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Book 9. Last Stage Of Friedrich's Apprenticeship: Life In Ruppin. 1732-1736 - Chapter 10. Crown-Prince Goes To The Rhine Campaign |
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_ BOOK IX. LAST STAGE OF FRIEDRICH'S APPRENTICESHIP: LIFE IN RUPPIN. 1732-1736 CHAPTER X. CROWN-PRINCE GOES TO THE RHINE CAMPAIGN
Unhappily the Reich's-Army, raised from--multifarious contingents, and guided and provided for by many heads, is usually good for little. Not to say that old Kur-Pfalz, with an eye to French help in the Berg-and-Julich matter; old Kur-Pfalz, and the Bavarian set (KUR-BAIERN and KUR-KOLN, Bavaria and Cologne, who are Brothers, and of old cousinship to Kur-Pfalz),--quite refuse their contingents; protest in the Diet, and openly have French leanings. These are bad omens for the Reich's-Army. And in regard to the Reich's-Feldmarschall Office, there also is a difficulty. The Reich, as we hinted, keeps two supreme Feldmarschalls; one Catholic, one Protestant, for equilibrium's sake; illustrious Prince Eugenio von Savoye is the Catholic;--but as to the Protestant, it is a difficulty worth observing for a moment. Old Duke Eberhard Ludwig of Wurtemberg, the unfortunate old gentleman bewitched by the Gravenitz "Deliver us from evil," used to be the Reich's-Feldmarschall of Protestant persuasion;--Commander-in-Chief for the Reich, when it tried fighting. Old Eberhard had been at Blenheim, and had marched up and down: I never heard he was much of a General; perhaps good enough for the Reich, whose troops were always bad. But now that poor Duke, as we intimated once or more, is dead; there must be, of Protestant type, a new Reich's-Feldmasschall had. One Catholic, unequalled among Captains, we already have; but where is the Protestant, Duke Eberhard being dead? Duke Eberhard's successor in Wurtemberg, Karl Alexander by name, whom we once dined with at Prag on the Kladrup journey, he, a General of some worth, would be a natural person. Unluckily Duke Karl Alexander had, while an Austrian Officer and without outlooks upon Protestant Wurtemberg, gone over to Papacy, and is now Catholic. "Two Catholic Feldmarschalls!" cries the CORPUS EVANGELICORUM; "that will never do!" Well, on the other or Protestant side there appear two Candidates; one of them not much expected by the reader: no other than Ferdinand Duke of Brunswick-Bevern, our Crown-Prince's Father-in-law; whom we knew to be a worthy man, but did not know to be much of a soldier, or capable of these ambitious views. He is Candidate First. Then there is a Second, much more entitled: our gunpowder friend the Old Dessauer; who, to say nothing of his soldier qualities, has promises from the Kaiser,--he surely were the man, if it did not hurt other people's feelings. But it surely does and will. There is Ferdinand of Bevern applying upon the score of old promises too. How can people's feelings be saved? Protestants these two last: but they cannot both have it; and what will Wurtemberg say to either of them? The Reich was in very great affliction about this preliminary matter. But Friedrich Wilhelm steps in with a healing recipe: "Let there be four Reich's-Feldmarschalls," said Friedrich Wilhelm; "two Protestant and two Catholic: won't that do?"--Excellent! answers the Reich: and there are four Feldmarschalls for the time being; no lack of commanders to the Reich's-Army. Brunswick-Bevern tried it first; but only till Prince Eugene were ready, and indeed he had of himself come to nothing before that date. Prince Eugene next; then Karl Alexander next; and in fact they all might have had a stroke at commanding, and at coming to nothing or little,--only the Old Dessauer sulked at the office in this its fourfold state, and never would fairly have it, till, by decease of occupants, it came to be twofold again. This glimpse into the distracted effete interior of the poor old Reich and its Politics, with friends of ours concerned there, let it be welcome to the reader. [Leopoldi von Anhalt-Dessau Leben (by Ranfft), p. 127; Buchholz, i. 131.] Friedrich Wilhelm was without concern in this War, or in what had led to it. Practical share in the Polish Election (after that preliminary theoretic program of the Kaiser's and Czarina's went to smoke) Friedrich Wilhelm steadily refused to take: though considerable offers were made him on both sides,--offer of West Preussen (Polish part of Prussia, which once was known to us) on the French side. [By De la Chetardie, French Ambassador at Berlin (Buchholz, i. 130).] But his primary fixed resolution was to stand out of the quarrel; and he abides by that; suppresses any wishes of his own in regard to the Polish Election;--keeps ward on his own frontiers, with good military besom in hand, to sweep it out again if it intruded there. "What King you like, in God's name; only don't come over my threshold with his brabbles and him!" But seeing the Kaiser got into actual French War, with the Reich consenting, he is bound, by Treaty of old date (date older than WUSTERHAUSEN, though it was confirmed on that famous occasion), "To assist the Kaiser with ten thousand men;" and this engagement he intends amply to fulfil. No sooner, therefore, had the Reich given sure signs of assenting ("Reich's assent" is the condition of the ten thousand), than Friedrich Wilhelm's orders were out, "Be in readiness!" Friedrich Wilhelm, by the time of the Reich's actual assent, or Declaration of War on the Kaiser's behalf, has but to lift his finger: squadrons and battalions, out of Pommern, out of Magdeburg, out of Preussen, to the due amount, will get on march whitherward you bid, and be with you there at the day you indicate, almost at the hour. Captains, not of an imaginary nature, these are always busy; and the King himself is busy over them. From big guns and wagon-horses down to gun-flints and gaiter-straps, all is marked in registers; nothing is wanting, nothing out of its place at any time, in Friedrich Wilhelm's Army. From an early period, the French intentions upon Philipsburg might be foreseen or guessed: and in the end of March, Marechal Berwick, "in three divisions," fairly appears in that quarter; his purpose evident. So that the Reich's-Army, were it in the least ready, ought to rendezvous, and reinforce the handful of Austrians there. Friedrich Wilhelm's part of the Reich's-Army does accordingly straightway get on march; leaves Berlin, after the due reviewing, "8th April:" [Fassmann, p. 495.] eight regiments of it, three of Horse and five of Foot, Goltz Foot-regiment one of them;--a General Roder, unexceptionable General, to command in chief;--and will arrive, though the farthest off, "first of all the Reich's-Contingents;" 7th of June, namely. The march, straight south, must be some four hundred miles. Besides the Official Generals, certain high military dignitaries, Schulenburg, Bredow, Majesty himself at their head, propose to go as volunteers;--especially the Crown-Prince, whose eagerness is very great, has got liberty to go. "As volunteer" he too: as Colonel of Goltz, it might have had its unsuitabilities, in etiquette and otherwise. Few volunteers are more interested than the Crown-Prince. Watching the great War-theatre uncurtain itself in this manner, from Dantzig down to Naples; and what his own share in it shall be: this, much more than his Marriage, I suppose, has occupied his thoughts since that event. Here out of Ruppin, dating six or seven weeks before the march of the Ten Thousand, is a small sign, one among many, of his outlooks in this matter. Small Note to his Cousin, Margraf Heinrich, the ill-behaved Margraf, much his comrade, who is always falling into scrapes; and whom he has just, not without difficulty, got delivered out of something of the kind. [OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. part 2d, pp. 8, 9.] He writes in German and in the intimate style of THOU:-- "RUPPIN. 23d FEBRUARY, 1734. MY DEAR BROTHER,--I can with pleasure answer that the King hath spoken of thee altogether favorably to me [scrape now abolished, for the time]:--and I think it would not have an ill effect, wert thou to apply for leave to go with the ten thousand whom he is sending to the Rhine, and do the Campaign with them as volunteer. I am myself going with that corps; so I doubt not the King would allow thee. [Ib. xxvii. part 2d, p. 10.] This Margraf Heinrich goes; also his elder Brother, Margraf Friedrich Wilhelm,--who long persecuted Wilhelmina with his hopes; and who is now about getting Sophie Dorothee, a junior Princess, much better than he merits: Betrothal is the week after these ten thousand march; [16th April, 1734 (Ib. part 1st, p. 14 n).] he thirty, she fifteen. He too will go; as will the other pair of Cousin Margraves,--Karl, who was once our neighbor in Custrin; and the Younger Friedrich Wilhelm, whose fate lies at Prag if he knew it. Majesty himself will go as volunteer. Are not great things to be done, with Eugene for General?--To understand the insignificant Siege of Philipsburg, sum-total of the Rhine Campaign, which filled the Crown-Prince's and so many other minds brimful; that Summer, and is now wholly out of every mind, the following Excerpt may be admissible:-- "The unlucky little Town of Philipsburg, key of the Rhine in that quarter, fortified under difficulties by old Bishops of Speyer who sometimes resided there, [Kohler, Munzbelustigungen, vi. 169.] has been dismantled and refortified, has had its Rhine-bridge torn down and set up again; been garrisoned now by this party, now by that, who had 'right of garrison there;' nay France has sometimes had 'the right of garrison;'--and the poor little Town has suffered much, and been tumbled sadly about in the Succession-wars and perpetual controversies between France and Germany in that quarter. In the time we are speaking of, it has a 'flying-bridge' (of I know not what structure), with fortified 'bridge-head (TETE-DE-PONT,)' on the western or France-ward side of the River. Town's bulwarks, and complex engineering defences, are of good strength, all put in repair for this occasion: Reich and Kaiser have an effective garrison there, and a commandant determined on defence to the uttermost: what the unfortunate Inhabitants, perhaps a thousand or so in number, thought or did under such a visitation of ruin and bombshells, History gives not the least hint anywhere. 'Quite used to it!' thinks History, and attends to other points. "The Rhine Valley here is not of great breadth: eastward the heights rise to be mountainous in not many miles. By way of defence to this Valley, in the Eugene-Marlborough Wars, there was, about forty miles southward, or higher up the River than Philipsburg, a military line or chain of posts; going from Stollhofen, a boggy hamlet on the Rhine, with cunning indentations, and learned concatenation of bog and bluff, up into the inaccessibilities,--LINES OF STOLLHOFEN, the name of it,--which well-devised barrier did good service for certain years. It was not till, I think, the fourth year of their existence, year 1707, that Villars, the same Villars who is now in Italy, 'stormed the Lines of Stollhofen;' which made him famous that year. "The Lines of Stollhofen have now, in 1734, fallen flat again; but Eugene remembers them, and, I could guess, it was he who suggests a similar expedient. At all events, there is a similar expedient fallen upon: LINES OF ETTLINGEN this time; one-half nearer Philipsburg; running from Muhlburg on the Rhine-brink up to Ettlingen in the Hills. [See map] Nearer, by twenty miles; and, I guess, much more slightly done. We shall see these Lines of Ettlingen, one point of them, for a moment:--and they would not be worth mentioning at all, except that in careless Books they too are called 'Lines of STOLLHOFEN,' [Wilhelmina (ii. 206), for instance; who, or whose Printer, call them "Lines of STOKOFF" even.] and the ingenuous reader is sent wandering on his map to no purpose." "Lines of ETTLINGEN" they are; related, as now said, to the Stollhofen set. Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick-Bevern, one of the four Feldmarschalls, has some ineffectual handful of Imperial troops dotted about, within these Lines and on the skirts of Philipsburg;--eagerly waiting till the Reich's-Army gather to him; otherwise he must come to nothing. Will at any rate, I should think, be happy to resign in favor of Prince Eugene, were that little hero once on the ground. On Mayday, Marechal Berwick, who has been awake in this quarter, "in three divisions," for a month past,--very impatient till Belleisle with the first division should have taken Trarbach, and made the Western interior parts secure,--did actually cross the Rhine, with his second division, "at Fort Louis," well up the River, well south of Philipsburg; intending to attack the Lines of Ettlingen, and so get in upon the Town. There is a third division, about to lay pontoons for itself a good way farther down, which will attack the Lines simultaneously from within,--that is to say, shall come upon the back of poor Bevern and his defensive handful of troops, and astonish him there. All prospers to Berwick in this matter: Noailles his lieutenant (not yet gone to Italy till next year), with whom is Maurice Comte de Saxe (afterwards Marechal de Saxe), an excellent observant Officer, marches up to Ettlingen, May 3d; bivouacs "at the base of the mountain" (no great things of a mountain); ascends the same in two columns, horse and foot, by the first sunlight next morning; forms on a little plain on the top; issues through a thin wood,--and actually beholds those same LINES OF ETTLINGEN, the outmost eastern end of them: a somewhat inconsiderable matter, after all! Here is Noailles's own account:-- "These retrenchments, made in Turk fashion, consisted of big trees set zigzag (EN ECHIQUIER), twisted together by the branches; the whole about five fathoms thick. Inside of it were a small forlorn of Austrians: these steadily await our grenadiers, and do not give their volley till we are close. Our grenadiers receive their volley; clear the intertwisted trees, after receiving a second volley (total loss seventy-five killed and wounded); and--the enemy quits his post; and the Lines of Ettlingen ARE stormed!" [Noailles, Memoires (in Petitot's Collection), iii. 207.] This is not like storming the Lines of Stollhofen; a thing to make Noailles famous in the Newspapers for a year. But it was a useful small feat, and well enough performed on his part. The truth is, Berwick was about attacking the Lines simultaneously on the other or Muhlburg end of them (had not Noailles, now victorious, galloped to forbid); and what was far more considerable, those other French, to the northward, "upon pontoons," are fairly across; like to be upon the BACK of Duke Ferdinand and his handful of defenders. Duke Ferdinand perceives that he is come to nothing; hastily collects his people from their various posts; retreats with them that same night, unpursued, to Heilbronn; and gives up the command to Prince Eugene, who is just arrived there,--who took quietly two pinches of snuff on hearing this news of Ettlingen, and said, "No matter, after all!" Berwick now forms the Siege, at his discretion; invests Philipsburg, 13th May; [Berwick, ii. 312; 23d, says Noailles's Editor (iii. 210).] begins firing, night of the 3d-4th June;--Eugene waiting at Heilbronn till the Reich's-Army come up. The Prussian ten thousand do come, all in order, on the 7th: the rest by degrees, all later, and all NOT quite in order. Eugene, the Prussians having joined him, moves down towards Philipsburg and its cannonading; encamps close to rearward of the besieging French. "Camp of Wiesenthal" they call it; Village of Wiesenthal with bogs, on the left, being his head-quarters; Village of Waghausel, down near the River, a five miles distance, being his limit on the right. Berwick, in front, industriously battering Philipsburg into the River, has thrown up strong lines behind him, strongly manned, to defend himself from Eugene; across the River, Berwick has one Bridge, and at the farther end one battery with which he plays upon the rear of Philipsburg. He is much criticised by unoccupied people, "Eugene's attack will ruin us on those terms!"--and much incommoded by overflowings of the Rhine; Rhine swoln by melting of the mountain-snows, as is usual there. Which inundations Berwick had well foreseen, though the War-minister at Paris would not: "Haste!" answered the War-minister always: "We shall be in right time. I tell you there have fallen no snows this winter: how can inundation be?"--"Depends on the heat," said Berwick; "there are snows enough always in stock up there!" And so it proves, though the War-minister would not believe; and Berwick has to take the inundations, and to take the circumstances;--and to try if, by his own continual best exertions, he can but get Philipsburg into the bargain. On the 12th of June, visiting his posts, as he daily does, the first thing, Berwick stept out of the trenches, anxious for clear view of something; stept upon "the crest of the sap," a place exposed to both French and Austrian batteries, and which had been forbidden to the soldiers,--and there, as he anxiously scanned matters through his glass, a cannon-ball, unknown whether French or Austrian, shivered away the head of Berwick; left others to deal with the criticisms, and the inundations, and the operations big or little, at Philipsburg and elsewhere! Siege went on, better or worse, under the next in command; "Paris in great anxiety," say the Books. It is a hot siege, a stiff defence; Prince Eugene looks on, but does not attack in the way apprehended. Southward in Italy, we hear there is marching, strategying in the Parma Country; Graf von Mercy likely to come to an action before long. Northward, Dantzig by this time is all wrapt in fire-whirlwinds; its sallyings and outer defences all driven in; mere torrents of Russian bombs raining on it day and night; French auxiliaries, snapt up at landing, are on board Russian ships; and poor Stanislaus and "the Lady of Quality who shot the first gun" have a bad outlook there. Towards the end of the month, the Berlin volunteer Generals, our Crown-Prince and his Margraves among them, are getting on the road for Philipsburg;--and that is properly the one point we are concerned with. Which took effect in manner following. Tuesday evening, 29th June, there is Ball at Monbijou; the Crown-Prince and others busy dancing there, as if nothing special lay ahead. Nevertheless, at three in the morning he has changed his ball-dress for a better, he and certain more; and is rushing southward, with his volunteer Generals and Margraves, full speed, saluted by the rising sun, towards Philipsburg and the Seat of War. And the same night, King Stanislaus, if any of us cared for him, is on flight from Dantzig, "disguised as a cattle-dealer;" got out on the night of Sunday last, Town under such a rain of bombshells being palpably too hot for him: got out, but cannot get across the muddy intricacies of the Weichsel; lies painfully squatted up and down, in obscure alehouses, in that Stygian Mud-Delta,--a matter of life and death to get across, and not a boat to be had, such the vigilance of the Russian. Dantzig is capitulating, dreadful penalties exacted, all the heavier as no Stanislaus is to be found in it; and search all the keener rises in the Delta after him. Through perils and adventures of the sort usual on such occasions, [Credible modest detail of them, in a LETTER from Stanislaus himself (History of Stanislaus, already cited, pp. 235-248).] Stanislaus does get across; and in time does reach Preussen; where, by Friedrich Wilhelm's order, safe opulent asylum is afforded him, till the Fates (when this War ends) determine what is to become of the poor Imaginary Majesty. We leave him, squatted in the intricacies of the Mud-Delta, to follow our Crown-Prince, who in the same hour is rushing far elsewhither. Margraves, Generals and he, in their small string of carriages, go on, by extra-post, day and night; no rest till they get to Hof, in the Culmbach neighborhood, a good two hundred miles off,--near Wilhelmina, and more than half-way to Philipsburg. Majesty Friedrich Wilhelm is himself to follow in about a week: he has given strict order against waste of time: "Not to part company; go together, and NOT by Anspach or Baireuth,"--though they lie almost straight for you. This latter was a sore clause to Friedrich, who had counted all along on seeing his dear faithful Wilhelmina, as he passed: therefore, as the Papa's Orders, dangerous penalty lying in them, cannot be literally disobeyed, the question rises, How see Wilhelmina and not Baireuth? Wilhelmina, weak as she is and unfit for travelling, will have to meet him in some neutral place, suitablest for both. After various shiftings, it has been settled between them that Berneck, a little town twelve miles from Baireuth on the Hof road, will do; and that Friday, probably early, will be the day. Wilhelmina, accordingly, is on the road that morning, early enough; Husband with her, and ceremonial attendants, in honor of such a Brother; morning is of sultry windless sort; day hotter and hotter;--at Berneck is no Crown-Prince, in the House appointed for him; hour after hour, Wilhelmina waits there in vain. The truth is, one of the smallest accidents has happened: the Generals "lost a wheel at Gera yesterday;" were left behind there with their smiths, have not yet appeared; and the insoluble question among Friedrich and the Margraves is, "We dare not go on without them, then? We dare;--dare we?" Question like to drive Friedrich mad, while the hours, at any rate, are slipping on! Here are three Letters of Friedrich, legible at last; which, with Wilhelmina's account from the other side, represent a small entirely human scene in this French-Austrian War,--nearly all of human we have found in the beggarly affair:-- 1. TO PRINCESS WILHELMINA, AT BAIREUTH, OR ON THE ROAD TO BERNECK. [OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. part 1st, p. 13.] This is Letter First; written Friday morning, on the edge of getting into bed, after such fatigue; and it has, as natural in that mood, given up the matter in despair. It did not meet Wilhelmina on the road; and she had left Baireuth;--where it met her, I do not know; probably at home, on her return, when all was over. Let Wilhelmina now speak her own lively experiences of that same Friday:-- "I got to Berneck at ten. The heat was excessive; I found myself quite worn out with the little journey I had done. I alighted at the House which had been got ready for my Brother. We waited for him, and in vain waited, till three in the afternoon. At three we lost patience; had dinner served without him. Whilst we were at table, there came on a frightful thunder-storm. I have witnessed nothing so terrible: the thunder roared and reverberated among the rocky cliffs which begirdle Berneck; and it seemed as if the world was going to perish: a deluge of rain succeeded the thunder. "It was four o'clock; and I could not understand what had become of my Brother. I had sent out several persons on horseback to get tidings of him, and none of them came back. At length, in spite of all my prayers, the Hereditary Prince [my excellent Husband] himself would go in search. I remained waiting till nine at night, and nobody returned. I was in cruel agitations: these cataracts of rain are very dangerous in the mountain countries; the roads get suddenly overflowed, and there often happen misfortunes. I thought for certain, there had one happened to my Brother or to the Hereditary Prince." Such a 2d of July, to poor Wilhelmina! "At last, about nine, somebody brought word that my Brother had changed his route, and was gone to Culmbach [a House of ours, lying westward, known to readers]; there to stay overnight. I was for setting out thither,--Culmbach is twenty miles from Berneck; but the roads are frightful," White Mayn, still a young River, dashing through the rock-labyrinths there, "and full of precipices:--everybody rose in opposition, and, whether I would or not, they put me into the carriage for Himmelkron [partly on the road thither], which is only about ten miles off. We had like to have got drowned on the road; the waters were so swoln [White Mayn and its angry brooks], the horses could not cross but by swimming. "I arrived at last, about one in the morning. I instantly threw myself on a bed. I was like to die with weariness; and in mortal terrors that something had happened to my Brother or the Hereditary Prince. This latter relieved me on his own score; he arrived at last, about four o'clock,--had still no news farther of my Brother. I was beginning to doze a little, when they came to warn me that 'M. von Knobelsdorf wished to speak with me from the Prince-Royal.' I darted out of bed, and ran to him. He," handing me a Letter, "brought word that"-- But let us now give Letter Second, which has turned up lately, and which curiously completes the picture here. Friedrich, on rising refreshed with sleep at Hof, had taken a cheerfuler view; and the Generals still lagging rearward, he thinks it possible to see Wilhelmina after all. Possible; and yet so very dangerous,--perhaps not possible? Here is a second Letter written from Munchberg, some fifteen miles farther on, at an after period of the same Friday: purport still of a perplexed nature, "I will, and I dare not;"--practical outcome, of itself uncertain, is scattered now by torrents and thunderstorms. This is the Letter, which Knobelsdorf now hands to Wilhelmina at that untimely hour of Saturday:-- 2. TO PRINCESS WILHELMINA (by Knobelsdorf). "MUNCHBERG, 2d July, 1754. "MY DEAREST SISTER,--I am in despair that I cannot satisfy my impatience and my duty,--to throw myself at your feet this day. But alas, dear Sister, it does not depend on me: we poor Princes, "the Margraves and I," are obliged to wait here till our Generals [Bredow, Schulenburg and Company] come up; we dare not go along without them. They broke a wheel in Gera [fifty miles behind us]; hearing nothing of them since, we are absolutely forced to wait here. Judge in what a mood I am, and what sorrow must be mine! Express order not to go by Baireuth or Anspach:--forbear, dear sister, to torment me on things not depending on myself at all. "I waver between hope and fear of paying my court to you. I hope it might still be at Berneck," this evening,--"if you could contrive a road into the Nurnberg Highway again; avoiding Baireuth: otherwise I dare not go. The Bearer, who is Captain Knobelsdorf [excellent judicious man, old acquaintance from the Custrin time, who attends upon us, actual Captain once, but now titular merely, given to architecture and the fine arts (Seyfarth (Anonymous), Lebens-und Regierungs-Geschichte Friedrichs des Andern (Leipzig, 1786), ii. 200. OEuvres de Frederic, vii. 33. Preuss, Friedrich mit seinen Verwandten (Berlin. 1838), pp. 8, 17.)], will apprise you of every particular: let Knobelsdorf settle something that may be possible. This is how I stand at present; and instead of having to expect some favor from the King [after what I have done by his order], I get nothing but chagrin. But what is crueler upon me than all, is that you are ill. God, in his grace, be pleased to help you, and restore the precious health which I so much wish you!... FRIEDRICH." [OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. part lst, p. 15.] Judicious Knobelsdorf settles that the meeting is to be this very morning at eight; Wilhelmina (whose memory a little fails her in the insignificant points) does not tell us where: but, by faint indications, I perceive it was in the Lake-House, pleasant Pavilion in the ancient artificial Lake, or big ornamental Fishpond, called BRANDENBURGER WEIHER, a couple of miles to the north of Baireuth: there Friedrich is to stop,--keeping the Paternal Order from the teeth outwards in this manner. Eight o'clock: so that Wilhelmina is obliged at once to get upon the road again,--poor Princess, after such a day and night. Her description of the Interview is very good:-- "My Brother overwhelmed me with caresses; but found me in so pitiable a state, he could not restrain his tears. I was not able to stand on my limbs; and felt like to faint every moment, so weak was I. He told me the King was much angered at the Margraf [my Father-in-Law] for not letting his Son make the Campaign,"--concerning which point, said Son, my Husband, being Heir-Apparent, there had been much arguing in Court and Country, here at Baireuth, and endless anxiety on my poor part, lest he should get killed in the Wars. "I told him all the Margraf's reasons; and added, that surely they were good, in respect of my dear Husband. 'Well,' said he, 'let him quit soldiering, then, and give back his regiment to the King. But for the rest, quiet yourself as to the fears you may have about him if he do go; for I know, by certain information, that there will be no blood spilt.'--'They are at the Siege of Philipsburg, however.'--'Yes,' said my Brother, 'but there will not be a battle risked to hinder it.' "The Hereditary Prince," my Husband, "came in while we were talking so; and earnestly entreated my Brother to get him away from Baireuth. They went to a window, and talked a long time together. In the end, my Brother told me he would write a very obliging Letter to the Margraf, and give him such reasons in favor of the Campaign, that he doubted not it would turn the scale. 'We will stay together,' said he, addressing the Hereditary Prince; 'and I shall be charmed to have my dear Brother always beside me.' He wrote the Letter; gave it to Baron Stein [Chamberlain or Goldstick of ours], to deliver to the Margraf. He promised to obtain the King's express leave to stop at Baireuth on his return;--after which he went away. It was the last time I saw him on the old footing with me: he has much changed since then!--We returned to Baireuth; where I was so ill that, for three days, they did not think I should get over it." [Wilhelmina, ii. 200-202.] Crown-Prince dashes off, southwestward, through cross country, into the Nurnberg Road again; gets to Nurnberg that same Saturday night; and there, among other Letters, writes the following; which will wind up this little Incident for us, still in a human manner:-- 3. TO PRINCESS WILHELMINA AT BAIREUTH. [OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. part lst, p. 57.] Generals with their wheel mended, Margraves, Prince and now the Camp Equipage too, are all at Nurnberg; and start on the morrow; hardly a hundred miles now to be done,--but on slower terms, owing to the Equipage. Heilbronn, place of arms or central stronghold of the Reich's-Army, they reach on Monday: about Eppingen, next night, if the wind is westerly, one may hear the cannon,--not without interest. It was Wednesday forenoon, 7th July, 1734, on some hill-top coming down from Eppingen side, that the Prince first saw Philipsburg Siege, blotting the Rhine Valley yonder with its fire and counter-fire; and the Tents of Eugene stretching on this side: first view he ever had of the actualities of war. His account to Papa is so distinct and good, we look through it almost as at first-hand for a moment:-- "CAMP AT WIESENTHAL, Wednesday, 7th July, 1734. [OEuvres, xxvii. part 3d, p. 79.] Neither of those fine plans took effect; nor did anything take effect, as we shall see. But in regard to that "survey from the steeple of Waghausel, and ride home again between the Lines,"--in regard to that, here is an authentic fraction of anecdote, curiously fitting in, which should not be omitted. A certain Herr van Suhm, Saxon Minister at Berlin, occasionally mentioned here, stood in much Correspondence with the Crown-Prince in the years now following: Correspondence which was all published at the due distance of time; Suhm having, at his decease, left the Prince's Letters carefully assorted with that view, and furnished with a Prefatory "Character of the Prince-Royal (Portrait du Prince-Royal, par M. de Suhm)." Of which Preface this is a small paragraph, relating to the Siege of Philipsburg; offering us a momentary glance into one fibre of the futile War now going on there. Of Suhm, and how exact he was, we shall know a little by and by. Of "Prince von Lichtenstein," an Austrian man and soldier of much distinction afterwards, we have only to say that he came to Berlin next year on Diplomatic business, and that probably enough he had been eye-witness to the little fact,--fact credible perhaps without much proving. One rather regretted there was no date to it, no detail to give it whereabout and fixity in our conception; that the poor little Anecdote, though indubitable, had to hang vaguely in the air. Now, however, the above dated LETTER does, by accident, date Suhm's Anecdote too; date "July 8" as good as certain for it; the Siege itself having ended (July 18) in ten days more. Herr von Suhm writes (not for publication till after Friedrich's death and his own):-- "It was remarked in the Rhine Campaign of 1734, that this Prince has a great deal of intrepidity (BEAUCOUP DE VALEUR). On one occasion, among others [to all appearance, this very day, "July 8," riding home from Waghausel between the lines], when he had gone to reconnoitre the Lines of Philipsburg, with a good many people about him,--passing, on his return, along a strip of very thin wood, the cannon-shot from the Lines accompanied him incessantly, and crashed down several trees at his side; during all which he walked his horse along at the old pace, precisely as if nothing were happening, nor in his hand upon the bridle was there the least trace of motion perceptible. Those who gave attention to the matter remarked, on the contrary, that he did not discontinue speaking very tranquilly to some Generals who accompanied him; and who admired his bearing, in a kind of danger with which he had not yet had occasion to familiarize himself. It is from the Prince von Lichtenstein that I have this anecdote." [Correspondance de Frederic II. avec M. de Suhm (Berlin, 1787); Avant-propos, p. xviii. (written 28th April, 1740). The CORRESPONDANCE is all in OEuvres de Frederic (xvi, 247-408); but the Suhm Preface not.] On the 15th arrived his Majesty in person, with the Old Dessauer, Buddenbrock, Derschau and a select suite; in hopes of witnessing remarkable feats of war, now that the crisis of Philipsburg was coming on. Many Princes were assembled there, in the like hope: Prince of Orange (honeymoon well ended [Had wedded Princess Anne, George II.'s eldest, 25th (14th) March, 1734; to the joy of self and mankind, in England here.]), a vivacious light gentleman, slightly crooked in the back; Princes of Baden, Darmstadt, Waldeck: all manner of Princes and distinguished personages, fourscore Princes of them by tale, the eyes of Europe being turned on this matter, and on old Eugene's guidance of it. Prince Fred of England, even he had a notion of coming to learn war. It was about this time, not many weeks ago, that Fred, now falling into much discrepancy with his Father, and at a loss for a career to himself, appeared on a sudden in the Antechamber at St. James's one day; and solemnly demanded an interview with his Majesty. Which his indignant Majesty, after some conference with Walpole, decided to grant. Prince Fred, when admitted, made three demands: 1. To be allowed to go upon the Rhine Campaign, by way of a temporary career for himself; 2. That he might have something definite to live upon, a fixed revenue being suitable in his circumstances; 3. That, after those sad Prussian disappointments, some suitable Consort might be chosen for him,--heart and household lying in such waste condition. Poor Fred, who of us knows what of sense might be in these demands? Few creatures more absurdly situated are to be found in this world. To go where his equals were, and learn soldiering a little, might really have been useful. Paternal Majesty received Fred and his Three Demands with fulminating look; answered, to the first two, nothing; to the third, about a Consort, "Yes, you shall; but be respectful to the Queen;--and now off with you; away!" [Coxe's Walpole, i. 322.] Poor Fred, he has a circle of hungry Parliamenteers about him; young Pitt, a Cornet of Horse, young Lyttelton of Hagley, our old Soissons friend, not to mention others of worse type; to whom this royal Young Gentleman, with his vanities, ambitions, inexperiences, plentiful inflammabilities, is important for exploding Walpole. He may have, and with great justice I should think, the dim consciousness of talents for doing something better than "write madrigals" in this world; infinitude of wishes and appetites he clearly has;--he is full of inflammable materials, poor youth. And he is the Fireship those older hands make use of for blowing Walpole and Company out of their anchorage. What a school of virtue for a young gentleman;--and for the elder ones concerned with him! He did not get to the Rhine Campaign; nor indeed ever to anything, except to writing madrigals, and being very futile, dissolute and miserable with what of talent Nature had given him. Let us pity the poor constitutional Prince. Our Fritz was only in danger of losing his life; but what is that, to losing your sanity, personal identity almost, and becoming Parliamentary Fireship to his Majesty's Opposition? Friedrich Wilhelm stayed a month campaigning here; graciously declined Prince Eugene's invitation to lodge in Headquarters, under a roof and within built walls; preferred a tent among his own people, and took the common hardships,--with great hurt to his weak health, as was afterwards found. In these weeks, the big Czarina, who has set a price (100,000 rubles, say 15,000 pounds) upon the head of poor Stanislaus, hears that his Prussian Majesty protects him; and thereupon signifies, in high terms, That she, by her Feld-marschall Munnich, will come across the frontiers and seize the said Stanislaus. To which his Prussian Majesty answers positively, though in proper Diplomatic tone, "Madam, I will in no wise permit it!" Perhaps his Majesty's remarkablest transaction, here on the Rhine, was this concerning Stanislaus. For Seckendorf the Feldzeugmeister was here also, on military function, not forgetful of the Diplomacies; who busily assailed his Majesty, on the Kaiser's part, in the same direction: "Give up Stanislaus, your Majesty! How ridiculous (LACHERLICH) to be perhaps ruined for Stanislaus!" But without the least effect, now or afterwards. Poor Stanislaus, in the beginning of July, got across into Preussen, as we intimated; and there he continued, safe against any amount of rubles and Feldmarschalls, entreaties and menaces. At Angerburg, on the Prussian frontier, he found a steadfast veteran, Lieutenant-General von Katte, Commandant in those parts (Father of a certain poor Lieutenant, whom we tragically knew of long ago!)--which veteran gentleman received the Fugitive Majesty, [Militair-Lexikon, ii. 254.] with welcome in the King's name, and assurances of an honorable asylum till the times and roads should clear again for his Fugitive Majesty. Fugitive Majesty, for whom the roads and times were very dark at present, went to Marienwerder; talked of going "to Pillau, for a sea-passage," of going to various places; went finally to Konigsberg, and there--with a considerable Polish Suite of Fugitives, very moneyless, and very expensive, most of them, who had accumulated about him--set up his abode. There for almost two years, in fact till this War ended, the Fugitive Polish Majesty continued; Friedrich Wilhelm punctually protecting him, and even paying him a small Pension (50 pounds a month),--France, the least it could do for the Grandfather of France, allowing a much larger one; larger, though still inadequate. France has left its Grandfather strangely in the lurch here; with "100,000 rubles on his head." But Friedrich Wilhelm knows the sacred rites, and will do them; continues deaf as a door-post alike to the menaces and the entreaties of Kaiser and Czarina; strictly intimating to Munnich, what the Laws of Neutrality are, and that they must be observed. Which, by his Majesty's good arrangements, Munnich, willing enough to the contrary had it been feasible, found himself obliged to comply with. Prussian Majesty, like a King and a gentleman, would listen to no terms about dismissing or delivering up, or otherwise, failing in the sacred rites to Stanislaus; but honorably kept him there till the times and routes cleared themselves again. [Forster, ii. 132, 134-136.] A plain piece of duty; punctually done: the beginning of it falls here in the Camp at Philipsburg, July-August 1734; in May, 1736, we shall see some glimpse of the end!-- His Prussian Majesty in Camp at Philipsburg--so distinguished a volunteer, doing us the honor to encamp here--"was asked to all the Councils-of-war that were held," say the Books. And he did attend, the Crown-Prince and he, on important occasions: but, alas, there was, so to speak, nothing to be consulted of. Fascines and hurdles lay useless; no attempt was made to relieve Philipsburg. On the third day after his Majesty's arrival, July 18th, Philipsburg, after a stiff defence of six weeks, growing hopeless of relief, had to surrender;--French then proceeded to repair Philipsburg, no attempt on Eugene's part to molest them there. If they try ulterior operations on this side the River, he counter-tries; and that is all. Our Crown-Prince, somewhat of a judge in after years, is maturely of opinion, That the French Lines were by no means inexpugnable; that the French Army might have been ruined under an attack of the proper kind. [OEuvres de Frederic, i. 167.] Their position was bad; no room to unfold themselves for fight, except with the Town's cannon playing on them all the while; only one Bridge to get across by, in case of coming to the worse: defeat of them probable, and ruin to them inevitable in case of defeat. But Prince Eugene, with an Army little to his mind (Reich's-Contingents not to be depended on, thought Eugene), durst not venture: "Seventeen victorious Battles, and if we should be defeated in the eighteenth and last?" It is probable the Old Dessauer, had he been Generalissimo, with this same Army,--in which, even in the Reich's part of it, we know ten thousand of an effective character,--would have done some stroke upon the French; but Prince Eugene would not try. Much dimmed from his former self this old hero; age now 73;--a good deal wearied with the long march through Time. And this very Summer, his Brother's Son, the last male of his House, had suddenly died of inflammatory fever; left the old man very mournful: "Alone, alone, at the end of one's long march; laurels have no fruit, then?" He stood cautious, on the defensive; and in this capacity is admitted to have shown skilful management. But Philipsburg being taken, there is no longer the least event to be spoken of; the Campaign passed into a series of advancings, retreatings, facing, and then right-about facings,--painful manoeuvrings, on both sides of the Rhine and of the Neckar,--without result farther to the French, without memorability to either side. About the middle of August, Friedrich Wilhelm went away;--health much hurt by his month under canvas, amid Rhine inundations, and mere distressing phenomena. Crown-Prince Friedrich and a select party escorted his Majesty to Mainz, where was a Dinner of unusual sublimity by the Kurfurst there; [15th August (Fassmann, p. 511.)]--Dinner done, his Majesty stept on board "the Electoral Yacht;" and in this fine hospitable vehicle went sweeping through the Binger Loch, rapidly down towards Wesel; and the Crown-Prince and party returned to their Camp, which is upon the Neckar at this time. Camp shifts about, and Crown-Prince in it: to Heidelberg, to Waiblingen, Weinheim; close to Mainz at one time: but it is not worth following: nor in Friedrich's own Letters, or in other documents, is there, on the best examination, anything considerable to be gleaned respecting his procedures there. He hears of the ill-success in Italy, Battle of Parma at the due date, with the natural feelings; speaks with a sorrowful gayety, of the muddy fatigues, futilities here on the Rhine;--has the sense, however, not to blame his superiors unreasonably. Here, from one of his Letters to Colonel Camas, is a passage worth quoting for the credit of the writer. With Camas, a distinguished Prussian Frenchman, whom we mentioned elsewhere, still more with Madame Camas in time coming, he corresponded much, often in a fine filial manner:-- "The present Campaign is a school, where profit may be reaped from observing the confusion and disorder which reigns in this Army: it has been a field very barren in laurels; and those who have been used, all their life, to gather such, and on Seventeen distinguished occasions have done so, can get none this time." Next year, we all hope to be on the Moselle, and to find that a fruitfuler field... "I am afraid, dear Camas, you think I am going to put on the cothurnus; to set up for a small Eugene, and, pronouncing with a doctoral tone what each should have done and not have done, condemn and blame to right and left. No, my dear Camas; far from carrying my arrogance to that point, I admire the conduct of our Chief, and do not disapprove that of his worthy Adversary; and far from forgetting the esteem and consideration due to persons who, scarred with wounds, have by years and long service gained a consummate experience, I shall hear them more willingly than ever as my teachers, and try to learn from them how to arrive at honor, and what is the shortest road into the secret of this Profession." ["Camp at Heidelberg, 11th September, 1734" (OEuvres, xvi. 131).] This other, to Lieutenant Groben, three weeks earlier in date, shows us a different aspect; which is at least equally authentic; and may be worth taking with us. Groben is Lieutenant,--I suppose still of the Regiment Goltz, though he is left there behind;--at any rate, he is much a familiar with the Prince at Ruppin; was ringleader, it is thought, in those midnight pranks upon parsons, and the other escapades there; [Busching, v. 20.] a merry man, eight years older than the Prince,--with whom it is clear enough he stands on a very free footing. Philipsburg was lost a month ago; French are busy repairing it; and manoeuvring, with no effect, to get into the interior of Germany a little. Weinheim is a little Town on the north side of the Neckar, a dozen miles or so from Mannheim;--out of which, and into which, the Prussian Corps goes shifting from time to time, as Prince Eugene and the French manoeuvre to no purpose in that Rhine-Neckar Country. "HERDEK TEREMTETEM" it appears, is a bit of Hungarian swearing; should be ORDEK TEREMTETE; and means "The Devil made you!"
"HERDEK TEREMTETE! 'Went with them, got hanged with them,' ["Mitgegangen mitgehangen:" Letter is in German.] said the Bielefeld Innkeeper! So will it be with me, poor devil; for I go dawdling about with this Army here; and the French will have the better of us. We want to be over the Neckar again [to the South or Philipsburg side], and the rogues won't let us. What most provokes me in the matter is, that while we are here in such a wilderness of trouble, doing our utmost, by military labors and endurances, to make ourselves heroic, thou sittest, thou devil, at home! "Duc de Bouillon has lost his equipage; our Hussars took it at Landau [other side the Rhine, a while ago]. Here we stand in mud to the ears; fifteen of the Regiment Alt-Baden have sunk altogether in the mud. Mud comes of a water-spout, or sudden cataract of rain, there was in these Heidelberg Countries; two villages, Fuhrenheim and Sandhausen, it swam away, every stick of them (GANZ UND GAR). "Captain van Stojentin, of Regiment Flans," one of our eight Regiments here, "has got wounded in the head, in an affair of honor; he is still alive, and it is hoped he will get through it. "The Drill-Demon has now got into the Kaiser's people too: Prince Eugene is grown heavier with his drills than we ourselves. He is often three hours at it;--and the Kaiser's people curse us for the same, at a frightful rate. Adieu. If the Devil don't get thee, he ought. Therefore VALE. [OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. part 3d, p. 181.] "FRIEDRICH." No laurels to be gained here; but plenty of mud, and laborious hardship,--met, as we perceive, with youthful stoicism, of the derisive, and perhaps of better forms. Friedrich is twenty-two and some months, when he makes his first Campaign. The general physiognomy of his behavior in it we have to guess from these few indications. No doubt he profited by it, on the military side; and would study with quite new light and vivacity after such contact with the fact studied of. Very didactic to witness even "the confusions of this Army," and what comes of them to Armies! For the rest, the society of Eugene, Lichtenstein, and so many Princes of the Reich, and Chiefs of existing mankind, could not but be entertaining to the young man; and silently, if he wished to read the actual Time, as sure enough he, with human and with royal eagerness, did wish,--they were here as the ALPHABET of it to him: important for years coming. Nay it is not doubted, the insight he here got into the condition of the Austrian Army and its management--"Army left seven days without bread," for one instance--gave him afterwards the highly important notion, that such Army could be beaten if necessary!-- Wilhelmina says, his chief comrade was Margraf Heinrich;--the ILL Margraf; who was cut by Friedrich, in after years, for some unknown bad behavior. Margraf Heinrich "led him into all manner of excesses," says Wilhelmina,--probably in the language of exaggeration. He himself tells her, in one of his LETTERS, a day or two before Papa's departure: "The Camp is soon to be close on Mainz, nothing but the Rhine between Mainz and our right wing, where my place is; and so soon as Serenissimus goes [LE SERENISSIME, so he irreverently names Papa], I mean to be across for some sport," [OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. part 1st, p. 17 (10th August).]--no doubt the Ill Margraf with me! With the Elder Margraf, little Sophie's Betrothed, whom he called "big clown" in a Letter we read, he is at this date in open quarrel,--"BROUILLE A TOUTE OUTRANCE with the mad Son-in-law, who is the wildest wild-beast of all this Camp." [Ibid.] Wilhelmina's Husband had come, in the beginning of August; but was not so happy as he expected. Considerably cut out by the Ill Heinrich. Here is a small adventure they had; mentioned by Friedrich, and copiously recorded by Wilhelmina: adventure on some River,--which we could guess, if it were worth guessing, to have been the Neckar, not the Rhine. French had a fortified post on the farther side of this River; Crown-Prince, Ill Margraf, and Wilhelmina's Husband were quietly looking about them, riding up the other side: Wilhelmina's Husband decided to take a pencil-drawing of the French post, and paused for that object. Drawing was proceeding unmolested, when his foolish Baireuth Hussar, having an excellent rifle (ARQUEBUSE RAYEE) with him, took it into his head to have a shot at the French sentries at long range. His shot hit nothing; but it awakened the French animosity, as was natural; the French began diligently firing; and might easily have done mischief. My Husband, volleying out some rebuke upon the blockhead of a Hussar, finished his drawing, in spite of the French bullets; then rode up to the Crown-Prince and Ill Margraf, who had got their share of what was going, and were in no good-humor with him. Ill Margraf rounded things into the Crown-Prince's ear, in an unmannerly way, with glances at my Husband;--who understood it well enough; and promptly coerced such ill-bred procedures, intimating, in a polite impressive way, that they would be dangerous if persisted in. Which reduced the Ill Margraf to a spiteful but silent condition. No other harm was done at that time; the French bullets all went awry, or "even fell short, being sucked in by the river," thinks Wilhelmina. [Wilhelmina, ii. 208, 209; OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. part 1st, p. 19.] A more important feature of the Crown-Prince's life in these latter weeks is the news he gets of his father. Friedrich Wilhelm, after quitting the Electoral Yacht, did his reviewing at Wesel, at Bielefeld, all his reviewing in those Rhine and Weser Countries; then turned aside to pay a promised visit to Ginkel the Berlin Dutch Ambassador, who has a fine House in those parts; and there his Majesty has fallen seriously ill. Obliged to pause at Ginkel's, and then at his own Schloss of Moyland, for some time; does not reach Potsdam till the 14th September, and then in a weak, worsening, and altogether dangerous condition, which lasts for months to come. [Fassmann, pp. 512-533: September, 1734-January, 1735.] Wrecks of gout, they say, and of all manner of nosological mischief; falling to dropsy. Case desperate, think all the Newspapers, in a cautious form; which is Friedrich Wilhelm's own opinion pretty much, and that of those better informed. Here are thoughts for a Crown-Prince; well affected to his Father, yet suffering much from him which is grievous. To by-standers, one now makes a different figure: "A Crown-Prince, who may be King one of these days,--whom a little adulation were well spent upon!" From within and from without come agitating influences; thoughts which must be rigorously repressed, and which are not wholly repressible. The soldiering Crown-Prince, from about the end of September, for the last week or two of this Campaign, is secretly no longer quite the same to himself or to others. _ |
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