History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 21 · Thomas Carlyle
Chapter VI.--THE BAVARIAN WAR.
Saxony, we ought to mention, was also aggrieved. The Dowager-Electress Maria Antoinette, our sprightly friend, had, as sole surviving Sister of the late Kurfurst Max, the undoubted heirship of Kurfurst Max's "allodial properties and territories:" territories, I think, mainly in the Ober-Pfalz (which are NOT Bavaria Proper, but were acquired in the Thirty-Years War), which are important in value, and which Austria, regardless of our lively friend, has laid hold of as lapsed fiefs of Bohemia. Clearly Bohemian, says Austria; and keeps hold. Our lively friend hereupon makes over all her rights in that matter to her Son, the reigning Elector; with the counsel, if counsel were needed, "Ask protection of King Friedrich; go wholly with King Friedrich." Mecklenburg too has an interest. Among the lapsed fiefs is one to a Duchy called of Leuchtenberg;--in regard to which, says Mecklenburg, as loud as it can, "That Duchy is not lapsed at all; that is now mine, witness this Document" (of a valid testamentary nature)! Other claims were put in; but these three: Zweibruck endlessly important; Saxony important too, though not in such degree; Mecklenburg unimportant, but just,--were alone recognized in impartial quarters as authentic and worthy of notice.
Of the pleadings and procedures in the Reichs Diet no reader would permit me to speak, were I inclined. Enough to understand that they went on in the usual voluminous dull-droning way, crescendo always; and deserve, what at present they are sure of, oblivion from all creatures. The important thing was, not those pleadings in the Reichs Diet, nor the Austrian proposals there or elsewhere; but the brandishing of arms in emitting and also in successively answering the same. Answer always No by Friedrich, and some new flash of handled arms,--the physiognomy of which was the one significant point, Austria, which is far from ready with arms, though at each fresh pleading or proposal it tries to give a kind of brandish, says mainly three things, in essence somewhat thus. AUSTRIA: "Cannot two States of the Reich come to a mutual understanding, as Austria and Bavaria have done? And what have third parties to say to it?" FRIEDRICH: "Much! Parties of the Reich have much to say to it!" (This several times with variations.) AUSTRIA: "Our rights seem to us valid: Zweibruck, Saxony, Mecklenburg, if aggrieved, can try in the Reichs Law-Courts." FRIEDRICH: "Law-Courts!" with a new brandish; that is, sets more regiments on march, from Pommern to Wesel all on march, to Berlin, to Silesia, towards the Bohemian Frontier. AUSTRIA, by the voice of Kaunitz: "We will not give up our rights without sentence of Law. We cannot recognize the King of Prussia as Law-Judge in this matter." FRIEDRICH: "The King of Prussia is of the Jury!"
Pulse after pulse, this is something like the course things had, crescendo till, in about three months, they got to a height which was evidently serious. Nay, in the course of the pleadings it became manifest that on the Austrian grounds of claim, not Maria Theresa could be heir to Straubingen, but Friedrich himself: "I descend from Three-Crown Albert's Daughter," said Maria Theresa. "And I from an elder Daughter of his, and do not claim!" Friedrich could have answered, but did not; treating such claim all along as merely colorable and chimerical, not worth attention in serious affairs of fact. Till, at length, after about three months, there comes a really serious brandish. SUNDAY, APRIL 5th, 1778, at Berlin, Friedrich holds review of his Army, all assembled, equipped and in readiness; and (in that upper Parole-Room of the Schloss) makes this Speech, which, not without extraneous intention, was printed in the Newspapers:-- FRIEDRICH'S SPEECH TO HIS GENERALS. "Gentlemen, I have assembled you here for a public object. Most of you, like myself, have often been in arms along with one another, and are grown gray in the service of our Country: to all of us is well known in what dangers, toils and renown we have been fellow-sharers. I doubt not in the least that all of you, as myself, have a horror of bloodshed: but the danger which now threatens our Countries, not only renders it a duty, but puts us in the absolute necessity, to adopt the quickest and most effectual means for dissipating at the right time the storm which threatens to break out on us.
"I depend with complete confidence on your soldierly and patriotic zeal, which is already well and gloriously known to me, and which, while I live, I will acknowledge with the heartiest satisfaction. Before all things, I recommend to you, and prescribe as your most sacred duty, That, in every situation, you exercise humanity on unarmed enemies; and be continually attentive that, in this respect too, there be the strictest discipline (MANNSZUCHT) kept among those under you. "To travel with the pomp of a King is not among my wishes: and all of you are aware that I have no pleasure in rich field-furniture: but my increasing age, and the weakness it brings, render me incapable of riding as I did in my youth. I shall, therefore, be obliged to make use of a post-chaise in times of marching; and all of you have liberty to do the same. But on the day of battle you shall see me on horseback; and there, also, I hope my Generals will follow that example."
VOLTAIRE SMOTHERED UNDER ROSES. King's Speech was on Sunday, April 5th, Evening of last Monday (March 30th), at the Theatre Francais in Paris, poor Voltaire had that world-famous apotheosis of his; and got "smothered under roses," as he termed it. He had left Ferney (such the urgency of Niece Denis and her unappeasable desire for a sight of Paris again) February 5th; arrived in Paris February 10th; ventured out to see his poor last Tragedy, not till the sixth night of it, March 30th; was beshouted, crowned, raised to the immortal gods by a repentant Paris world: "Greatest of men,--You were not a miscreant and malefactor, then: on the contrary, you were a spiritual Hercules, a heroic Son of Light; Slayer of the Nightmare Monsters, and foul Dragons and Devils that were preying on us: to you shall not we now say, Long life, with all our throats and all our hearts,"--and so quench you at last! Which they managed to do, poor repentant souls. The tottering wayworn Voltaire, over-agitated in this way, took to bed; never rose again; and on that day two months was dead. [In DUVERNET, and still better in LONGCHAMP ET WAGNIERE, ample account of these interesting occurrences.] His light all done; to King Friedrich, or to any of us, no flash of radiancy from him any more forever.
APRIL 6th, Friedrich gets on march--perhaps about 100,000 strong--for Schonwalde, in the Neisse-Schweidnitz neighborhood; and there, in the course of the week, has cantoned himself, and sits completing his magazines and appliances for actual work of war. This is a considerable brandish; and a good deal astonishes Kaunitz and the Vienna people, who have not 10,000 at present on those Frontiers, and nothing whatever in a state of readiness. "Dangerous really!" Kaunitz admits; and sets new regiments on march from Hungary, from the Netherlands, from all ends of the Earth where they are. Tempers his own insolent talk, too; but strives to persuade himself that it is "Menace merely. He won't; he abhors war." Kaunitz had hardly exaggerated Friedrich's abhorrence of war; though it turned out there were things which Friedrich abhorred still more.
Schonwalde, head-quarter of this alarming Prussian cantonment, is close on the new Fortress of Silberberg, a beautiful new impregnability, looking into those valleys of the Warta, of the young Neisse, which are the road to Bohemia or from it,--where the Pandour torrents used to issue into the first Silesian Wars; where Friedrich himself was once to have been snapped up, but was not quite,--and only sang Mass as Extempore Abbot, with Tobias Stusche, in the Monastery of Camenz, according to the myth which readers may remember. No more can Pandours issue that way; only Prussians can enter in. Friedrich's windows in the Schloss of Schonwalde,--which are on the left hand, if you be touring in those parts,--look out, direct upon Silberberg, and have its battlements between them and the 3-o'clock Sun. [Schoning, iv. (Introductory Part).] In the Town of Silberberg, Friedrich has withal a modest little lodging,--lodging still known,--where he can alight for an hour or a night, in the multifarious businesses that lead him to and fro. "A beautiful place," says Schoning; "where the King stayed twelve weeks" or more; waiting till the Bavarian-Austrian case should ripen better. At Schonwalde, what was important in his private circle, he heard of Lord Marischal's death, then of Voltaire's; not to mention that of English Pitt, and perhaps others interesting to him. [Voltaire died May 30th; Marischal, May 25th; Pitt, May 11th;--and May 4th, in the Cantonment here, died General von Rentzel, the same who, as Lieutenant Rentzel, sixty years ago, had taught the little Crown-Prince his drill (Rodenbeck, iii. 187).]
"Now was the time," cry Schmettau and the unfavorable, "when he might have walked across into Eastern Bohemia, into Mahren, whither you like; to Vienna itself, and taken Austria by the throat at discretion: 'Do justice, then, will you! Let go Bavaria, or--!' In his young years, would not he have done so? His Plan, long since laid down, was grand: To march into Mahren, leaving Silesia guarded; nay leaving Bohemia to be invaded,--for Prince Henri, and the Saxons, who are a willing handful, and will complete Henri likewise to 100,000, were to do that, feat the while;--March into Mahren, on to Vienna if he chose; laying all flat. Infallible," say the Schmettau people. "He had the fire of head to contrive it all; but worn down and grown old, he could not execute his great thoughts." Which is obviously absurd, Friedrich's object not being to lay Austria flat, or drive animosities to the sanguinary point, and kindle all Europe into war; but merely to extract, with the minimum of violence, something like justice from Austria on this Bavarian matter. For which end, he may justly consider slow pressure preferable to the cutting method. His problem is most ticklish, not allowed for by Schmettau.
The encampment round Schonwalde, especially as there was nothing ready thereabouts on the Austrian side, produced a visible and great effect on the negotiations; and notably altered the high Kaunitz tone towards Friedrich. "Must two great Courts quarrel, then, for the sake of a small one?" murmured Kaunitz, plaintively now, to himself and to the King,--to the King not in a very distinct manner, though to himself the principle is long since clear as an axiom in Politics: "Great Courts should understand one another; then the small would be less troublesome." For a quarter of a century this has been the Kaunitz faith. In 1753, when he miraculously screwed round the French into union with the Austrians to put down an upstart Prussia, this was his grand fulcrum, the immovable rock in which the great Engineer fixed down his political capstans, and levered and screwed. He did triumphantly wind matters round,--though whether they much profited him when round, may be a question.
But the same grand principle, in the later instance of partitioning Poland, has it not proved eminently triumphant, successful in all points? And, doubtless, this King of Prussia recognizes it, if made worth his while, thinks Kaunitz. In a word, Kaunitz's next utterance is wonderfully changed. The great Engineer speaks almost like a Bishop on this new text. "Let the Two Courts," says he, "put themselves each in the other's place; each think what it would want;" and in fact each, in a Christian manner, try to do as it would be done by! How touching in the mouth of a Kaunitz, with something of pathos, of plaintiveness, almost of unction in it! "There is no other method of agreeing," urges he: "War is a terrible method, disliked by both of us. Austria wishes this of Bavaria; but his Prussian Majesty's turn will come, perhaps now is (let him say and determine); we will make it worth his while." This is of APRIL 24th; notable change since the cantoning round Schonwalde.
Germany at large, though it lay so silent, in its bedrid condition, was in great anxiety. Never had the Holy Romish Reich such a shock before: "Meaning to partition us like Poland?" thought the Reich, with a shudder. "They can, by degrees, if they think good; these Two Great Sovereigns!" Courage, your Durchlauchts: one of the Two great ones has not that in his thoughts; has, and will have, the reverse of that; which will be your anchorages in the storms of fate for a long time to come! Nor was it--as will shortly appear to readers--Kaunitz's immediate intention at all: enough if poor we can begin it, set it fairly under way; let some unborn happier Kaunitz, the last of a series, complete such blessed consummation; in a happier time, far over the practical horizon at present. This we do gather to have been Kaunitz's real view; and it throws a light on the vexed Partition-of-Poland question, and gives weight to Dohm's assertion, That Kaunitz was the actual beginner there.
Weeks before Friedrich heard of this remarkable Memorial, and ten days before it was brought to paper, there came to Friedrich another unexpected remarkable Document: a LETTER from Kaiser Joseph himself, who is personally running about in these parts, over in Bohemia, endeavoring to bring Army matters to a footing; and is no doubt shocked to find them still in such backwardness, with a Friedrich at hand. The Kaiser's Letter, we perceive, is pilot-balloon to the Kaunitz episcopal Document, and to an actual meeting of Prussian and Austrian Ministers on the Bavarian point; and had been seen to be a salutary measure by an Austria in alarm. It asks, as the Kaunitz Memorial will, though in another style, "Must there be war, then? Is there no possibility left in negotiation and mutual concession? I am your Majesty's friend and admirer; let us try." This was an unexpected and doubtless a welcome thing to Friedrich; who answers eagerly, and in a noble style both of courtesy and of business sense: upon which there followed two other Imperial Letters with their two Royal answers; [In _OEuvres de Frederic,_ (vi. 183-193), Three successive Letters from the Kaiser (of dates, "Olmutz," "Litau," "Konigsgratz," 13th-19th April, 1778), with King's Answers ("Schonwalde," all of them, and 14th-20th April),--totally without interest to the general reader.] and directly afterwards the small Austrian-Prussian Congress we spoke of, Finkenstein and Hertzberg on the Prussian part, Cobenzl on the Austrian (Congress sitting at Berlin), which tried to agree, but could not; and to which Kaunitz's Memorial of April 24th was meant as some helpful sprinkling of presidential quasi-episcopal oil.
FRIEDRICH TO HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY (at Olmutz). "SCHONWALDE, 14th April, 1778. "SIRE MY BROTHER,--I have received, with all the satisfaction possible, the Letter which your Imperial Majesty has had the goodness to write to me. I have neither Minister nor Clerk (SCRIBE) about me; therefore your Imperial Majesty will be pleased to put up with such Answer as an Old Soldier can give, who writes to you with probity and frankness, on one of the most important subjects which have risen in Politics for a long time. "Nobody wishes more than I to maintain peace and harmony between the Powers of Europe: but there are limits to everything; and cases so intricate (EPINEUX) arise that goodwill alone will not suffice to maintain things in repose and tranquillity. Permit me, Sire, to state distinctly what the question seems to me to be. It is to determine if an Emperor can dispose at his will of the Fiefs of the Empire. Answer in the affirmative, and, all these Fiefs become TIMARS [in the Turk way], which are for life only; and which the Sultan disposes of again, on the possessor's death. Now, this is contrary to the Laws, to the Customs and Constitutions of the German Empire."--"I, as member of the Empire, and as having, by the Treaty of Hubertsburg, re-sanctioned the Peace of Westphalia, find myself formally engaged to support the immunities, the liberties and rights of the Germanic Body.
"This, Sire, is the veritable state of things. Personal interest I have none: but I am persuaded your Majesty's self would regard me as a paltry man, unworthy of your esteem, should I basely sacrifice the rights, immunities and privileges, which the Electors and I have received from our Ancestors. "I continue to speak to your Majesty with the same frankness. I love and honor your person. It will certainly be hard for me to fight against a Prince gifted with excellent qualities, and whom I personally esteem. But"--And is there no remedy? Anspach and Baireuth stand in no need of sanction. I consent to the Congress proposed:--being with the &c. &c.--F. [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ vi. 187.] The sittings of this little Congress at Berlin lasted all through May and June; to the disgust of Schmettau and the ardent Prussian mess-rooms, "lying ready here, and forbidden to act." For the Austrians all the while were at their busiest, improving the moments, marching continually hitherward from Hungary, from Limburg, from all ends of the earth. Both negotiating parties had shown a manifest wish to terminate without war; and both made various attempts or proposals that way; Friedrich offering, in the name of European peace, to yield the Austrians some small rim or paring of Bavaria from the edge adjoining them; the Austrians offering Anspach-Baireuth with some improvements;--always offering Friedrich his own Baireuth-Anspach with some new sauce (as that he might exchange those Territories with Saxony for a fine equivalent in the Lausitz, contiguous to him, which was a real improvement and increase):--but as neither party would in the least give up in essentials, or quit the ground it had taken, the result was nothing. Week after week; so many weeks are being lost to Friedrich; gained to Austria: Schmettau getting more and more disgusted.
Friedrich still waited; not in all points quite ready yet, he said, nor the futile diplomacies quite complete;--evidently in the highest degree unwilling to come to the cutting point, and begin a War which nobody could see the end of. Many things he tried; Peace so precious to him, try and again try. All through June too, this went on; the result always zero,--obviously certain to be so. As even Friedrich had at last to own to himself; and likewise that the Campaign season was ebbing away; and that if his grand Moravian scheme was to be tried on Austria, there was not now a moment to lose. Friedrich's ultimate proposal, new modification of what all his proposals had been, "To you some thin rim of Baiern; to Saxony and Mecklenburg some ETCETERA of indemnity, money chiefly (money always to be paid by Karl Theodor, who has left Baiern open to the spoiler in this scandalous manner)," was of June 13th; Austrians for ten days meditating on it, and especially getting forward their Army matters, answer, June 24th "No we won't." Upon which Friedrich--to the joy of Schmettau and every Prussian--actually rises. Emits his War-Manifesto (JULY 3d): "Declaration to our Brethren (MITSTANDE) of the Reich," that Austria will listen to nothing but War; [Fischer, ii 388; Dohm, _Denkwurdigkeiten,_ i. 110; _OEuvres de Frederic,_ vi. 145.] and, on and from that day, goes flowing forward in perfect columns and arrangements, 100,000 strong; through the picturesque Glatz Country, straight towards the Bohemian Border, hour by hour. Flows over the Bohemian Border by Nachod Town; his vanguard bursting into field-music and flourishes of trumpeting at that grand moment (July 5th); flowed bodily over; and encamped that night on Bohemian ground, with Nachod to rear; thence towards Kwalkowitz, and on the second day to Jaromirtz ("Camp of Jaromirtz"), a little Town which we have heard of before, but which became more famous than ever during the next ten weeks.
Jaromirtz, Kwalkowitz, Konigsgratz: this is the old hill-and-dale labyrinth of an Upper-Elbe Country; only too well known to his Majesty and us, for almost forty years past: here again are the Austrians waiting the King; watching diligently this new Invasion of his out of Glatz and the East! In the same days, Prince Henri, who is also near 100,000, starts from Dresden to invade them from the West. Loudon, facing westward, is in watch of Henri; Lacy, or indeed the Kaiser himself, back-to-back of Loudon, stands in this Konigsgratz-Jaromirtz part; said to be embattled in a very elaborate manner, to a length of fifty miles on this fine ground, and in number somewhat superior to the King;--the Austrians in all counting about 250,000; of whom Lacy has considerably the larger share. The terror at Vienna, nevertheless, is very great: "A day of terror," says one who was there; "I will not trust myself to describe the sensation which this news, 'Friedrich in Bohemia again!' produced among all ranks of people." [Cogniazzo, iv. 316, 320, 321; Preuss, iv. 101, &c.] Maria Theresa, with her fine motherly heart, in alarm for her Country, and trembling "for my two Sons [Joseph and Leopold] and dear Son-in-Law [of Sachsen-Teschen], who are in the Army," overcomes all scruples of pride; instantly despatches an Autograph to the King ("Bearer of this, Baron von Thugut, with Full Powers"); and on her own strength starts a new Negotiation,--which, as will be seen, ended no better than the others. [Her Letters, four in all, with their Appendixes, and the King's Answers, in _OEuvres de Frederic,_ vi. 196-200.]
Schmettau says, "Friedrich, cheated of his Mahren schemes, was still in time; the Austrian position being indeed strong, but not being even yet quite ready." Friedrich himself, however, on reconnoitring, thought differently. A position such as one never saw before, thinks he; contrived by Lacy; masterly use of the ground, of the rivers, of the rocks, woods, swamps; Elbe and his branches, and the intricate shoulders of the Giant Mountains: no man could have done it better than Lacy here, who, they say, is the contriver and practical hand. [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ vi. 147.] From Konigsgratz, northward, by Konigshof, by Arnau, up to Hohenelbe, all heights are crowned, all passes bristling with cannon. Rivers Aupa, Elbe beset with redoubts, with dams in favorable places, and are become inundations, difficult to tap. There are "ditches 8 feet deep by 16 broad." Behind or on the right bank of Elbe, it is mere intrenchment for five-and-twenty miles. With bogs, with thickets full of Croats; and such an amount of artillery,--I believe they have in battery no fewer than 1,500 cannon. A position very considerable indeed:--must have taken time to deliberate, delve and invest; but it is done. Near fifty miles of it: here, clear to your glass, has the head of Lacy visibly emerged on us, as if for survey of phenomena:--head of Lacy sure enough (body of him lying invisible in the heights, passes and points of vantage); and its NECK of fifty miles, like the neck of a war-horse clothed with thunder. On which (thinks Schmettau privately) you may, too late, make your reflections!
"On the day of getting into Jaromirtz [July 8th], the King, tired of riding about while the Columns were slowly getting in, lay down on the ground with his Adjutants about him. A young Officer came riding past; whom the King beckoned to him;--wrote something with pencil (an Order, not of the least importance), and said: 'Here; that Order to General Lossow, and tell him he is not to take it ill that I trouble him, as I have none in my Suite that can do anything.'" Let the Suite take it as they can! A most pungent, severe old King; quite perverse at times, thinks Schmettau. Thus again, more than once.:-- "On arriving with his Column where the Officer, a perfectly skilful man, had marked out the Camp, the King would lift his spy-glass; gaze to right and left, riding round the place at perhaps a hundred yards' distance; and begin: 'SIEHT ER, HERR, But look, Herr, what a botching you have made of it again (WAS ER DA WIEDER FUR DUMM ZEUG GEMACHT HAT)!' and grumbling and blaming, would alter the Camp, till it was all out of rule; and then say, 'See there, that is the way to mark out Camps.'" [Schmettau, xxv. 30, 24.]
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.