about him, different
suit each day of the year--can be comfortable in the evident contempt of
another man. Other man of sarcastic bantering turn, too; tongue sharp
as needles; whose sayings many birds of the air are busy to carry about.
Year after year, Bruhl (doubtless with help enough that way, if there
had needed such) hates him more and more; as the too jovial Czarina
herself comes to do, wounded by things that birds have carried. And now
we will go with Valori,--seeing better into some things than Valori yet
can.




3. VALORI'S ACCOUNT OF HIS MISSION (in compressed form). [Valori, i.
211-219.]

"Valori [I could guess about the 10th of February, but there is no date
at all] was despatched to Dresden with that fine project, Polish Majesty
for Kaiser: is authorized to offer 60,000 men, with money corresponding,
and no end of brilliant outlooks;--must keep back his offers, however,
if he find the people indisposed. Which he did, to an extreme degree;
nothing but vague talk, procrastination, hesitation on the part of
Bruhl. This wretched little Bruhl has twelve tailors always sewing for
him, and three hundred and sixty-five suits of clothes: so many suits,
all pictured in a Book; a valet enters every morning, proposes a suit,
which, after deliberation, with perhaps amendments, is acceded to, and
worn at dinner. Vainest of human clothes-horses; foolishest coxcomb
Valori has seen: it is visibly his notion that it was he, Bruhl, by his
Saxon auxiliaries, by his masterly strokes of policy, that checkmated
Friedrich, and drove him from Bohemia last Year; and, for the rest, that
Friedrich is ruined, and will either shirk out of Silesia, or be cut to
ribbons there by the Austrian force this Summer. To which Valori hints
dissent; but it is ill received. Valori sees the King; finds him, as
expected, the fac-simile of Bruhl in this matter; Jesuit Guarini the
like: how otherwise? They have his Majesty in their leash, and lead him
as they please.

"At four every morning, this Guarini, Jesuit Confessor to the King and
Queen, comes to Bruhl; Bruhl settles with him what his Majesty shall
think, in reference to current business, this day; Guarini then goes,
confesses both Majesties; confesses, absolves, turns in the due way
to secular matters. At nine, Bruhl himself arrives, for Privy Council:
'What is your Majesty pleased to think on these points of current
business?' Majesty serenely issues his thoughts, in the form of orders;
which are found correct to pattern. This is the process with his
Majesty. A poor Majesty, taking deeply into tobacco; this is the way
they have him benetted, as in a dark cocoon of cobwebs, rendering the
whole world invisible to him. Which cunning arrangement is more and more
perfected every year; so that on all roads he travels, be it to mass,
to hunt, to dinner, any-whither in his Palace or out of it, there are
faithful creatures keeping eye, who admit no unsafe man to the least
glimpse of him by night or by day. In this manner he goes on; and before
the end of him, twenty years hence, has carried it far. Nothing but
disgust to be had out of business;--mutinous Polish Diets too, some
forty of them, in his time, not one of which did any business at all,
but ended in LIBERUM VETO, and Billingsgate conflagration, perhaps
with swords drawn: [See Buchholz, 154; &c.]--business more and more
disagreeable to him. What can Valori expect, on this heroic occasion,
from such a King?

"The Queen herself, Maria Theresa's Cousin, an ambitious hard-favored
Majesty,--who had sense once to dislike Bruhl, but has been quite
reconciled to him by her Jesuit Messenger of Heaven (which latter is an
oily, rather stupid creature, who really wishes well to her, and loves
a peaceable life at any price),--even she will not take the bait. Valori
was in Dresden nine days (middle part of February, it is likely); never
produced his big bait, his 60,000 men and other brilliancies, at all.
He saw old Feldmarschall Konigseck passing from Vienna towards the
Netherlands Camp; where he is to dry-nurse (so they irreverently call
it, in time coming) his Royal Highness of Cumberland, that magnificent
English Babe of War, and do feats with him this Summer." Konigseck,
though Valori did not know it, has endless diplomacies to do withal;
inspections of troops, advisings, in Hanover, in Holland, in Dresden
here; [Anonymous,--Duke of Cumberland,--p. 186.]--and secures the Saxon
Electoral-Vote for his Grand-Duke in passing. "The welcome given to
Konigseck disgusted Valori; on the ninth day he left; said adieu, seeing
them blind to their interest; and took post for Berlin,"--where he finds
Friedrich much out of humor at the Saxon reception of his magnanimities.
[Valori, i. 211-219; _OEuvres de Frederic,_ iii. 81-85. For details
on Bruhl, see _Graf von Bruhl, Leben und Charakter_ (1760, No Place):
Anonymous, by one Justi, a noted Pamphleteer of the time: exists in
English too, or partly exists; but is unreadable, except on compulsion;
and totally unintelligible till after very much inquiry elsewhere.]

This Saxon intricacy, indecipherable, formidable, contemptible, was the
plague of Friedrich's life, one considerable plague, all through this
Campaign. Perhaps nothing in the Diplomatic sphere of things caused
him such perplexity, vexation, indignation. An insoluble riddle to
him; extremely contemptible, yet,--with a huge Russia tacked to it, and
looming minatory in the distance,--from time to time, formidable enough.
Let readers keep it in mind, and try to imagine it. It cost Friedrich
such guessing, computing, arranging, rearranging, as would weary the
toughest reader to hear of in detail. How Friedrich did at last solve it
(in December coming), all readers will see with eyes!--




MIDDLE-RHINE ARMY IN A STAGGERING STATE; THE BAVARIAN INTRICACY SETTLES
ITSELF, THE WRONG WAY.

Early in March it becomes surmisable that Maillebois's Middle-Rhine Army
will not go a good road. Maillebois has been busy in those countries,
working extensive discontent; bullying mankind "to join the Frankfurt
Union," to join France at any rate, which nobody would consent to; and
exacting merciless contributions, which everybody had to consent to and
pay.--And now, on D'Ahremberg's mere advance, with that poor Fraction
of Pragmatic Army, roused from its winter sleep, Maillebois, without
waiting for D'Ahremberg's attack, rapidly calls in his truculent
detachments, and rolls confusedly back into the Frankfurt regions.
[Adelung, iv. 276-352 (December, 1744-March, 1745).] Upon which
D'Ahremberg--if by no means going upon Maillebois's throat--sets, at
least, to coercing Wilhelm of Hessen, our only friend in those parts;
who is already a good deal disgusted with the Maillebois procedures,
and at a loss what to do on the Kaiser's death, which has killed the
Frankfurt Union too. Wise Wilhelm consents, under D'Ahremberg's menaces,
to become Neutral; and recall his 6,000 out of Baiern,--wishes he had
them home beside him even now!

With an Election in the wind, it is doubly necessary for the French, who
have not even a Candidate as yet, to stand supreme and minatory in the
Frankfurt Country; and to King Friedrich it is painfully questionable,
whether Maillebois can do it. "Do it we will; doubt not that, your
Majesty!" answer Valori and the French;--and study to make improvements,
reinforcements, in their Rhine Army. And they do, at least, change the
General of their Middle-Rhine Army,--that is to say, recall Prince Conti
out of Italy, where he has distinguished himself, and send Maillebois
thither in his stead,--who likewise distinguishes himself THERE, if that
could be a comfort to us! Whether the distinguished Conti will maintain
that Frankfurt Country in spite of the Austrians and their Election
movements, is still a question with Friedrich, though Valori continued
assuring him (always till July came) that, it was beyond question.
"Siege of Tournay, vigorous Campaign in the Netherlands (for behoof of
Britannic George)!" this is the grand French program for the Year. This
good intention was achieved, on the French part; but this, like Aaron's
rod among the serpents, proved to have EATEN the others as it wriggled
along!--

Those Maillebois-D'Ahremberg affairs throw a damp on the Bavarian
Question withal;--in fact, settle the Bavarian Question; her Hungarian
Majesty, tired of the delays, having ordered Bathyani to shoulder arms
again, and bring a decision. Bathyani, with Barenklau to right of him,
and Browne (our old Silesian friend) to left, goes sweeping across those
Seckendorf-Segur posts, and without difficulty tumbles everything to
ruin, at a grand rate. The traitor Seckendorf had made such a choice of
posts,--left unaltered by Drum Thorring;--what could French valor do?
Nothing; neither French valor, nor Bavarian want of valor, could
do anything but whirl to the right-about, at sight of the Austrian
Sweeping-Apparatus; and go off explosively, as in former instances, at
a rate almost unique in military annals. Finished within three weeks or
so!--We glance only at two points of it. March 21st, Bathyani stood to
arms (to BESOMS we might call it), Browne on the left, Barenklau on the
right: it was March 21st when Bathyani started from Passau, up the Donau
Countries;--and within the week coming, see:--

"VILSHOFEN, 28th MARCH, 1745. Here, at the mouth of the Vils River
(between Inn and Iser), is the first considerable Post; garrison some
4,000; Hessians and Prince Friedrich the main part,--who have their
share of valor, I dare say; but with such news out of Hessen, not to
speak of the prospects in this Country, are probably in poorish spirits
for acting. General Browne summons them in Vilshofen, this day; and, on
their negative, storms in upon them, bursts them to pieces; upon which
they beat chamade. But the Croats, who are foremost, care nothing for
chamade: go plundering, slaughtering; burn the poor Town; butcher [in
round numbers] 3,000 of the poor Hessians; and wound General Browne
himself, while he too vehemently interferes." [Adelung, iv. 356, and the
half-intelligible Foot-note in Ranke, iii. 220.] This was the finale
of those 6,000 Hessians, and indeed their principal function, while in
French pay;--and must have been, we can Judge how surprising to Prince
Friedrich, and to his Papa on hearing of it! Note another point.

Precisely about this time twelvemonth, "March 16th, 1746," the same
Prince Friedrich, with remainder of those Hessians, now again completed
to 6,000, and come back with emphasis to the Britannic side of
things, was--marching out of Edinburgh, in much state, with streamers,
kettle-drums, Highness's coaches, horses, led-horses, on an unexpected
errand. [Henderson (Whig Eye-witness). _History of the Rebellion,_ 1745
and 1746 (London, 1748, reprint from the Edinburgh edition), pp. 104,
106, 107.] Toward Stirling, Perth; towards Killiecrankie, and raising of
what is called "the Siege of Blair in Athol" (most minute of "sieges,"
but subtending a great angle there and then);--much of unexpected, and
nearer home than "Tournay and the Netherlands Campaign," having happened
to Britannic George in the course of this year, 1746! "Really very fine
troops, those Hessians [observes my orthodox Whig friend]: they carry
swords as well as guns and bayonets; their uniform is blue turned up
with white: the Hussar part of them, about 500, have scimitars of
a great length; small horses, mostly black, of Swedish breed; swift
durable little creatures, with long tails." Honors, dinners, to his
Serene Highness had been numerous, during the three weeks we had him
in Edinburgh; "especially that Ball, February 21st (o.s.), eve of his
Consort the Princess Mary's Birthday [EVE of birthday, "let us dance the
auspicious morning IN] was, for affluence of Nobility and Gentry of both
sexes," a sublime thing...."

PFAFFENHOFEN, APRIL 15th. "Unfortunate Segur, the Segur of Linz three
years ago,--whose conduct was great, according to Valori, but powerless
against traitors and fate!--was again, once more, unfortunate in those
parts. Unfortunate Segur drew up at Pfaffenhofen (centre of the Country,
many miles from Vilshofen) to defend himself, when fallen upon by
Barenklau, in that manner; but could not, though with masterly demeanor;
and had to retreat three days, with his face to the enemy, so to speak,
fighting and manoeuvring all the way: no shelter for him either but
Munchen, and that, a most temporary one. Instead of taking Straubingen,
taking Passau, perhaps of pushing on to Vienna itself, this is what
we have already come to. No Rhine Army, Middle-Rhine Army, Coigny,
Maillebois, Conti, whoever it was, should send us the least
reinforcement, when shrieked to. No outlook whatever but rapid
withdrawal, retreat to the Rhine Army, since it will not stir to help
us." [Adelung, iv. 360.]

"The young Kur-Baiern is still polite, grateful [to us French],
overwhelms us with politeness; but flies to Augsburg, as his Father used
to do. Notable, however, his poor fat little Mother won't, this time:
'No, I will stay here, I for one, and have done with flying and running;
we have had enough of that!' Seckendorf, quite gone from Court in this
crisis, reappears, about the middle of April, in questionable capacity;
at a place called Fussen, not far off, at the foot of the Tyrol
Hills;--where certain Austrian Dignitaries seem also to be enjoying a
picturesque Easter! Yes indeed: and, on APRIL 22d, there is signed a
'PEACE OF FUSSEN' there; general amicable AS-YOU-WERE, between Austria
and Bavaria ('Renounce your Anti-Pragmatic moonshine forevermore, vote
for our Grand-Duke; there is your Bavaria back, poor wretches!')--and
Seckendorf, it is presumable, will get his Turkish arrears liquidated.

"The Bavarian Intricacy, which once excelled human power, is settled,
then. Carteret and Haslang tried it in vain [dreadful heterodox
intentions of secularizing Salzburg, secularizing Passau, Regensburg,
and loud tremulous denial of such];--Carteret and Wilhelm of Hesseu
[Conferences of Hanau, which ruined Carteret], in vain; King Friedrich,
and many Kings, in vain: a thing nobody could settle;--and it has at
last settled itself, as the generality of ill-guided and unlucky things
do, by collapse. Delirium once out, the law of gravity acts; and there
the mad matter lies."

"Bought by Austria, that old villain!" cry the French. Friedrich does
not think the Austrians bought Seckendorf, having no money at present;
but guesses they may have given him to understand that a certain large
arrear of payment due ever since those Turkish Wars,--when Seckendorf,
instead of payment, was lodged in the Fortress of Gratz, and almost
got his head cut off,--should now be paid down in cash, or authentic
Paper-money, if matters become amicable. [ _OEuvres de Frederic,_ iii.
22; _Seckendorfs Leben,_ pp. 367-376.] As they have done, in Friedrich's
despite;--who seems angrier at the old stager for this particular
ill-turn than for all the other many; and long remembers it, as will
appear.




Chapter VII.--FRIEDRICH IN SILESIA; UNUSUALLY BUSY.

Here, sure enough, are sad new intricacies in the Diplomatic, hypothetic
sphere of things; and clouds piling themselves ahead, in a very minatory
manner to King Friedrich. Let King Friedrich, all the more, get his
Fighting Arrangements made perfect. Diplomacy is clouds; beating of
your enemies is sea and land. Austria and the Gazetteer world consider
Friedrich to be as good as finished: but that is privately far from
being Friedrich's own opinion;--though these occurrences are heavy and
dismal to him, as none of us can now fancy.

Herr Ranke has got access, in the Archives, to a series of private
utterances by Friedrich,--Letters from him, of a franker nature than
usual, and letting us far deeper into his mind;--which must have been
well worth reading in the original, in their fully dated and developed
condition. From Herr Ranke's Fragmentary Excerpts, let us, thankful
for what we have got, select one or two. The Letters are to Minister
Podewils at Berlin; written from Silesia (Neisse and neighborhood),
where, since the middle of March, Friedrich has been, personally pushing
on his Army Preparations, while the above sinister things befell.




KING FRIEDRICH TO PODEWILS, IN BERLIN (under various dates, March-April,
1745).

NEISSE, 29th MARCH.... "We find ourselves in a great crisis. If we
don't, by mediation of England, get Peace, our enemies from different
sides [Saxony, Austria, who knows if not Russia withal!] will come
plunging in against me. Peace I cannot force them to. But if they
must have War, we will either beat them, or none of us will see Berlin
again." [Ranke, iii. 236 et seqq.]

APRIL (no day given).... "In any case, I have my troops well together.
The sicknesses are ceasing; the recruitments are coming in: shortly all
will be complete. That does not hinder us from making Peace, if it will
only come; but, in the contrary case, nobody can accuse me of neglecting
what was necessary."

APRIL 17th (still from Neisse).... "I toil day and night to improve our
situation. The soldiers will do their duty. There is none among us who
will not rather have his backbone broken than give up one foot-breadth
of ground. They must either grant us a good Peace, or we will surpass
ourselves by miracles of daring; and force the enemy to accept it from
us."

APRIL 20th. "Our situation is disagreeable; constrained, a kind of
spasm: but my determination is taken. If we needs must fight, we will do
it like men driven desperate. Never was there a greater peril than
that I am now in. Time, at its own pleasure, will untie this knot; or
Destiny, if there is one, determine the event. The game I play is so
high, one cannot contemplate the issue with cold blood. Pray for the
return of my good luck."--Two days hence, the poor young Kur-Baiern,
deaf to the French seductions and exertions, which were intense, had
signed his "Peace of Fussen" (22d April 1745),--a finale to France on
the German Field, as may be feared! The other Fragments we will give a
little farther on.

Friedrich had left Berlin for Silesia March 15th; rather sooner than he
counted on,--Old Leopold pleading to be let home. At Glogau, at Breslau,
there had been the due inspecting: Friedrich got to Neisse on the 23d
(Bathyani just stirring in that Bavarian Business, Vilshofen and the
Hessians close ahead); and on the 27th, had dismissed Old Leopold,
with thanks and sympathies,--sent him home, "to recover his health."
Leopold's health is probably suffering; but his heart and spirits still
more. Poor old man, he has just lost--the other week, "5th February"
last--his poor old Wife, at Dessau; and is broken down with grief. The
soft silk lining of his hard Existence, in all parts of it, is torn
away. Apothecary Fos's Daughter, Reich's Princess, Princess of Dessau,
called by whatever name, she had been the truest of Wives; "used to
attend him in all his Campaigns, for above fifty years back." "Gone,
now, forever gone!"--Old Leopold had wells of strange sorrow in the
rugged heart of him,--sorrow, and still better things,--which he does
not wear on his sleeve. Here is an incident I never can forget;--dating
twelve or thirteen years ago (as is computable), middle of July, 1732.

"Louisa, Leopold's eldest Daughter, Wife of Victor Leopold, reigning
Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg, lay dying of a decline." Still only
twenty-three, poor Lady, though married seven years ago;--the end now
evidently drawing nigh. "A few days before her death,--perhaps some
attendant sorrowfully asking, 'Can we do nothing, then?'--she was heard
to say, 'If I could see my Father at the head of his Regiment, yet
once!'"--Halle, where the Regiment lies, is some thirty or more miles
off; and King Friedrioh Wilhelm, I suppose, would have to be written
to:--Leopold was ready the soonest possible; and, "at a set hour,
marched, in all pomp, with banner flying, music playing, into the
SCHLOSS-HOF (Palace Court) of Bernburg; and did the due salutations
and manoeuvrings,--his poor Daughter sitting at her window, till they
ended;"--figure them, the last glitter of those muskets, the last wail
of that band-music!--"The Regiment was then marched to the Waisenhaus
(ORPHAN-HOUSE), where the common men were treated with bread and beer;
all the Officers dining at the Prince's Table. All the Officers, except
Leopold alone, who stole away out of the crowd; sat himself upon the
balustrade of the Saale Bridge, and wept into the river." [LEBEN (12mo;
not Rannft's, but Anonymous like his), p. 234 n.]--Leopold is now on the
edge of seventy; ready to think all is finished with him. Perhaps not
quite, my tough old friend; recover yourself a little, and we shall see!

Old Leopold is hardly home at Dessau, when new Pandour Tempests, tides
of ravaging War, again come beating against the Giant Mountains, pouring
through all passes; from utmost Jablunka, westward by Jagerndorf to
Glatz, huge influx of wild riding hordes, each with some support of
Austrian grenadiers, cannoniers; threatening to submerge Silesia.
Precursors, Friedrich need not doubt, of a strenuous regular attempt
that way, Hungarian Majesty's fixed intention, hope and determination
is, To expel him straightway from Silesia. Her Patent circulates,
these three months; calling on all men to take note of that fixed
fact, especially on all Silesian men to note it well, and shift their
allegiance accordingly. Silesian men, in great majority,--our friend
the Mayor of Landshut, for example?--are believed to have no inclination
towards change: and whoever has, had clearly better not show any till he
see! [In Ranke (iii. 234), there is vestige of some intended
"voluntary subscription by the common people of Glatz," for Friedrich's
behoof;--contrariwise, in Orlich (ii. 380, "6th February, 1745," from
the Dessau Archives), notice of one individual, suspected of stirring
for Austria, whom "you are to put under lock and key;"--but he runs off,
and has no successor, that I hear of.]--

Friedrich's thousand-fold preliminary orderings, movements, rearrangings
in his Army matters, must not detain us here;--still less his dealings
with the Pandour element, which is troublesome, rather than dangerous.
Vigilance, wise swift determination, valor drilled to its work, can deal
with phenomena of that nature, though never so furious and innumerable.
Not a cheering service for drilled valor, but a very needful one.
Continual bickerings and skirmishings fell out, sometimes rising to
sharp fight on the small scale:--Austrian grenadiers with cannon are on
that Height to left, and also on this to right, meaning to cut off our
march; the difficult landscape furnished out, far and wide, with Pandour
companies in position: you must clash in, my Burschen; seize me that
cannon-battery yonder; master such and such a post,--there is the heart
of all that network of armed doggery; slit asunder that, the network
wholly will tumble over the Hills again. Which is always done, on
the part of the Prussian Burschen; though sometimes not, without
difficulty.--His Majesty is forming Magazines at Neisse, Brieg, and
the principal Fortresses in those parts; driving on all manner of
preparations at the rapidest rate of speed, and looking with his own
eyes into everything. The regiments 

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