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History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 12
T >> Thomas Carlyle >> History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 12 Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18
"FEBRUARY 17th. ... This day also, there arrived at Breslau, by
boat up the Oder, ten heavy cannon, three mortars, and ammunition
of powder, bombshells, balls, as much as loaded fifty wagons;
the whole of which were, in like manner, forwarded to Ohlau.
This day, as on other days before and after. Great Magazines
forming here; the Military chiefly at Ohlau; at Breslau the
Provender part,--and this latter under noteworthy circumstances.
In the Dom-Island, namely; which is definable (in a case of such
necessity) as being 'outside the walls.' Especially as the Reverend
Fathers have mostly glided into corners, and left the place vacant.
In the Dom-Island, it certainly is; and such a stock,--all bought
for money down, and spurred forward while the roads were under
frost,--'such a stock as was not thought to be in all Silesia,'
says exaggerative wonder. The vacant edifices in the Dom-Island are
filled to the neck with meal and corn; the Prussian brigade now
quartering there ('without the walls,' in a sense) to guard the
same. And in the Bishop's Garden [poor Sinzendorf, far enough away
and in no want of it just now] are mere hay-mows, bigger than
houses: who can object,--in a case of necessity? No man, unless he
politically meddle, is meddled with; politically meddling, you are
at once picked up; as one or two are,--clapped into gentle arrest,
or, like old Schaffgotsch, and even Sinzendorf before long,
requested to leave the Country till it get settled. Rigor there is,
but not intentional injustice on Munchow's part, and there is a
studious avoidance of harsh manner.
"FEBRUARY-MARCH. Considerable recruiting in Schlesien: six hundred
recruits have enlisted in Breslau alone. Also his Prussian Majesty
has sent a supply of Protestant Preachers, ordained for the
occasion, to minister where needed;--which is piously acknowledged
as a godsend in various parts of Silesia. Twelve came first, all
Berliners; soon afterwards, others from different parts, till, in
the end, there were about Sixty in all. Rigorous, punctilious
avoidance of offence to the Catholic minorities, or of whatever
least thing Silesian Law does not permit, is enjoined upon them;
'to preach in barns or town-halls, where by Law you have no
Church.' Their salary is about 30 pounds a year; they are all put
under supervision of the Chaplain of Margraf Karl's Regiment" (a
judicious Chaplain, I have no doubt, and fit to be a Bishop);
and so far as appears, mere benefit is got of them by Schlesien as
well as by Friedrich, in this function. Friedrich is careful to
keep the balance level between Catholic and Protestant; but it has
hung at such an angle, for a long while past! In general, we
observe the Catholic Dignitaries, and the zealous or fanatic of
that creed, especially the Jesuits, are apt to be against him:
as for the non-fanatic, they expect better government, secular
advantage; these latter weigh doubtfully, and with less weight
whichever way. In the general population, who are Protestant, he
recognizes friends;--and has sent them Sixty Preachers, which by
Law was their due long since. Here follow two little traits, comic
or tragi-comic, with which we can conclude:--
"Detached Jesuit parties, here and there, seem to have mischief in
hand in a small way, encouraging deserters and the like;--and we
keep an eye on them. No discontent elsewhere, at least none
audible; on the contrary, much enlisting on the part of the
Silesian youth, with other good symptoms. But in the Dom, there is,
singular to say, a Goblin found walking, one night;--advancing, not
with airs from Heaven, upon the Prussian sentry there! The Prussian
sentry handles arms; pokes determinedly into the Goblin, and
finding him solid, ever more determinedly, till the Goblin shrieked
'Jesus Maria!' and was hauled to the Guard-house for
investigation." A weak Goblin; doubtless of the valet kind; worth
only a little whipping; but testifies what the spirit is.
"Another time, two deserter Frenchmen getting hanged [such the law
in aggravated cases], certain polite Jesuits, who had by permission
been praying and extreme-unctioning about them, came to thank the
Colonel after all was over. Colonel, a grave practical man, needs
no 'thanks;' would, however, 'advise your Reverences to teach your
people that perjury is not permissible, that an oath sworn ought to
be kept;' and in fine 'would advise you Holy Fathers hereabouts,
and others, to have a care lest you get into'--And twitching his
reins, rode away without saying into what." [ Helden-
Geschichte, i. 723.]
AUSTRIA IS STANDING TO ARMS.
Schwerin has been doing his best in this interim; collecting
magazines with double diligence while the roads are hard, taking up
the Key-positions far and wide, from the Jablunka round to the
Frontier Valleys of Glatz again. He was through Jablunka, at one
time; on into Mahren, as far as Olmutz; levying contributions,
emitting patents: but as to intimidating her Hungarian Majesty, if
that was the intention, or changing her mind at all, that is not
the issue got. Austria has still strength, and Pragmatic Sanction
and the Laws of Nature have! Very fixed is her Hungarian Majesty's
determination, to part with no inch of Territory, but to drive the
intrusive Prussians home well punished.
How she has got the funds is, to this day, a mystery;--unless
George and Walpole, from their Secret-Service Moneys, have smuggled
her somewhat.? For the Parliament is not sitting, and there will be
such jargonings, such delays: a preliminary 100,000 pounds, say by
degrees 200,000 pounds,--we should not miss it, and in her
Majesty's hands it would go far! Hints in the English Dryasdust we
have; but nothing definite; and we are left to our guesses. [Tindal
(XX. 497) says expressly 200,000 pounds, but gives no date or other
particular.] A romantic story, first set current by Voltaire, has
gone the round of the world, and still appears in all Histories:
How in England there was a Subscription set on foot for her
Hungarian Majesty; outcome of the enthusiasm of English Ladies of
quality,--old Sarah Duchess of Marlborough putting down her name
for 40,000 pounds, or indeed putting down the ready sum itself;
magnanimous veteran that she was. Voltaire says, omitting date and
circumstance, but speaking as if it were indubitable, and a thing
you could see with eyes: "The Duchess of Marlborough, widow of him
who had fought for Karl VI. [and with such signal returns of
gratitude from the said Karl VI.], assembled the principal Ladies
of London; who engaged to furnish 100,000 pounds among them; the
Duchess herself putting down [EN DEPOSA, tabling IN CORPORE] 40,000
pounds of it. The Queen of Hungary had the greatness of soul to
refuse this money;--needing only, as she intimated, what the Nation
in Parliament assembled might please to offer her." [Voltaire,
OEuvres (Siecle de Louis XV., c. 6),
xxviii. 79.]
One is sorry to run athwart such a piece of mutual magnanimity;
but the fact is, on considering a little and asking evidence, it
turns out to be mythical. One Dilworth, an innocent English soul
(from whom our grandfathers used to learn ARITHMETIC, I think),
writing on the spot some years after Voltaire, has this useful
passage: "It is the great failing of a strong imagination to catch
greedily at wonders. Voltaire was misinformed; and would perhaps
learn, by a second inquiry, a truth less splendid and amusing.
A Contribution was, by News-writers upon their own authority,
fruitlessly proposed. It ended in nothing: the Parliament voted a
supply;"--that did it, Mr. Dilworth; supplies enough, and many of
them! "Fruitlessly, by News-writers on their own authority;"
that is the sad fact. [ The Life and Heroick Actions of
Frederick III. (SIC, a common blunder), by W. H.
Dilworth, M.A. (London, 1758), p. 25. A poor little Book, one of
many coming out on that subject just then (for a reason we shall
see on getting thither); which contains, of available now, the
above sentence and no more. Indeed its brethren, one of them by
Samnel Johnson (IMPRANSUS, the imprisoned giant), do not even
contain that, and have gone wholly to zero.-- Neither little
Dilworth nor big Voltaire give the least shadow of specific date;
but both evidently mean Spring, 1742 (not 1741).]
It is certain, little George, who considers Pragmatic Sanction as
the Keystone of Nature in a manner, has been venturing far deeper
than purse for that adorable object; and indeed has been diving,
secretly, in muddier waters than we expected, to a dangerous
extent, on behalf of it, at this very time. In the first days of
March, Friedrich has heard from his Minister at Petersburg of a
DETESTABLE PROJECT, [Orlich, i. 83 (scrap of Note to Old Dessauer;
no date allowed us; "early in March").]--project for "Partitioning
the Prussian Kingdom," no less; for fairly cutting into Friedrich,
and paring him down to the safe pitch, as an enemy to Pragmatic and
mankind. They say, a Treaty, Draught of a Treaty, for that express
object, is now ready; and lies at Petersburg, only waiting
signature. Here is a Project! Contracting parties (Russian
signature still wanting) are: Kur-Sachsen; her Hungarian Majesty;
King George; and that Regent Anne (MRS. Anton Ulrich, so to speak),
who sits in a huddle of undress, impatient of Political objects,
but sensible to the charms of handsome men. To the charms of Count
Lynar, especially: the handsomest of Danish noblemen (more an
ancient Roman than a Dane), whom the Polish Majesty, calculating
cause and effect, had despatched to her, with that view, in the
dead of winter lately. To whom she has given ear;--dismissing her
Munnich, as we saw above;--and is ready for signing, or perhaps has
signed! [ OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 68.]
Friedrich's astonishment, on hearing of this "detestable Project,"
was great. However, he takes his measures on it;--right lucky that
he has the Old Dessauer, and machinery for acting on Kur-Sachsen
and the Britannic Majesty. "Get your machinery in gear!" is
naturally his first order. And the Old Dessauer does it, with
effect: of which by and by.
Never did I hear, before or since, of such a plunge into the muddy
unfathomable, on the part of little George, who was an honorable
creature, and dubitative to excess: and truly this rash plunge
might have cost him dear, had not he directly scrambled out again.
Or did Friedrich exaggerate to himself his Uncle's real share in
the matter? I always guess, there had been more of loose talk, of
hypothesis and fond hope, in regard to George's share, than of
determinate fact or procedure on his own part. The transaction,
having had to be dropped on the sudden, remains somewhat dark;
but, in substance, it is not doubtful; [Tindal, xx. 497.] and
Parliament itself took afterwards to poking into it, though with
little effect. Kur-Sachsen's objects in the adventure were of the
earth, earthy; but on George's part it was pure adoration of
Pragmatic Sanction, anxiety for the Keystone of Nature, and lest
Chaos come again. In comparison with such transcendent divings,
what is a little Secret-Service money!--
The Count Lynar of this adventure, who had well-nigh done such a
feat in Diplomacy, may turn up transiently again. A conspicuous,
more or less ridiculous person of those times. Busching (our
Geographical friend) had gone with him, as Excellency's Chaplain,
in this Russian Journey; which is a memorable one to Busching;
and still presents vividly, through his Book, those haggard Baltic
Coasts in midwinter, to readers who have business there. Such a
journey for grimness of outlook, upon pine-tufts and frozen sand;
for cold (the Count's very tobacco-pipe freezing in his mouth), for
hardship, for bad lodging, and extremity of dirt in the unfreezable
kinds, as seldom was. They met, one day on the road, a Lord
Hyndford, English Ambassador just returning from Petersburg, with
his fourgons and vehicles, and arrangements for sleep and victual,
in an enviably luxurious condition,--whom we shall meet, to our
cost. They saw, in the body, old Field-marshal Lacy, and dined with
him, at Riga; who advised brandy schnapps; a recipe rejected by
Busching. And other memorabilia, which by accident hang about this
Lynar. [Busching, Beitrage, vi. 132-164.]--
All through Regent Anne's time he continued a dangerous object to
Friedrich; and it was a relief when Elizabeth CATIN became
Autocrat, instead of Deshabille Anne and her Lynar. Adieu to him,
for fifteen years or more.
Of Friedrich's military operations, of his magazines, posts,
diligent plannings and gallopings about, in those weeks; of all
this the reader can form some notion by looking on the map and
remembering what has gone before: but that subterranean growling
which attended him, prophetic of Earthquake, that universal
breaking forth of Bedlams, now fallen so extinct, no reader can
imagine. Bedlams totally extinct to everybody; but which were then
very real, and raged wide as the world, high as the stars, to a
hideous degree among the then sons of men;--unimaginable now by
any mortal.
And, alas, this is one of the grand difficulties for my readers and
me; Friedrich's Life-element having fallen into such a dismal
condition. Most dismal, dark, ugly, that Austrian-Succession
Business, and its world-wide battlings, throttlings and
intriguings: not Dismal Swamp, under a coverlid of London Fog,
could be uglier! A Section of "History" so called, which human
nature shrinks from; of which the extant generation already knows
nothing, and is impatient of hearing anything! Truly, Oblivion is
very due to such an Epoch: and from me far be it to awaken, beyond
need, its sordid Bedlams, happily extinct. But without Life-
element, no Life can be intelligible; and till Friedrich and one or
two others are extricated from it, Dismal Swamp cannot be quite
filled in. Courage, reader!--Our Constitutional Historian makes
this farther reflection:--
"English moneys, desperate Russian intrigues, Treaties made and
Treaties broken--If instead of Pragmatic Sanction with eleven
Potentates guaranteeing, Maria Theresa had at this time had 200,000
soldiers and a full treasury (as Prince Eugene used to advise the
late Kaiser), how different might it have been with her, and with
the whole world that fell upon one another's throats in her
quarrel! Some eight years of the most disastrous War; and except
the falling of Silesia to its new place, no result gained by it.
War at any rate inevitable, you object? English-Spanish War having
been obliged to kindle itself; French sure to fall in, on the
Spanish side; sure to fall upon Hanover, so soon as beaten at sea,
and thus to involve all Europe? Well, it is too likely. But, even
in that case, the poor English would have gone upon their necessary
Spanish War, by the direct road and with their eyes open, instead
of somnambulating and stumbling over the chimney-tops; and the
settlement might have come far sooner, and far cheaper to mankind.
--Nay, we are to admit that the new place for Silesia was,
likewise, the place appointed it by just Heaven; and Friedrich's
too was a necessary War. Heaven makes use of Shadow-hunting Kaisers
too; and its ways in this mad world are through the great Deep."
THE YOUNG DESSAUER CAPTURES GLOGAU (MARCH 9th); THE OLD
DESSAUER, BY HIS CAMP OF GOTTIN (APRIL 2d), CHECKMATES
CERTAIN DESIGNING PERSONS.
Money somewhere her Hungarian Majesty has got; that is one thing
evident. She has an actual Army on foot, "drawn out of Italy," or
whence she could; formidable Army, says rumor, and getting well
equipped;--and here are the Pandour Precursors of it, coming down
like storm-clouds through the Glatz valleys;--nearly finishing the
War for her at a stroke, the other day, had accident favored;--and
have thrown reinforcement of 600 into Neisse. Friedrich is not
insensible to these things; and amid such alarms from far and from
near, is becoming eager to have, at least, Glogau in his hand.
Glogau, he is of opinion, could now, and should, straightway
be done.
Glogau is not a strong place; after all the repairing, it could
stand little siege, were we careless of hurting it. But Wallis is
obstinate; refuses Free Withdrawal; will hold out to the uttermost,
though his meal is running low. He pretends there is relief coming;
relief just at hand; and once, in midnight time, "lets off a rocket
and fires six guns," alarming Prince Leopold as if relief were just
in the neighborhood. A tough industrious military man; stiff to his
purpose, and not without shift.
Friedrich thinks the place might be had by assault: "Open trenches;
set your batteries going, which need not injure the Town; need only
alarm Wallis, and TERRIFY it; then, under cover of this noise and
feint of cannonading, storm with vigor." Leopold, the Young
Dessauer, is cautious; wants petards if he must storm, wants two
new battalions if he must open trenches;--he gets these requisites,
and is still cunctatory. Friedrich has himself got the notion,
"from clear intelligence," true or not, that relief to Glogau is
actually on way; and under such imminences, Russian and other, in
so ticklish a state of the world, he becomes more and more
impatient that this thing were done. In the first week of March,
still hurrying about on inspection-business, he writes, from four
or five different places ("Mollwitz near Brieg" is one of them, a
Village we shall soon know better), Note after Note to Leopold;
who still makes difficulties, and is not yet perfect to the last
finish in his preparations. "Preparations!" answers Friedrich
impatiently (date MOLLWITZ, 5th MARCH, the third or fourth
impatient Note he has sent); and adds, just while quitting Mollwitz
for Ohlau, this Postscript in his own hand:--
P.S. "I am sorry you have not understood me! They have, in Bohmen,
a regular enterprise on hand for the rescue of Glogau. I have
Infantry enough to meet them; but Cavalry is quite wanting.
You must therefore, without delay, begin the siege. Let us finish
there, I pray you!" [Orlich, i. 70.]
And next day, Monday 6th, to cut the matter short, he despatches
his General-Adjutant Goltz in person (the distance is above seventy
miles), with this Note wholly in autograph, which nothing vocal on
Leopold's part will answer:--
"OHLAU, 6th MARCH. As I am certainly informed that the Enemy will
make some attempt, I hereby with all distinctness command, That, so
soon as the petards are come [which they are], you attack Glogau.
And you must make your Arrangement (DISPOSITION) for more than one
attack; so that if one fail, the other shall certainly succeed.
I hope you will put off no longer;--otherwise the blame of all the
mischief that might arise out of longer delay must lie on you
alone." [Ib. i. 71.]
Goltz arrived with this emphatic Piece, Tuesday Evening, after his
course of seventy miles: this did at last rouse our cautious Young
Dessauer; and so there is next obtainable, on much compression, the
following authentic Excerpt:--
"GLOGAU, 8th MARCH, 1741. His Durchlaucht the Prince Leopold
summoned all the Generals at noon; and informed them That, this
very night, Glogau must be won. He gave them their Instructions in
writing: where each was to post himself; with what detachments;
how to proceed. There are to be three Attacks: one up stream,
coming on with the River to its right; one down stream, River to
its left; and a third from the landward side, perpendicular to the
other two. The very captains that shall go foremost are specified;
at what hour each is to leave quarters, so that all be ready
simultaneously, waiting in the posts assigned;--against what points
to advance out of these, and storm Rampart and Wall. Places, times,
particulars, everything is fixed with mathematical exactitude:
'Be steady, be correct, especially be silent; and so far as Law of
Nature will permit, be simultaneous! When the big steeple of Glogau
peals Midnight,--Forward, with the first stroke; with the second,
much more with the twelfth stroke, be one and all of you, in the
utmost silence, advancing! And, under pain of death, two things:
Not one shot till you are in; No plundering when you are.'--In this
manner is the silent three-sided avalanche to be let go.
Whereupon", says my Dryasdust, "the Generals retired; and had, for
one item, their fire-arms all cleaned and new-loaded."
[ Helden-Geschichte, i. 823; ii. 165.]
Without plans of Glogau, and more detail and study than the reader
would consent to, there can no Narrative be given. Glogau has
Ramparts, due Ring-fence, palisaded and repaired by Wallis;
inside of this is an old Town-Wall, which will need petards:
there are about 1,000 men under Wallis, and altogether on the
works, not to count a mortar or two, fifty-eight big guns.
The reader must conceive a poor Town under blockade, in the wintry
night-time, with its tough Count Wallis; ill-off for the
necessaries of life; Town shrouded in darkness, and creeping
quietly to its bed. This on the one hand: and on the other hand,
Prussian battalions marching up, at 10 o'clock or later, with the
utmost softness of step; "taking post behind the ordinary field-
watches;" and at length, all standing ranked, in the invisible
dark; silent, like machinery, like a sleeping avalanche: Husht!--
No sentry from the walls dreams of such a thing. "Twelve!" sings
out the steeple of Glogau; and in grim whisper the word is,
"VORWARTS!" and the three-winged avalanche is in motion.
They reach their glacises, their ditches, covered ways, correct as
mathematics; tear out chevaux-de-frise, hew down palisades, in the
given number of minutes: Swift, ye Regiment's-carpenters;
smite your best! Four cannon-shot do now boom out upon them;
which go high over their heads, little dreaming how close at hand
they are. The glacis is thirty feet high, of stiff slope, and
slippery with frost: no matter, the avalanche, led on by Leopold in
person, by Margraf Karl the King's Cousin, by Adjutant Goltz and
the chief personages, rushes up with strange impetus; hews down a
second palisade; surges in;--Wallis's sentries extinct, or driven
to their main guards. There is a singular fire in the besieging
party. For example, Four Grenadiers,--I think of this First Column,
which succeeded sooner, certainly of the Regiment Glasenapp,--four
grenadiers, owing to slippery or other accidents, in climbing the
glacis, had fallen a few steps behind the general body; and on
getting to the top, took the wrong course, and rushed along
rightward instead of leftward. Rightward, the first thing they come
upon is a mass of Austrians still ranked in arms; fifty-two men, as
it turned out, with their Captain over them. Slight stutter ensues
on the part of the Four Grenadiers; but they give one another the
hint, and dash forward: "Prisoners?" ask they sternly, as if all
Prussia had been at their rear. The fifty-two, in the darkness, in
the danger and alarm, answer "Yes."--"Pile arms, then!" Three of
the grenadiers stand to see that done; the fourth runs off for
force, and happily gets back with it before the comedy had become
tragic for his comrades. "I must make acquaintance with these four
men," writes Friedrich, on hearing of it; and he did reward them by
present, by promotion to sergeantcy (to ensigncy one of them), or
what else they were fit for. Grenadiers of Glasenapp: these are the
men Friedrich heard swearing-in under his window, one memorable
morning when he burst into tears! At half-past Twelve, the
Ramparts, on all sides, are ours.
The Gates of the Town, under axe and petard, can make little
resistance, to Leopold's Column or the other two. A hole is soon
cut in the Town-Gate, where Leopold is; and gallant Wallis, who had
rallied behind it, with his Artillery-General and what they could
get together, fires through the opening, kills four men; but is
then (by order, and not till then) fired upon, and obliged to draw
back, with his Artillery-General mortally hurt. Inside he attempts
another rally, some 200 with him; and here and there perhaps a
house-window tries to give shot; but it is to no purpose, not the
least stand can be made. Poor Wallis is rapidly swept back, into
the Market-place, into the Main Guard-house; and there piles arms:
"Glogau yours, Ihr Herren, and we prisoners of War!" The steeple
had not yet quite struck One. Here has been a good hour's-work!
Glogau, as in a dream, or half awake, and timidly peeping from
behind window-curtains, finds that it is a Town taken. Glogau
easily consoles itself, I hear, or even is generally glad;
Prussian discipline being so perfect, and ingress now free for the
necessaries of life. There was no plundering; not the least insult:
no townsman was hurt; not even in houses where soldiers had tried
firing from windows. The Prussian Battalions rendezvous in the
Market-place, and go peaceably about their patrolling, and other
business; and meddle with nothing else. They lost, in killed, ten
men; had of killed and wounded, forty-eight; the Austrians rather
more. [Orlich, i. 75, 78; Helden-Geschichte,
i. 829; irreconcilable otherwise, in some slight points.]
Wallis was to have been set free on parole; but was not,--in
retaliation for some severity of General Browne's in the interim
(picking up of two Silesian Noblemen, suspected of Prussian
tendency, and locking them in Brunn over the Hills),--and had to go
to Berlin, till that was repaired. To the wounded Artillery-General
there was every tenderness shown, but he died in few days.--The
other Prisoners were marched to the Custrin-Stettin quarter; "and
many of them took Prussian service."
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