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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 - __Friedrich's Speech To His Generals (Parchwitz, 3d December, 1757). [From Retzow, I. 240-242 (Slightly Abridged)] |
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_ BOOK XVIII. SEVEN-YEARS WAR RISES TO A HEIGHT.--1757-1759 (Chapter IX cont.) "It is not unknown to you, MEINE HERREN, what disasters have befallen here, while we were busy with the French and Reichs Army. Schweidnitz is gone; Duke of Bevern beaten; Breslau gone, and all our war-stores there; good part of Silesia gone: and, in fact, my embarrassments would be at the insuperable pitch, had not I boundless trust in you, and your qualities, which have been so often manifested, as soldiers and sons of your Country. Hardly one among you but has distinguished himself by some nobly memorable action: all these services to the State and me I know well, and will never forget. "I flatter myself, therefore, that in this case too nothing will be wanting which the State has a right to expect of your valor. The hour is at hand. I should think I had done nothing, if I left the Austrians in possession of Silesia. Let me apprise you, then: I intend, in spite of the Rules of Art, to attack Prince Karl's Army, which is nearly thrice our strength, wherever I find it. The question is not of his numbers, or the strength of his position: all this, by courage, by the skill of our methods, we will try to make good. This step I must risk, or everything is lost. We must beat the enemy, or perish all of us before his batteries. So I read the case; so I will act in it. "Make this my determination known to all Officers of the Army; prepare the men for what work is now to ensue, and say that I hold myself entitled to demand exact fulfilment of orders. For you, when I reflect that you are Prussians, can I think that you will act unworthily? But if there should be one or another who dreads to share all dangers with me, he,"--continued his Majesty, with an interrogative look, and then pausing for answer,--"can have his Discharge this evening, and shall not suffer the least reproach from me."--Modest strong bass murmur; meaning "No, by the Eternal!" if you looked into the eyes and faces of the group. Never will Retzow Junior forget that scene, and how effulgently eloquent the veteran physiognomies were. "Hah, I knew it," said the King, with his most radiant smile, "none of you would desert me! I depend on your help, then; and on victory as sure."--The speech winds up with a specific passage: "The Cavalry regiment that does not on the instant, on order given, dash full plunge into the enemy, I will, directly after the Battle, unhorse, and make it a Garrison regiment. The Infantry battalion which, meet with what it may, shows the least sign of hesitating, loses its colors and its sabres, and I cut the trimmings from its uniform! Now good-night, Gentlemen: shortly we have either beaten the Enemy, or we never see one another again." An excellent temper in this Army; a rough vein of heroism in it, steady to the death;--and plenty of hope in it too, hope in Vater Fritz. "Never mind," the soldiers used to say, in John Duke of Marlborough's time, "Corporal John will get us through it!"--That same evening Friedrich rode into the Camp, where the regiments he had were now all gathered, out of their cantonments, to march on the morrow. First regiment he came upon was the Life-Guard Cuirassiers: the men, in their accustomed way, gave him good-evening, which he cheerily returned. Some of the more veteran sort asked, ruggedly confidential, as well as loyal: "What is thy news, then, so late?" "Good news, children (KINDER): to-morrow you will beat the Austrians tightly!" "That we will, by--!" answered they.--"But think only where they stand yonder, and how they have intrenched themselves?" said Friedrich. "And if they had the Devil in front and all round them, we will knock them out; only thou lead us on!"--"Well, I will see what you can do: now lay you down, and sleep sound; and good sleep to you!" "Good-night, Fritz!" answer all; [Muller, p. 21 (from Kaltenhorn, of whom INFRA); Preuss, &c. &c.] as Fritz ambles on to the next regiment, to which, as to every one, he will have some word. Was it the famous Pommern regiment, this that he next spoke to,--who answered Loudon's summons to them once (as shall be noticed by and by) in a way ineffable, though unforgettable? Manteuffel of Foot; yes, no other! [Archenholtz, ii. 61; and Kutzen, p. 35.] They have their own opinion of their capacities against an enemy, and do not want for a good conceit of themselves. "Well, children, how think you it will be to-morrow? They are twice as strong as we." "Never thou mind that; there are no Pommerners among them; thou knowest what the Pommerners can do!"--FRIEDRICH: "Yea, truly, that do I; otherwise I durst not risk the battle. Now good sleep to you! to-morrow, then, we shall either have beaten the Enemy or else be all dead." "Yea," answered the whole regiment; "dead, or else the Enemy beaten:" and so went to deep sleep, preface to a deeper for many of them,--as beseems brave men. In this world it much beseems the brave man, uncertain about so many things, to be certain of himself for one thing. These snatches of Camp Dialogue, much more the Speech preserved to us by Retzow Junior, appear to be true; though as to the dates, the circumstances, there has been debating. [Kutzen, pp. 175-181.] Other Anecdotes, dubious or more, still float about in quantity;--of which let us give only one; that of the Deserter (which has merit as a myth). "What made thee desert, then?" "Hm, alas, your Majesty, we were got so down in the world, and had such a time of it!"--"Well, try it one day more; and if we cannot mend matters, thou and I will both desert." A learned Doctor, one of the most recent on these matters, is astonished why the Histories of Friedrich should be such dreary reading, and Friedrich himself so prosaic, barren an object; and lays the blame upon the Age, insensible to real greatness; led away by clap-trap Napoleonisms, regardless of expense. Upon which Smelfungus takes him up, with a twitch:-- "To my sad mind, Herr Doctor, it seems ascribable rather to the Dryasdust of these Ages, especially to the Prussian Dryasdust, sitting comfortable in his Academies, waving sublimely his long ears as he tramples human Heroisms into unintelligible pipe-clay and dreary continents of sand and cinders, with the Doctors all applauding. "Had the sacred Poet, or man of real Human Genius, been at his work, for the thousand years last past, instead of idly fiddling far away from his work,--which surely is definable as being very mainly, That of INTERPRETING human Heroisms; of painfully extricating, and extorting from the circumambient chaos of muddy babble, rumor and mendacity, some not inconceivable human and divine Image of them, more and more clear, complete and credible for mankind (poor mankind dumbly looking up to him for guidance, as to what it shall think of God and of Men in this Scene of Things),--I calculate, we should by this time have had a different Friedrich of it; O Heavens, a different world of it, in so many respects! "My esteemed Herr Doctor, it is too painful a subject. Godlike fabulous Achilles, and the old Greek Kings of men, one perceives, after study, to be dim enough Grazier Sovereigns, 'living among infinite dung,' till their sacred Poet extricated them. And our UNsacred all-desecrating Dryasdust,--Herr Doctor, I must say, it fills me with despair! Authentic human Heroisms, not fabulous a whit, but true to the bone, and by all appearance very much nobler than those of godlike Achilles and pious AEneas ever could have been,--left in this manner, trodden under foot of man and beast; man and beast alike insensible that there is anything but common mud under foot, and grateful to anybody that will assure them there is nothing. Oh, Doctor, oh, Doctor! And the results of it--You need not go exclusively 'to France' to look at them. They are too visible in the so-called 'Social Hierarchies,' and sublime gilt Doggeries, sltcred and secular, of all Modern Countries! Let us be silent, my friend."-- "Prussian Dryasdust," he says elsewhere, "does make a terrible job of it; especially when he attempts to weep through his pipe-clay, or rise with his long ears into the moral sublime. As to the German People, I find that they dimly have not wanted sensibility to Friedrich; that their multitudes of Anecdotes, still circulating among them in print and VIVA VOCE, are proof of this. Thereby they have at least made a MYTH of Friedrich's History, and given some rhythmus, life and cheerful human substantiality to his work and him. Accept these Anecdotes as the Epic THEY could not write of him, but were longing to hear from somebody who could. Who has not yet appeared among mankind, nor will for some time. Alas, my friend, on piercing through the bewildering nimbus of babble, malignity, mendacity, which veils seven-fold the Face of Friedrich from us, and getting to see some glimpses of the Face itself, one is sorrowfully struck dumb once more. What a suicidal set of creatures; commanding as with one voice, That there shall be no Heroism more among them; that all shall be Doggery and Common-place henceforth. 'ACH, MEIN LIEBER SULZER, you don't know that damned brood!'--Well, well. 'Solomon's Temple,' the Moslems say, 'had to be built under the chirping of ten thousand Sparrows.' Ten thousand of them; committee of the whole house, unanimously of the opposite view;--and could not quite hinder it. That too is something!"-- More to our immediate purpose is this other thing: That the Austrians have been in Council of War; and, on deliberation, have decided to come out of their defences; to quit their strong Camp, which lies so eligibly, ahead of Breslau and arear of Lissa and of Schweidnitz Water yonder; to cross Schweidnitz Water, leave Lissa behind them; and meet this offensively aggressive Friedrich in pitched fight. Several had voted, No, why stir?--Daun especially, and others with emphasis. "No need of fighting at all," said Daun: "we can defend Schweidnitz Water; ruin him before he ever get across." "Defend? Be assaulted by an Army like his?" urges Lucchesi, the other Chief General: "It is totally unworthy of us! We have gained the game; all the honors ours; let us have done with it. Give him battle, since he fortunately wishes it; we finish him, and gloriously finish the War too!" So argued Lucchesi, with vivacity, persistency,--to his own ill luck, but evidently with approval from Prince Karl. Everybody sees, this is the way to Prince Karl's favor at present. "Have not I reconquered Silesia?" thinks Prince Karl to himself; and beams applause on the high course, not the low prudent one. [Kutzen, pp. 45-48.] In a word, the Austrians decide on stepping out to meet Friedrich in open battle: it was the first time they ever did so; and it was likewise the last. Sunday, December 4th, at four in the morning, Friedrich has marched from Parchwitz, straight towards the Austrian Camp; [Muller, p. 26.] he hears, one can fancy with what pleasure, that the Austrians are advancing towards him, and will not need to be forced in their strong position. His march is in four columns, Friedrich in the vanguard; quarters to be Neumarkt, a little Town about fourteen miles off. Within some miles of Neumarkt, early in the afternoon, he learns that there are a thousand Croats in the place, the Austrian Bakery at work there, and engineer people marking out an Austrian Camp. "On the Height beyond Neumarkt, that will be?" thinks Friedrich; for he knows this ground, having often done reviews here; to Breslau all the way on both hands, not a rood of it but is familiar to him. Which was a singular advantage, say the critics; and a point the Austrian Council of War should have taken more thought of. Friedrich, before entering Neumarkt, sends a regiment to ride quietly round it on both sides, and to seize that Height he knows of. Height once seized, or ready for seizing, he bursts the barrier of Neumarkt; dashes in upon the thousand Croats; flings out the Croats in extreme hurry, musketry and sabre acting on them; they find their Height beset, their retreat cut off, and that they must vanish. Of the 1,000 Croats, "569 were taken prisoners, and 120 slain," in this unexpected sweeping out of Neumarkt. Better still, in Neumarkt is found the Austrian Bakery, set up and in full work;--delivers you 80,000 bread-rations hot-and-hot, which little expected to go such a road. On the Height, the Austrian stakes and engineer-tools were found sticking in the ground; so hasty had the flight been. How Prince Karl came to expose his Bakery, his staff of life so far ahead of him? Prince Karl, it is clear, was a little puffed up with high thoughts at this time. The capture of Schweidnitz, the late "Malplaquet" (poorish Anti-Bevern Malplaquet), capture of Breslau, and the low and lost condition of Friedrich's Silesian affairs, had more or less turned everybody's head,--everybody's except Feldmarschall Daun's alone:--and witty mess-tables, we already said, were in the daily habit of mocking at Friedrich's march towards them with aggressive views, and called his insignificant little Army the "Potsdam Guard-Parade." [Cogniazzo, ii. 417-422.] That was the common triumphant humor; naturally shared in by Prince Karl; the ready way to flatter him being to sing in that tune. Nobody otherwise can explain, and nobody in any wise can justify, Prince Karl's ignorance of Friedrich's advance, his almost voluntary losing of his staff-of-life in that manner. MAP TO GO HERE--FACING PAGE 48, BOOK 18 continuation---- Prince Karl's soldiers have each (in the cold form) three days, provision in their haversacks: they have come across the Weistritz River (more commonly called Schweidnitz Water), which was also the height of contemptuous imprudence; and lie encamped, this night,--in long line, not ill-chosen (once the River IS behind),--perpendicular to Friedrich's march, some ten miles ahead of him. Since crossing, they had learned with surprise, How their Bakery and Croats had been snapt up; that Friedrich was not at a distance, but near;--and that arrangements could not be made too soon! Their position intersects the Great Road at right angles, as we hint; and has villages, swamps, woody knolls; especially, on each wing, good defences. Their right wing leans on Nypern and its impassable peat-bogs, a Village two or three miles north from the Great Road; their centre is close behind another Village called Leuthen, about as far south from it: length of their bivouac is about five miles; which will become six or so, had Nadasti once taken post, who is to form the left wing, and go down as far as Sagschutz, southward of Leuthen. Seven battalions are in this Village of Leuthen, eight in Nypern, all the Villages secured; woods, scraggy abatis, redoubts, not forgotten: their cannon are numerous, though of light calibre. Friedrich has at least 71 heavy pieces; and 10 of them are formidably heavy,--brought from the walls of Glogau, with terrible labor to Ziethen; but with excellent effect, on this occasion and henceforth. They got the name of "Boomers, Bellowers (DIE BRUMMER)," those Ten. Friedrich was in great straits about artillery; and Retzow Senior recommended this hauling up of the Ten Bellowers, which became celebrated in the years coming. And now we are on the Battle-ground, and must look into the Battle itself, if we can. _ |
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