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History Of Friedrich II of Prussia [Books XV - XXI], a non-fiction book by Thomas Carlyle |
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Book 18. Seven-Years War Rises To A Height.--1757-1759 - __I. Friedrich's March To Erfurt From Dresden--(31st August-13th September, 1757) |
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_ BOOK XVIII. SEVEN-YEARS WAR RISES TO A HEIGHT.--1757-1759 (Chapter VII cont.)
A march altogether of the common type,--the stages of it not worth marking except for special readers;--and of memorable to us offers only this, if even this: at Rotha, in Leipzig Country, the eighth stage from Dresden, Friedrich writes, willing to try for Peace if it be possible,
"ROTHA, 7th September, 1757. "I feel, M. le Duc, that you have not been put in the post where you are for the purpose of Negotiating. I am persuaded, however, that the Nephew of the great Cardinal Richelieu is made for signing treaties no less than for gaining battles. I address myself to you from an effect of the esteem with which you inspire even those who do not intimately know you. "'T is a small matter, Monsieur (IL S'AGIT D'UNE BAGATELLE): only to make Peace, if people are pleased to wish it! I know not what your Instructions are: but, in the supposition that the King your Master, zow assured by your Successes, will have put it in your power to labor in the pacification of Germany, I address to you the Sieur d'Elcheset" (Sieur Balbi is the real name of him, an Italian Engineer of mine, who once served with you in the Fontenoy times,--and some say he has privately a 15,000 pounds for your Grace's acceptance,--"the Sieur d'Elcheset), in whom you may place complete confidence. "Though the events of this Year afford no hope that your Court still entertains a favorable disposition for my interests, I cannot persuade myself that a union which has lasted between us for sixteen years may not have left some trace in the mind. Perhaps I judge others by myself. But, however that may be, I, in short, prefer putting my interests into the King your Master's hands rather than into any other's. If you have not, Monsieur, any Instructions as to the Proposal hereby made, I beg of you to ask such, and to inform me what the tenor of them is. "He who has merited statues at Genoa [ten years ago, in those ANTI-Austrian times, when Genoa burst up in revolt, and the French and Richelieu beautifully intervened against the oppressors]; he who conquered Minorca in spite of immense obstacles; he who is on the point of subjugating Lower Saxony,--can do nothing more glorious than to restore Peace to Europe. Of all your laurels, that will be the fairest. Work in this Cause, with the activity which has secured you such rapid progress otherwise; and be persuaded that nobody will feel more grateful to you than, Monsieur le Duc,--Your faithful Friend,-- FREDERIC." [Given in RODENBECK, i. 313 (doubtless from Memoires de Richelieu, Paris, 1793, ix. 175, the one fountain-head in regard to this small affair): for "the 15,000 pounds" and other rumored particulars, sea Retzow, i. 197; Preuss, ii. 84; OEuvres de Frederic, iv. 145.] Richelieu, it appears by any evidence there is, went willingly into this scheme; and applied at Versailles, as desired; with a peremptory negative for result. Nothing came of the Richelieu attempt there; nor of "CE M. DE MIRABEAU," if he ever went; nor of any other on that errand. Needless to apply for Peace at Versailles (and a mere waste of your "sum of 15,000 pounds," which one hopes is fabulous in the present scarcity of money):--or should we perhaps have mentioned the thing at all, except for the sake of Wilhelmina, whose fond scheme it is in this extremity of fate; scheme which she tries in still other directions, as we shall see; her Brother willing too, but probably with much less hope. If a civil Letter and a bribe of Money will do it, these need not be spared. This at Rotha is the day while Winterfeld, on Moys Hill, is meeting his death. To-day at Pegau, in this neighborhood, Seidlitz, who could not fall in with Turpin, has given the Hussars of Loudon a beautiful slap; the first enemy we have seen on this march; and the last,--nothing but Loudon and Hussars visibly about, the rest of those Soubise-Reichs people dormant, as would seem. "D'Elcheset," Balbi, or whoever he was, would not find Richelieu at Hanover; but at a place called Kloster-Zeven, in Bremen Country, fifty or sixty miles farther on. There, this day, are Richelieu with one Sporcken a Hanoverian, and one Lynar a Dane, rapidly finishing a thing they were pleased to call "Convention of Kloster-Zeven;" which Friedrich regarded as another huge misfortune fallen on him,--though it proved to have been far the reverse a while after. Concerning which take this brief Note; cannot be too brief on such a topic:-- "Never was there a more futile Convention than that of Kloster-Zeven; which filled all Europe with lamentable noises, indignations and anxieties, during the remainder of that Year; and is now reduced, for Europe and the Universe, to a silent mathematical point, or mere mark of position, requiring still to be attended to in that character, though itself zero in any other. Here are the main particulars, in their sequence. "August 3d, towards midnight, '11 P.M.' say the Books, Marechal de Richelieu arrives in the D'Estrees Camp ('Camp of Oldendorf,' still only one march west of Hastenbeck); to whom D'Estrees on the instant loftily delivers up his Army; explains with loyalty, for a few days more, all things needful to the new Commander; declines to be himself Second; and loftily withdraws to the Baths of Aachen 'for his health.' "Royal Highness of Cumberland is, by this time, well on Elbe-ward, Ocean-ward. Till August 1st; for one week, Royal Highness of Cumberland lay at Minden, some thirty odd miles from Hastenbeck; deploring that sad mistake; but unpersuadable to stand, and try amendment of it: August 1st, the French advancing on him again, he moved off northward, seaward. By Nienburg, Verden, Rothenburg, Zeven, Bremenvorde, Stade;--arrived at Stade, on the tidal Waters of the Elbe, August 5th; and by necessity did halt there. From Minden onwards, Richelieu, not D'Estrees, has had the chasing of Royal Highness: one of the simplest functions; only that the country is getting muddy, difficult for artillery-carriage (thinks Richelieu), with an Army so dilapidated, hungry, short of pay; and that Royal Highness, a very furious person to our former knowledge, might turn on us like a boar at bay, endangering everything; and finally, that one's desire is not for battle, but for a fair chance of plunder to pay one's debts. "Britannic Majesty, in this awful state of his Hanover Armaments, has been applying at the Danish Court; Richelieu too sends off an application thither: 'Mediate between us, spare useless bloodshed!' [Valfons, p. 291.]--Whereupon Danish Majesty (Britannic's son-in-law) cheerfully undertakes it; bids one Lynar bestir himself upon it. Count Lynar, an esteemed Official of his, who lives in those neighborhoods; Danish Viceroy in Oldenburg,--much concerned with the Scriptures, the Sacred Languages and other seraphic studies,--and a changed man since we saw him last in the Petersburg regions, making love to Mrs. Anton Ulrich long ago! Lynar, feeling the axis of the world laid on his shoulder in this manner, loses not a moment; invokes the Heavenly Powers; goes on it with an alacrity and a despatch beyond praise. Runs to the Duke of Cumberland at Stade; thence to Richelieu at Zeven; back to the Duke, back to Zeven: 'Won't you; and won't YOU?' and in four short days has the once world-famed 'Convention of Kloster-Zeven' standing on parchment,--signed, ready for ratifying: 'Royal Highness's Army to go home to their countries again [routes, methods, times: when, how, and what next, all left unsettled], and noise of War to cease in those parts.' Signed cheerfully on both sides 9th September, 1757; and Lynar striking the stars with his sublime head. [Busching (who alone is exact in the matter), Beitrage, iv. 167, 168,? Lynar: see Scholl, iii. 49; Valfons, pp. 202, 203; OEuvres de Frederic, iv. 143 (with correction of Preuss's Note there).] "Unaccountable how Lynar had managed such a difficulty. He says seraphically, in a Letter to a friend, which the Prussian hussars got hold of, 'The idea of it was inspired by the Holy Ghost:' at which the whole world haha'd again. For it was a Convention vague, absurd, not capable of being executed; ratification of it refused by both Courts, by the French Court first, if that was any matter:--and the only thing now memorable of it is, that IT was a total Futility; but, that there ensued from it a Fact still of importance; namely:-- "That on the 5th of October following, Royal Highness quitted Stade, and his wrecked Army hanging sorrowful there, like a flight of plucked cranes in mid-air;--arrived at Kensington, October 12th; heard the paternal Majesty say, that evening, 'Here is my son who has ruined me, and disgraced himself!'--and thereupon indignantly laid down his military offices, all and sundry; and ceased altogether to command Armies, English or other, in this world. [In WALPOLE (iii. 59-64) the amplest minuteness of detail.] Whereby, in the then and now diagram of things, Kloster-Zeven, as a mathematical point, continues memorable in History, though shrunk otherwise to zero! "Pitt's magnanimity to Royal Highness was conspicuous. Royal Highness, it is said, had been very badly used in this matter by his poor peddling Father and the Hanover Ministers; the matter being one puddle of imbecilities from beginning to end. He was the soul of honor; brave as a Welf lion; but, of dim poor head; and had not the faintest vestige [ALLERGERINGSTE says Mauvillon] of military skill: awful in the extreme to see in command of British Armies! Adieu to him, forever and a day." Ever since July 29th, three days after Hastenbeck, Pitt had been in Office again; such the bombardment by Corporation-Boxes and Events impinging on Britannic Majesty: but not till now, as I fancy, had Pitt's way, in regard to those German matters, been clear to him. The question of a German Army, if you must, have a No-General at the top of it, might well be problematical to Pitt. To equip your strong fighting man, and send him on your errand, regardless of expense; and, by way of preliminary, cut the head off him, before saying "Good-speed to you, strong man!" But with a General, Pitt sees that it can be different; that perhaps "America can be conquered in Germany," and that, with a Britannic Majesty so disposed, there is no other way of trying it. To this course Pitt stands henceforth, heedless of the gazetteer cackle, "Hah, our Pitt too become German, after all his talking!"--like a seventy-four under full sail, with sea, wind, pilot all of one mind, and only certain water-fowl objecting. And is King of England for the next Four Years; the one King poor England has had this long while;--his hand felt shortly at the ends of the Earth. And proves such a blessing to Friedrich, among others, as nothing else in this War; pretty much his one blessing, little as he expected it. Before long, Excellency Mitchell begins consulting about a General,--and Friedrich dimly sees better things in the distance, and that Kloster-Zeven had not been the misfortune he imagined, but only "The darkest hour," which, it is said, lies "nearest to the dawn." _ |
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