History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 20
by
Thomas Carlyle
Part 5 out of 6
Philippine Islands (23d September-6th October, 1762),
[ Gentleman's Magazine for 1762, xxxiii.
171-177.] which was abolition of it in the Eastern. After which,
happily for Carlos, Peace came,--Peace, and no Pitt to be severe
upon his Indies and him. Carlos's War of ten months had stood him
uncommonly high."
All these things the English Public, considerably sullen about the
Cabinet-Council event of October 3d, ascribed to the real owner of
them. The Public said: "These are, all of them, Pitt's bolts, not
yours,--launched, or lying ready for launching, from that Olympian
battery which, in the East and in the West, had already smitten
down all Lallys and Montcalms; and had force already massed there,
rendering your Havanas and Manillas easy for you. For which,
indeed, you do not seem to care much; rather seem to be embarrassed
with them, in your eagerness for Peace and a lazy life!"--Manilla
was a beautiful work; [A JOURNAL OF THE PROCEEDINGS QF HIS
MAJESTY'S FORCES IN THE EXPEDITION TO MANILLA ( London
Gazette, April 19th, 1763; Gentleman's
Magazine, xxxiii. 171 et seq.). Written by Colonel or
BrigadiecGeneral Draper (suggester, contriver and performer of the
Enterprise; an excellent Indian Officer, of great merit with his
pen as well,--Bully JUNIUS'S Correspondent afterwards).] but the
Manilla Ransom; a million sterling, half of it in bills,--which the
Spaniards, on no pretext at all but the disagreeableness, refused
to pay! Havana, though victorious, cost a good many men:
was thought to be but badly managed. "What to do with it?" said
Bute, at the Peace: "Give us Florida in lieu of it",--which proved
of little benefit to Bute. Enough, enough of Bute and his
performances.
Pitt being gone, Friedrich's English Subsidy lags: this time
Friedrich concludes it is cut off;--silent on the subject; no words
will express one's thoughts on it. Not till April 9th has poor
Mitchell the sad errand of announcing formally That such are our
pressures, Portuguese War and other, we cannot afford it farther.
Answered by I know not what kind of glance from Friedrich;
answered, I find, by words few or none from the forsaken King:
"Good; that too was wanting," thought the proud soul: "Keep your
coin, since you so need it; I have still copper, and my sword!"
The alloy this Year became as 3 to 1:--what other remedy?
From the same cause, I doubt not, this Year, for the first time in
human memory, came that complete abeyance of the Gift-moneys
(DOUCEUR-GELDER), which are become a standing expectation, quasi-
right, and necessary item of support to every Prussian Officer,
from a Lieutenant upwards: not a word, in the least official, said
of them this Year; still less a penny of them actually forthcoming
to a wornout expectant Army. One of the greatest sins charged upon
Friedrich by Prussian or Prussian-Military public opinion: not to
be excused at all;--Prussian-Military and even Prussian-Civil
opinion having a strange persuasion that this King has boundless
supply of money, and only out of perversity refuses it for objects
of moment. In the Army as elsewhere much ha8 gone awry;
[See Mollendorf's two or three LETTERS (Preuss, iv. 407-411).] many
rivets loose after such a climbing of the Alps as there has been,
through dense and rare.
It will surprise everybody that Friedrich, with his copper and
other resources, actually raised his additional 60,000; and has for
himself 70,000 to recover Schweidnitz, and bring Silesia to its old
state; 40,000 for Prince Henri and Saxony, with a 10,000 of margin
for Sweden and accidental sundries. This is strange, but it is
true. [Stenzel, v. 297, 286; Tempelhof, vi. 2, 10, 63.] And has not
been done without strivings and contrivings, hard requisitions on
the places liable; and has involved not a little of severity and
difficulty,--especially a great deal of haggling with the
collecting parties, or at least with Prince Henri, who presides in
Saxony, and is apt to complain and mourn over the undoable, rather
than proceed to do it. The King's Correspondence with Henri, this
Winter, is curious enough; like a Dialogue between Hope on its
feet, and Despair taking to its bed. "You know there are Two
Doctors in MOLIERE," says Friedrich to him once; "a Doctor
TANT-MIEUX (So much the Better) and a Doctor TANT-PIS (So much the
Worse): these two cannot be expected to agree!"--Instead of
infinite arithmetical details, here is part of a Letter of
Friedrich's to D'Argens; and a Passage, one of many, with Prince
Henri;--which command a view into the interior that concerns us.
THE KING TO D'ARGENS (at Berlin).
"BRESLAU, 18th January, 1762.
... "You have lifted the political veil which covered horrors and
perfidies meditated and ready to burst out [Bute's dismal
procedures, I believe; who is ravenous for Peace, and would fain
force Friedrich along with him on terms altogether disgraceful and
inadmissible [See D'Argens's Letter (to which this is Answer),
OEuvres de Frederic, xix. 281, 282.]]: you
judge correctly of the whole situation I am in, of the abysses
which surround me; and, as I see by what you say, of the kind of
hope that still remains to me. It will not be till the month of
February [Turks, probably, and Tartar Khan; great things coming
then!] that we can speak of that; and that is the term I
contemplate for deciding whether I shall hold to CATO [Cato,--and
the little Glass Tube I have!] or to CAESAR'S COMMENTARIES," and
the best fight one can make.
"The School of patience I am at is hard, long-continued, cruel, nay
barbarous. I have not been able to escape my lot: all that human
foresight could suggest has been employed, and nothing has
succeeded. If Fortune continues to pursue me, doubtless I shall
sink; it is only she that can extricate me from the situation I am
in. I escape out of it by looking at the Universe on the great
scale, like an observer from some distant Planet; all then seems to
me so infinitely small, and I could almost pity my enemies for
giving themselves such trouble about so very little. What would
become of us without philosophy, without this reasonable contempt
of things frivolous, transient and fugitive, about which the greedy
and ambitious make such a pother, fancying them to be solid!
This is to become wise by stripes, you will tell me; well, if one
do become wise, what matters it how?--I read a great deal; I devour
my Books, and that brings me useful alleviation. But for my Books,
I think hypochondria would have had me in bedlam before now.
In fine, dear Marquis, we live in troublous times and in desperate
situations:--I have all the properties of a Stage-Hero; always in
danger, always on the point of perishing. One must hope the
conclusion will come; and if the end of the piece be lucky, we will
forget the rest. Patience then, MON CHER, till February 20th [By
which time, what far other veritable star-of-day will have risen on
me!]. ADIEU, MON CHER.--F." [ OEuvres de Frederic,
italic> xix. 282, 283.]
TIFF OF QUARREL BETWEEN KING AND HENRI (March-April, 1762).
In the Spring months Prince Henri is at Hof in Voigtland, on the
extreme right of his long line of "Quarters behind the Mulda;"
busy enough, watching the Austrians and Reich; levying the severe
contributions; speeding all he can the manifold preparatives;--
conscious to himself of the greatest vigilance and diligence, but
wrapt in despondency and black acidulent humors; a "Doctor SO MUCH
THE WORSE," who is not a comforting Correspondent. From Hof,
towards the middle of March, he becomes specially gloomy and
acidulous; sends a series of Complaints; also of News, not
important, but all rather in YOUR favor, my dearest Brother, than
in mine, if you will please to observe! As thus:--
HENRI (at Hof, 10th-13th March). ... "Sadly off here, my dearest
Brother.! Of our '1,284 head of commissariat horses,' only 180 are
come in; of our '287 drivers,' not one. Will be impossible to open
Campaign at that rate."--"Grenadier Battalions ROTHENBURG and GRANT
demand to have picked men to complete them [of CANTONIST, or sure
Prussian sort]. ... I find [NOTA BENE, Reader!] there are eight
Austrian regiments going to Silesia [off my hands, and upon YOURS,
in a sense], eight instead of four that I spoke of: intending,
probably, for Glatz, to replace Czernichef [a Czernichef off for
home lately, in a most miraculous way; as readers shall hear!]--to
replace Czernichef, and the blank he has left there? Eight of them:
Your Majesty can have no difficulty; but I will detach Platen or
somebody, if you order it; though I am myself perilously ill off
here, so scattered into parts, not capable of speedy junction like
your Majesty."
FRIEDRICH (14th-16th March). "Commissariat horses, drivers?
I arranged and provided where everything was to be got. But if my
orders are not executed, nor the requisitions brought in, of course
there is failure. I am despatching Adjutant von Anhalt to Saxony a
second time, to enforce matters. If I could be for three weeks in
Saxony, myself, I believe I could put all on its right footing;
but, as I must not stir two steps from here, I will send you
Anhalt, with orders to the Generals, to compel them to their duty."
[Schoning, iii. 301, 302.] "As to Grenadier Battalions GRANT and
ROTHENBURG, it is absurd." (Henri falls silent for about a week,
brooding his gloom;--not aware that still worse is coming.)
King continues:--
KING (22d March). "Eight regiments, you said? Here, by enclosed
List, are seventeen of them, names and particulars all given",
which is rather a different view of the account against Silesia!
Seventeen of them, going, not for Glatz, I should say, but to
strengthen our Enemies hereabouts.
HENRI. "Hm, hah [answers only in German; dry military reports,
official merely;--thinks of writing to Chief-Clerk Eichel, who is
factotum in these spheres]. ... Artillery recruits are scarce in
the extreme; demand bounty: five thalers, shall we say?"
KING. "Seventeen regiments of them, beyond question, instead of
eight, coming on us: strange that you did n't warn me better.
I have therefore ordered your Major-General Schmettau hitherward at
once. As he has not done raising the contributions in the Lausitz,
you must send another to do it, and have them ready when General
Platen passes that way hither."--"'Five thalers bounty for
artillery men" say you? It is not to be thought of. Artillery men
can be had by conscription where you are." Henri (in silence, still
more indignant) sends military reports exclusively. March 26th,
Henri's gloom reaches the igniting point; he writes to Chief-
Clerk Eichel:--
"Monsieur, you are aware that Adjutant von Anhalt is on the way
hither. To judge by his orders, if they correspond to the Letters I
have had from the King, Adjutant von Anhalt's appearance here will
produce an embarrassment, from which I am resolved to extricate
myself by a voluntary retirement from office. My totally ruined
(ABIMEE) health, the vexations I have had, the fatigues and
troubles of war, leave in me little regret to quit the employment.
I solicit only, from your attentions and skill of management, that
my retreat be permitted to take place with the decency observed
towards those who have served the State. I have not a high opinion
of my services; but perhaps I am not mistaken in supposing that it
would be more a shame to the King than to me if he should make me
endure all manner of chagrins during my retirement." [Schoning,
iii. 307.]
Eichel sinks into profound reflection; says nothing. How is this
fire to be got under? Where is the place to trample on it, before
opening door or window, or saying a word to the King or anybody?
HENRI (same day, 26th March). "My dearest Brother,--In the List you
send me of those seventeen Austrian regiments, several, I am
informed, are still in Saxony; and by all the news that I get,
there are only eight gone towards Silesia."--"From Leipzig my
accounts are, the Reichs Army is to make a movement in advance, and
Prince Xavier with the Saxons was expected at Naumburg the 20th
ult. I know not if you have arranged with Duke Ferdinand for a
proportionate succor, in case his French also should try to
penetrate into Saxony upon me? I am, with the profoundest
attachment, your faithful and devoted servant and Brother."
KING (30th March). "Seventeen of them, you may depend; I am too
well informed to be allowed to doubt in any way. What you report of
the Reichsfolk and Saxons moving hither, thither; that seems to me
a bit of game on their part. They will try to cut one post from
you, then another, unless you assemble a corps and go in upon them.
Till you decide for this resolution, you have nothing but chicanes
and provocations to expect there. As to Duke Ferdinand of
Brunswick, I don't imagine that his Orders [from England] would
permit him what you propose [for relief of yourself]: at any rate,
you will have to write at least thrice to him,--that is to say,
waste three weeks, before he will answer No or Yes. You yourself
are in force enough for those fellows: but so long as you keep on
the defensive alone, the enemy gains time, and things will always
go a bad road." Henri's patience is already out; this same day he
is writing to the King.
HENRI (30th March). ... "You have hitherto received proofs enough
of my ways of thinking and acting to know that if in reality I was
mistaken about those eight regiments, it can only have been a piece
of ignorance on the part of my spy: meanwhile you are pleased to
make me responsible for what misfortune may come of it. I think I
have my hands full with the task laid on me of guarding 4,000
square miles of country with fewer troops than you have, and of
being opposite an enemy whose posts touch upon ours, and who is
superior in force. Your preceding Letters [from March 16th
hitherto], on which I have wished to be silent, and this last proof
of want of affection, show me too clearly to what fortune I have
sacrificed these Six Years of Campaigning."
KING (3d April: Official Orders given in Teutsch; at the tail of
which). "Spare your wrath and indignation at your servant,
Monseigneur! You, who preach indulgence, have a little of it for
persons who have no intention of offending you, or of failing in
respect for you; and deign to receive with more benignity the
humble representations which the conjunctures sometimes force from
me. F."--Which relieves Eichel of his difficulties, and quenches
this sputter. [Plucked up from the waste imbroglios of SCHONING
(iii. 296-311), by arranging and omitting.]
Prince Henri, for all his complaining, did beautifully this Season
again (though to us it must be silent, being small-war merely);--
and in particular, MAY 12th) early in the morning, simultaneously
in many different parts, burst across the Mulda, ten or twenty
miles long (or BROAD rather, from his right hand to his left),
sudden as lightning, upon the supine Serbelloni and his Austrians
and Reichsfolk. And hurled them back, one and all, almost to the
Plauen Chasm and their old haunts; widening his quarters notably.
[ Bericht von dem Uebergang uber die Mulde, den der Prinz
Heinrich den 12ten May 1762 glucklich ausgefuhrt (in
Seyfarth, Beylagen, iii, 280-291).] A really
brilliant thing, testifies everybody, though not to be dwelt on
here. Seidlitz was of it (much fine cutting and careering, from the
Seidlitz and others, we have to omit in these two Saxon Campaigns!)
--Seidlitz was of it; he and another still more special
acquaintance of ours, the learned Quintus Icilius; who also did his
best in it, but lost his "AMUSETTE" (small bit of cannon,
"Plaything," so called by Marechal de Saxe, inventor of the
article), and did not shine like Seidlitz.
Henri's quarters being notably widened in this way, and nothing but
torpid Serbellonis and Prince Stollbergs on the opposite part,
Henri "drew himself out thirty-five miles long;" and stood there,
almost looking into Plauen region as formerly. And with his fiery
Seidlitzes, Kleists, made a handsome Summer of it. And beat the
Austrians and Reichsfolk at Freyberg (OCTOBER 29th) a fine Battle,
and his sole one),--on the Horse which afterwards carried Gellert,
as is pleasantly known.
But we are omitting the news from Petersburg,--which came the very
day after that gloomy LETTER TO D'ARGENS; months before the TIFF OF
QUARREL with Henri, and the brilliant better destinies of that
Gentleman in his Campaign.
BRIGHT NEWS FROM PETERSBURG (certain, Jan. 19th); WHICH GROW
EVER BRIGHTER; AND BECOME A STAR-OF-DAY FOR FRIEDRICH.
To Friedrich, long before all this of Henri, indeed almost on the
very day while he was writing so despondently to D'Argens, a new
phasis had arisen. Hardly had he been five weeks at Breslau, in
those gloomy circumstances, when,--about the middle of January,
1762 (day not given, though it is forever notable),--there arrive
rumors, arrive news,--news from Petersburg; such as this King never
had before! "Among the thousand ill strokes of Fortune, does there
at length come one pre-eminently good? The unspeakable Sovereign
Woman, is she verily dead, then, and become peaceable to me
forevermore?" We promised Friedrich a wonderful star-of-day; and
this is it,--though it is long before he dare quite regard it as
such. Peter, the Successor, he knows to be secretly his friend and
admirer; if only, in the new Czarish capacity and its chaotic
environments and conditions, Peter dare and can assert these
feelings? What a hope to Friedrich, from this time onward!
Russia may be counted as the bigger half of all he had to strive
with; the bigger, or at least the far uglier, more ruinous and
incendiary;--and if this were at once taken away, think what a
daybreak when the night was at the blackest!
Pious people say, The darkest hour is often nearest the dawn. And a
dawn this proved to be for Friedrich. And the fact grew always the
longer the brighter;--and before Campaign time, had ripened into
real daylight and sunrise. The dates should have been precise;
but are not to be had so: here is the nearest we could come.
January 14th, writing to Henri, the King has a mysterious word
about "possibilities of an uncommon sort,"--rumors from Petersburg,
I could conjecture; though perhaps they are only Turk or Tartar-
Khan affairs, which are higher this year than ever, and as futile
as ever. But, on JANUARY 19th, he has heard plainly,--with what
hopes (if one durst indulge them)!--that the implacable Imperial
Woman, INFAME CATIN DU NORD, is verily dead. Dead; and does not
hate me any more. Deliverance, Peace and Victory lie in the word!--
Catin had long been failing, but they kept it religiously secret
within the Court walls: even at Petersburg nobody knew till the
Prayers of the Church were required: Prayers as zealous as you
can,--the Doctors having plainly intimated that she is desperate,
and that the thing is over. On CHRISTMAS-DAY, 1761, by Russian
Style, 5th JANUARY, 1762, by European, the poor Imperial Catin lay
dead;--a death still more important than that of George II. to
this King.
Peter III., who succeeded has lang been privately a sworn friend
and admirer of the King; and hastens, not too SLOWLY as the King
had feared, but far the reverse, to make that known to all mankind.
That, and much else,--in a far too headlong manner, poor soul!
Like an ardent, violent, totally inexperienced person (enfranchised
SCHOOL-BOY, come to the age of thirty-four), who has sat hitherto
in darkness, in intolerable compression; as if buried alive! He is
now Czar Peter, Autocrat, not of Himself only, but of All the
Russias;--and has, besides the complete regeneration of Russia, two
great thoughts: FIRST, That of avenging native Holstein, and his
poor martyr of a Father now with God, against the Danes;--and,
SECOND, what is scarcely second in importance to the first, and
indeed is practically a kind of preliminary to it, That of
delivering the Prussian Pattern of Heroes from such a pattern of
foul combinations, and bringing Peace to Europe, while he settles
the Holstein-Danish business. Peter is Russian by the Mother's
side; his Mother was Sister of the late Catin, a Daughter, like
her, of Czar Peter called the Great, and of the little brown
Catharine whom we saw transiently long ago. His Holstein Business
shall concern us little; but that with Friedrich, during the brief
Six Months allowed him for it,--for it, and for all his remaining
businesses in this world,--is of the highest importance to
Friedrich and us.
Peter is one of the wildest men; his fate, which was tragical, is
now to most readers rather of a ghastly grotesque than of a
lamentable and pitiable character. Few know, or have ever
considered, in how wild an element poor Peter was born and nursed;
what a time he has had, since his fifteenth year especially, when
Cousin of Zerbst and he were married. Perhaps the wildest and
maddest any human soul had, during that Century. I find in him,
starting out from the Lethean quagmires where he had to grow, a
certain rash greatness of idea; traces of veritable conviction,
just resolution; veritable and just, though rash. That of
admiration for King Friedrich was not intrinsically foolish, in the
solitary thoughts of the poor young fellow; nay it was the reverse;
though it was highly inopportune in the place where he stood.
Nor was the Holstein notion bad; it was generous rather, noble
and natural, though, again, somewhat impracticable in
the circumstances.
The summary of the Friedrich-Peter business is perhaps already
known to most readers, and can be very briefly given; nor is
Peter's tragical Six Months of Czarship (5th JANUARY-9th JULY,
1762) a thing for us to dwell on beyond need. But it is wildly
tragical; strokes of deep pathos in it, blended with the ghastly
and grotesque: it is part of Friedrich's strange element and
environment: and though the outer incidents are public enough, it
is essentially little known. Had there been an AEschylus, had there
been a Shakspeare!--But poor Peter's shocking Six Months of History
has been treated by a far different set of hands, themselves almost
shocking to see: and, to the seriously inquiring mind, it lies, and
will long lie, in a very waste, chaotic, enigmatic condition.
Here, out of considerable bundles now burnt, are some rough
jottings, Excerpts of Notes and Studies,--which, I still doubt
rather, ought to have gone in AUTO DA FE along with the others.
AUTO DA FE I called it; Act of FAITH, not Spanish-Inquisitional,
but essentially Celestial many times, if you reflect well on the
poisonous consequences, on the sinfulness and deadly criminality,
of Human Babble,--as nobody does nowadays! I label the different
Pieces, and try to make legible;--hasty readers have the privilege
of skipping, if they like. The first Two are of preliminary or
prefatory nature,--perhaps still more skippable than those that
will by and by follow.
1. GENEALOGY OF PETER. "His grandfather was Friedrich IV., Duke of
Holstein-Gottorp and Schleswig, Karl XII.'s brother-in-law;
on whose score it was (Denmark finding the time opportune for a
stroke of robbery there) that Karl XII., a young lad hardly
eighteen, first took arms; and began the career of fighting that
astonished Denmark and certain other Neighbors who had been too
covetous on a young King. This his young Brother-in-law, Friedrich
of Holstein-Gottorp (young he too, though Karl's senior by ten
years), had been reinstated in his Territory, and the Danes sternly
forbidden farther burglary there, by the victorious Karl; but went
with Karl in his farther expeditions. Always Karl's intimate, and
at his right hand for the next two years: fell in the Battle of
Clissow, 19th July, 1702; age not yet thirty-one.
"He left as Heir a poor young Boy, at this time only two years old.
His young Widow Hedwig survived him six years. [Michaelis, ii.
618-629.] Her poor child grew to manhood; and had tragic fortunes
in this world; Danes again burglarious in that part, again robbing
this poor Boy at discretion, so soon as Karl XII. became
unfortunate; and refusing to restore (have not restored Schleswig
at all [A.D. 1864, HAVE at last had to do it, under unexpected
circumstances!]):--a grimly sad story to the now Peter, his only
Child! This poor Duke at last died, 18th June, 1739, age thirty-
nine; the now Peter then about 11,--who well remembers tragic Papa;
tragic Mamma not, who died above ten years before. [Michaelis, ii.
617; Hubner, tt. 227, 229.]
"Czar Peter called the Great had evidently a pity for this
unfortunate Duke, a hope in his just hopes; and pleaded, as did
various others, and endeavored with the unjust Danes, mostly
without effect. Did, however, give him one of his Daughters to
wife;--the result of whom is this new Czar Peter, called the Third:
a Czar who is Sovereign of Holstein, and has claims of Sovereignty
in Sweden, right of heirship in Schleswig, and of damages against
Denmark, which are in litigation to this day. The Czarina CATIN,
tenderly remembering her Sister, would hear of no Heir to Russia
but this Peter. Peter, in virtue of his paternal affinities, was
elected King of Sweden about the same time; but preferred Russia,--
with an eye to his Danes, some think. For certain, did adopt the
Russian Expectancy, the Greek religion so called; and was," in the
way we saw long years ago, "married (or to all appearance married)
to Catharina Alexiewna of Anhalt-Zerbst, born in Stettin;
[Herr Preuss knows the house: "Now Dr. Lehmann's [at that time the
Governor of Stettin's], in which also Czar Paul's second Spouse
[Eugen of Wurtemberg a NEW Governor's Daughter], who is Mother of
the Czars that follow, was born:" Preuss, ii. 310, 311.
Catharine, during her reign, was pious in a small way to the place
of her cradle; sent her successive MEDALS &c. to Stettin, which
still has them to show.] a Lady who became world-famous as Czarina
of the Russias.
"Peter is an abstruse creature; has lived, all this while, with his
Catharine an abstruse life, which would have gone altogether mad
except for Catharine's superior sense. An awkward, ardent, but
helpless kind of Peter, with vehement desires, with a dash of wild
magnanimity even: but in such an inextricable element, amid such
darkness, such provocations of unmanageable opulence, such
impediments, imaginary and real,--dreadfully real to poor Peter,--
as made him the unique of mankind in his time. He 'used to drill
cats,' it is said, and to do the maddest-looking things (in his
late buried-alive condition);--and fell partly, never quite, which
was wonderful, into drinking, as the solution of his
inextricabilities. Poor Peter: always, and now more than ever, the
cynosure of vulturous vulpine neighbors, withal; which infinitely
aggravated his otherwise bad case!--
"For seven or eight years, there came no progeny, nor could come;
about the eighth or ninth, there could, and did: the marvellous
Czar Paul that was to be. Concerning whose exact paternity there
are still calumnious assertions widely current; to this individual
Editor much a matter of indifference, though on examining, his
verdict is: 'Calumnies, to all appearance; mysteries which decent
or decorous society refuses to speak of, and which indecent is
pretty sure to make calumnies out of.' Czar Paul may be considered
genealogically genuine, if that is much an object to him.
Poor Paul, does not he father himself, were there nothing more?
Only that Peter and this Cathariue could have begotten such a Paul.
Genealogically genuine enough, my poor Czar,--that needed to be
garroted so very soon!
2. OF CATHARINE AND THE BOOKS UPON PETER AND HER. "Catharine too
had an intricate time of it under the Catin; which was consoled to
her only by a tolerably rapid succession of lovers, the best the
ground yielded. In which department it is well known what a Thrice-
Greatest she became: superior to any Charles II.; equal almost to
an August the Strong! Of her loves now and henceforth, which are
heartily uninteresting to me, I propose to say nothing farther;
merely this, That in extent they probably rivalled the highest male
sovereign figures (and are to be put in the same category with
these, and damned as deep, or a little deeper);--and cost her, in
gifts, in magnificent pensions to the EMERITI (for she did things
always in a grandiose manner, quietly and yet inexorably dismissing
the EMERITUS with stores of gold), the considerable sum of 20
millions sterling, in the course of her long reign. One, or at most
two, were off on pension, when Hanbury Williams brought Poniatowski
for her, as we transiently saw. Poniatowski will be King of Poland
in the course of events. ...
"Russia is not a publishing country; the Books about Catharine are
few, and of little worth. TOOKE, an English Chaplain; CASTERA, an
unknown French Hanger-on, who copies from Tooke, or Tooke from him:
these are to be read, as the bad-best, and will yield little
satisfactory insight; Castera, in particular, a great deal of
dubious backstairs gossip and street rumor, which are not
delightful to a reader of sense. In fine, there has been published,
in these very years, a FRAGMENT of early AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Catharine
herself,--a credible and highly remarkable little Piece: worth all
the others, if it is knowledge of Catharine you are seeking.
[ Memoires de l'Imperatrice Catharine II., ecrits par elle-
meme (A. Herzen editing; London, 1859);--which we
already cited, on occasion of Catharine's marriage.
Anonymous (Castera), Vie de Catharine II., Imperatrice de
Russie (a Paris, 1797; or reprinted, most of it,
enough of it, A VARSOVIE, 1798) 2 tomes, 8vo. Tooke, Life
of Catharine II. (4th edition, London, 1800), 3 vols.
8vo; View of the Russian Empire during &c.
(London, 1799), 3 vols. 8vo.- Hermann, Geschichte des
Russischen Staats (Hamburg, 1853 ET ANTEA), v. 241-308
et seq.; is by much the most solid Book, though a dull and heavy.
Stenzel cites, as does Hermann, a Biographie Peters des
IIIten; which no doubt exists, in perhaps 3 volumes;
but where, when, by whom, or of what quality, they do not tell me.]
A most placid, solid, substantial young Lady comes to light there;
dropped into such an element as might have driven most people mad.
But it did not her; it only made her wiser and wiser in her
generation. Element black, hideous, dirty, as Lapland Sorcery;--in
which the first clear duty is, to hold one's tongue well, and keep
one's eyes open. Stars,--not very heavenly, but of fixed nature,
and heavenly to Catharine,--a star or two, shine through the
abominable murk: Steady, patient; steer silently, in all weathers,
towards these!
"Young Catharine's immovable equanimity in this distracted
environment strikes us very much. Peter is careering, tumbling
about, on all manner of absurd broomsticks, driven too surely by
the Devil; terrific-absurd big Lapland Witch, surrounded by
multitudes smaller, and some of them less ugly. Will be Czar of
Russia, however;--and is one's so-called Husband. These are
prospects for an observant, immovably steady-going young Woman!
The reigning Czarina, old CATIN herself, is silently the Olympian
Jove to Catharine, who reveres her very much. Though articulately
stupid as ever, in this Book of Catharine's, she comes out with a
dumb weight, of silence, of obstinacy, of intricate abrupt rigor,
which--who knows but it may savor of dumb unconscious wisdom in the
fat old blockhead? The Book says little of her, and in the way of
criticism, of praise or of blame, nothing whatever; but one gains
the notion of some dark human female object, bigger than one had
fancied it before.
"Catharine steered towards her stars. Lovers were vouchsafed her,
of a kind (her small stars, as we may call them); and, at length,
through perilous intricacies, the big star, Autocracy of All the
Russias,--through what horrors of intricacy, that last! She had
hoped always it would be by Husband Peter that she, with the deeper
steady head, would be Autocrat: but the intricacies kept
increasing, grew at last to the strangling pitch; and it came to
be, between Peter and her, 'Either you to Siberia (perhaps
FARTHER), or else I!' And it was Peter that had to go;--in what
hideous way is well enough known; no Siberia, no Holstein thought
to be far enough for Peter:--and Catharine, merely weeping a little
for him, mounted to the Autocracy herself. And then, the big star
of stars being once hers, she had, not in the lover kind alone, but
in all uncelestial kinds, whole nebulae and milky-ways of small
stars. A very Semiramis, the Louis-Quatorze of those Northern
Parts. 'Second Creatress of Russia,' second Peter the Great in a
sense. To me none of the loveliest objects; yet there are uglier,
how infinitely uglier: object grandiose, if not great."--
We return to Friedrich and the Death of Catin.
Colonel Hordt, I believe, was the first who credibly apprised
Friedrich of the great Russian Event. Colonel Hordt, late of the
Free-Corps HORDT, but captive since soon after the Kunersdorf time;
and whose doleful quasi-infernal "twenty-five months and three
days" in the Citadel of Petersburg have changed in one hour into
celestial glories in the Court of that City;--as readers shall
themselves see anon. By Hordt or by whomsoever, the instant
Friedrich heard, by an authentic source, of the new Czar's
Accession, Friedrich hastened to turn round upon him with the
friendliest attitude, with arms as if ready to open; dismissing all
his Russian Prisoners; and testifying, in every polite and royal
way, how gladly he would advance if permitted. To which the Czar,
by Hordt and by other channels, imperially responded; rushing
forward, he, as if with arms flung wide.
January 31st is Order from the King, [In SCHONING, iii. 275
("Breslau, 31st January, 1762").] That our Russian Prisoners, one
and all, shod, clad and dieted, be forthwith set under way from
Stettin: in return for which generosity the Prussians, from Siberia
or wherever they were buried, are, soon after, hastening home in
like manner. Gudowitsh, Peter's favorite Adjutant, who had been
sent to congratulate at Zerbst, comes round by Breslau (February
20th), and has joyfully benign audience next day; directly on the
heel of whom, Adjutant Colonel von Goltz, who KAMMERHERR as well as
Colonel, and understands things of business, goes to Petersburg.
February 23d, Czarish Majesty, to the horror of Vienna and glad
astonishment of mankind, emits Declaration (Note to all the Foreign
Excellencies in Petersburg), "That there ought to be Peace with
this King of Prussia; that Czarish Majesty, for his own part, is
resolved on the thing; gives up East Preussen and the so-called
conquests made; Russian participation in such a War has ceased."
And practically orders Czernichef, who is wintering with his 20,000
in Glatz, to quit Glatz and these Austrian Combinations, and march
homeward with his 20,000. Which Czernichef, so soon as arrangements
of proviant and the like are made, hastens to do;--and does, as far
as Thorn; but no farther, for a reason that will be seen. On the
last day of March, Czernichef--off about a week ago from Glatz, and
now got into the Breslau latitude--came across, with a select Suite
of Four, to pay his court there; and had the honor to dine with his
Majesty, and to be, personally too, a Czernichef agreeable to
his Majesty.
The vehemency of Austrian Diplomacies at Petersburg; and the horror
of Kaiserinn and Kriegshofrath in Vienna,--who have just discharged
20,000 of their own people, counting on this Czernichef, and being
dreadfully tight for money,--may be fancied. But all avails
nothing. The ardent Czar advances towards Friedrich with arms flung
wide. Goltz and Gudowitsh are engaged on Treaty of Peace;
Czar frankly gives up East Preussen, "Yours again; what use has
Russia for it, Royal Friend?" Treaty of Peace goes forward like the
drawing of a Marriage-settlement (concluded MAY 5th); and, in a
month more, has changed into Treaty of Alliance;--Czernichef
ordered to stop short at Thorn; to turn back, and join himself to
this heroic King, instead of fighting against him. Which again
Czernichef, himself an admirer of this King, joyfully does;--
though, unhappily, not with all the advantage he expected to
the King.
Swedish Peace, Queen Ulrique and the Anti-French Party now getting
the upper hand, had been hastening forward in the interim
(finished, at Hamburg, MAY 2d): a most small matter in comparison
to the Russian; but welcome enough to Friedrich;--though he said
slightingly of it, when first mentioned: "Peace? I know not hardly
of any War there has been with Sweden;--ask Colonel Belling about
it!" Colonel Belling, a most shining swift Hussar Colonel, who,
with a 2,000 sharp fellows, hanging always on the Swedish flanks,
sharp as lightning, "nowhere and yet everywhere," as was said of
him, has mainly, for the last year or two, had the management of
this extraordinary "War." Peace over all the North, Peace and more,
is now Friedrich's. Strangling imbroglio, wide as the world, has
ebbed to man's height; dawn of day has ripened into sunrise for
Friedrich; the way out is now a thing credible and visible to him.
Peter's friendliness is boundless; almost too boundless! Peter begs
a Prussian Regiment,--dresses himself in its uniform, Colonel of
ITZENPLITZ; Friedrich begs a Russian Regiment, Colonel of
SCHUWALOF: and all is joyful, hopeful; marriage-bells instead of
dirge ditto and gallows ditto,--unhappily not for very long.
In regard to Friedrich's feelings while all this went on, take the
following small utterances of his, before going farther.
JANUARY 27th, 1762 (To Madam Camas,--eight days after the Russian
Event): "I rejoice, my good Mamma, to find you have such courage;
I exhort you to redouble it! All ends in this world; so we may hope
this accursed War will not be the only thing eternal there.
Since death has trussed up a certain CATIN of the Hyperborean
Countries, our situation has advantageously changed, and becomes
more supportable than it was. We must hope that some other events
[favor of the new Czar mainly] will happen; by which we may profit
to arrive at a good Peace."
JANUARY 31st (To Minister Finkenstein) "Behold the first gleam of
light that rises;--Heaven be praised for it! We must hope good
weather will succeed these storms. God grant it!" [Preuss,
ii. 312.]
END OF MARCH (To D'Argens): ... "All that [at Paris; about the
Pompadourisms, the EXILE of Broglio and Brother, and your other
news] is very miserable; as well as that discrepancy between King's
Council and Parlement for and against the Jesuits! But, MON CHER
MARQUIS, my head is so ill, I can tell you nothing more,--
except that the Czar of Russia is a divine man; to whom I ought to
erect altars." [ OEuvres de Frederic,
xix. 301.]
MAY 25th (To the same,--Russian PEACE three weeks ago): "It is very
pleasant to me, dear Marquis, that Sans-Souci could afford you an
agreeable retreat during the beautiful Spring days. If it depended
only on me, how soon should I be there beside you! But to the Six
Campaigns there is a Seventh to be added, and will soon open;
either because the Number 7 had once mystic qualities, or because
in the Book of Fate from all eternity the"-- ... "Jesuits banished
from France? Ah, yes:--hearing of that, I made my bit of plan for
them [mean to have my pick of them as schoolmasters in Silesia
here]; and am waiting only till I get Silesia cleared of Austrians
as the first thing. You see we must not mow the corn till it is
ripe." [ OEuvres de Frederic, xix. p. 321.]
MAY 28th (To the same): ... Tartar Khan actually astir, 10,000 men
of his in Hungary (I am told); Turk potentially ditto, with 200,000
(futile both, as ever): "All things show me the sure prospect of
Peace by the end of this Year; and, in the background of it, Sans-
Souci and my dear Marquis! A sweet calm springs up again in my
soul; and a feeling of hope, to which for six years I had got
unused, consoles me for all I have come through. Think only what a
coil I shall be in, before a month hence [Campaign opened by that
time, horrid Game begun again]; and what a pass we had come to, in
December last: Country at its last gasp (AGONISAIT), as if waiting
for extreme unction: and now--!" [Ib. xix. 323.] ...
JUNE 8th (To Madame Camas,--Russian ALLIANCE now come): "I know
well, my good Mamma, the sincere part you take in the lucky events
that befall us. The mischief is, we are got so low, that we want at
present all manner of fortunate events to raise us again; and Two
grand conclusions of Peace [the Russian, the Swedish], which might
re-establish Peace throughout, are at this moment only a step
towards finishing the War less unfortunately." [Ib. xviii.
146, 147.]*
Same day, JUNE 8th (To D'Argens): "Czernichef is on march to join
us. Our Campaign will not open till towards the end of this month
[did open July 1st]; but think then what a pretty noise in this
poor Silesia again! In fine, my dear Marquis, the job ahead of me
is hard and difficult; and nobody can say positively how it will
all go. Pray for us; and don't forget a poor devil who kicks about
strangely in his harness, who leads the life of one damned; and who
nevertheless loves you sincerely.--Adieu." [ OEuvres de
Frederic, xix. 327.] D'Argens (May 24th) has heard, by
Letters from very well-informed persons in Vienna, that "Imperial
Majesty, for some time past, spends half of her time in praying to
the Virgin, and the other half in weeping." "I wish her," adds the
ungallant D'Argens, "as punishment for the mischiefs her ambition
has cost mankind these seven years past, the fate of Phaethon's
Sisters, and that she melt altogether into water!" [Ib. xix. 320
("24th May, 1762").]--Take one other little utterance; and then to
Colonel Hordt and the Petersburg side of things.
JUNE 19th (still to D'Argens); "What is now going on in Russia no
Count Kaunitz could foresee: what has come to pass in England,--of
which the hatefulest part [Bute's altogether extraordinary
attempts, in the Kaunitz, in the Czar Peter direction, to FORCE a
Peace upon me] is not yet known to you,--I had no notion of, in
forming my plans! The Governor of a State, in troublous times,
never can be sure. This is what disgusts me with the business, in
comparison. A Man of Letters operates on something certain;
a Politician can have almost no data of that kind." [Ib. xix.
p. 329.] (How easy everybody's trade but one's own!)
Readers know what a tragedy poor Peter's was. His Czernichef did
join the King; but with far less advantage than Czernichef or
anybody had anticipated!--It is none of our intention to go into
the chaotic Russian element, or that wildly blazing sanguinary
Catharine-and-Peter business; of which, at any rate, there are
plentiful accounts in common circulation, more or less accurate,--
especially M. Rulhiere's, [Histoire ou Anecdotes sur la Revolution
de Russie en l'annes 1762 (written 1768; first printed Paris, 1797:
English Translation, London, 1797).] the most succinct, lucid and
least unsatisfactory, in the accessible languages. Only so far as
Friedrich was concerned are we. But readers saw this Couple
married, under Friedrich's auspices,--a Marriage which he thought
important twenty years ago; and sure enough the Dissolution of it
did prove important to him, and is a necessary item here!
Readers, even those that know RULHIERE, will doubtless consent to a
little supplementing from Two other Eye-witnesses of credit.
The first and principal is a respectable Ex-Swedish Gentleman, whom
readers used to hear of; the Colonel Hordt above mentioned, once of
the Free-Corps HORDT, but fallen Prisoner latterly;--whose
experiences and reports are all the more interesting to us, as
Friedrich himself had specially to depend on them at present;
and doubtless, in times long afterwards, now and then heard speech
of them from Hordt. Our second Eye-witness is the Reverend Herr
Doctor Busching (of the ERDBESCHREIBUNG, of the BEITRAGE, and many
other Works, an invaluable friend to us all along); who, in his
wandering time, had come to be "Pastor of the GERMAN CHURCH AT
PETERSBURG," some years back.
WHAT COLONEL HORDT AND THE OTHERS SAW AT PETERSBURG
(January-July, 1762).
Autumn, 1759, in the sequel to KUNERSDORF,--when the Russians and
Daun lay so long torpid, uncertain what to do except keep Friedrich
and Prince Henri well separate, and Friedrich had such watchings,
campings and marchings about on the hither skirt of them (skirt
always veiled in Cossacks, and producing skirmishes as you marched
past),--we did mention Hordt's capture; [Supra, vol. x. p. 315.]
not much hoping that readers could remember it in such a press of
things more memorable. It was in, or as prelude to, one of those
skirmishes (one of the earliest, and a rather sharp one, "at
Trebatsch," in Frankfurt-Lieberose Country, "4th September, 1759"),
that Hordt had his misfortune: he had been out reconnoitring, with
an Orderly or two, before the skirmish began, was suddenly
"surrounded by 200 Cossacks," and after desperate plunging into
bogs, desperate firing of pistols and the like, was taken prisoner.
Was carted miserably to Petersburg,--such a journey for dead ennui
as Hordt never knew; and was then tumbled out into solitary
confinement in the Citadel, a place like the Spanish Inquisition;
not the least notice taken of his request for a few Books, for
leave to answer his poor Wife's Letter, merely by the words, "Dear
one, I am alive;"--and was left there, to the company of his own
reflections, and a life as if in vacant Hades, for twenty-five
months and three days. After the lapse of that period, he has
something to say to us again, and we transiently look in upon
him there.
The Book we excerpt from is Memoires du Comte de Hordt
(second edition, 2 volumes 12mo, Berlin, 1789).
This is Bookseller Pitra's redaction of the Hordt Autobiography
(Berlin, 1788, was Pitra's first edition): several years after, how
many is not said, nor whether Hordt (who had become a dignitary in
Berlin society before Pitra's feat) was still living or not, a
"M. Borelly, Professor in the Military School," undertook a second
considerably enlarged and improved redaction;--of which latter
there is an English Translation; easy enough to read; but nearly
without meaning, I should fear, to readers unacquainted with the
scene and subject. [ Memoirs of the Count de Hordt:
London, 1806: 2 vols. 12mo,--only the FIRST volume of
which (unavailable here) is in my possession.] Hordt was reckoned a
perfectly veracious, intelligent kind of man: but he seldom gives
the least date, specification or precise detail; and his Book
reads, not like the Testimony of an Eye-witness, which it is, and
valuable when you understand it; but more like some vague Forgery,
compiled by a destitute inventive individual, regardless of the Ten
Commandments (sparingly consulting even his file of Old
Newspapers), and writing a Book which would deserve the tread-mill,
were there any Police in his trade!--
WEDNESDAY, 6th JANUARY, 1762, Hordt's vacant Hades of an existence
in the Citadel of Petersburg was broken by a loud sound:
three minute-guns went off from different sides, close by; and then
whole salvos, peal after peal: "Czarina gone overnight, Peter III.
Czar in her stead!" said the Officer, rushing in to tell Hordt;
to whom it was as news of resurrection from the dead. "Evening of
same day, an Aide-de-Camp of the new Czar came to announce my
liberty; equipage waiting to take me at once to his Russian
Majesty. Asked him to defer it till the following day--so agitated
was I." And indeed the Czar, busy taking acclamations, oaths of
fealty, riding about among his Troops by torchlight, could have
made little of me that evening. [Hermann, Geschichte des
Russischen Staats, v. 241.] "Ultimately, my
presentation was deferred till Sunday" January 10th, "that it might
be done with proper splendor, all the Nobility being then usually
assembled about his Majesty."
"JANUARY 10th, Waited, amid crowds of Nobility, in the Gallery,
accordingly. Was presented in the Gallery, through which the Czar,
followed by Czarina and all the Court, were passing on their way to
Chapel. Czar made a short kind speech ('Delighted to do you an act
of justice, Monsieur, and return a valuable servant to the King I
esteem'); gave me his hand to kiss: Czarina did the same.
General Korf," an excellent friend, so kind to me at Konigsberg,
while I was getting carted hither, and a General now in high office
here, "who had been my introducer, led me into Chapel, to the
Court's place (TRIBUNE DE LA COUR). Czar came across repeatedly
[while public worship was going on; a Czar perhaps too regardless
that way!] to talk to me; dwelt much on his attachment to the King.
On coming out, the Head Chamberlain whispered me, 'You dine with
the Court.'" Which, of course, I did.
"Table was of sixty covers; splendid as the Arabian Tales. Czar and
Czarina sat side by side; Korf and I had the honor to be placed
opposite them. Hardly were we seated when the Czar addressed me:
'You have had no Prussian news this long while. I am glad to tell
you that the King is well, though he has had such fighting to right
and left;--but I hope there will soon be an end to all that.'
Words which everybody listened to like prophecy! [Peter is nothing
of a Politician.] 'How long have you been in prison?' continued the
Czar. 'Twenty-five months and three days, your Majesty.' 'Were you
well treated?' Hordt hesitated, knew not what to say; but, the Czar
urging him, confessed, 'He had been always rather badly used;
not even allowed to buy a few books to read.' At which the Czarina
was evidently shocked: 'CELA EST BIEN BARBARE!' she exclaimed
aloud.--I wished much to return home at once; and petitioned the
Czar on that subject, during coffee, in the withdrawing rooms;
but he answered, 'No, you must not,--not till an express Prussian
Envoy arrive!' I had to stay, therefore; and was thenceforth almost
daily at Court",--but unluckily a little vague, and altogether
DATELESS as to what I saw there!
BIEREN AND MUNNICH, BOTH OF THEM JUST HOME FROM SIBERIA, ARE TO
DRINK TOGETHER (No date: Palace of Petersburg, Spring, 1762).--
Peter had begun in a great way: all for liberalism, enlightenment,
abolition of abuses, general magnanimity on his own and everybody's
part. Rulhiere did not see the following scene; but it seems to be
well enough vouched for, and Rulhiere heard it talked of in
society. "As many as 20,000 persons, it is counted, have come home
from Siberian Exile:" the L'Estocs, the Munnichs, Bierens, all
manner of internecine figures, as if risen from the dead.
"Since the night when Munnich arrested Bieren [readers possibly
remember it, and Mannstein's account of it [Supra, vol. vii.
p. 363.]], the first time these two met was in the gay and
tumultuous crowd which surrounded the new Czar. 'Come, bygones be
bygones,' said Peter, noticing them; 'let us three all drink
together, like friends!'--and ordered three glasses of wine.
Peter was beginning his glass to show the others an example, when
somebody came with a message to him, which was delivered in a low
tone; Peter listening drank out his wine, set down the glass, and
hastened off; so that Bieren and Munnich, the two old enemies, were
left standing, glass in hand, each with his eyes on the Czar's
glass;--at length, as the Czar did not return, they flashed each
his eyes into the other's face; and after a moment's survey, set
down their glasses untasted, and walked off in opposite
directions." [Rulhiere, p. 33.] Won't coalesce, it seems, in spite
of the Czar's high wishes. An emblem of much that befell the poor
Czar in his present high course of good intentions and headlong
magnanimities!--We return to Hordt:--
THE CZAR WEARS A PORTRAIT OF FRIEDRICH ON HIS FINGER. "Czar Peter
never disguised his Prussian predilections. One evening he said,
'Propose to your friend Keith [English Excellency here, whom we
know] to give me a supper at his house to-morrow night. The other
Foreign Ministers will perhaps be jealous; but I don't care!'
Supper at the English Embassy took place. Only ten or twelve
persons, of the Czar's choosing, were present. Czar very gay and in
fine spirits. Talked much of the King of Prussia. Showed me a
signet-ring on his finger, with Friedrich's Portrait in it;
ring was handed round the table." [Hordt, ii. 118, 124, 129.]
This is a signet-ring famous at Court in these months. One day
Peter had lost it (mislaid somewhere), and got into furious
explosion till it was found for him again. [Hermann, v. 258.]
Let us now hear Busching, our Geographical Friend, for a moment:--
HERR PASTOR BUSCHING DOES THE HOMAGING FOR SELF AND PEOPLE. ...
"In most Countries, it is Official or Military People that
administer the Oath of Homage, on a change of Sovereigns. But in
Petersburg, among the German population, it is the Pastors of their
respective Churches. At the accession of Peter III., I, for the
first time [being still a young hand rather than an old], took the
Oath from several thousands in my Church,"--and handed it over,
with my own, in the proper quarter.
"As to the Congratulatory Addresses, the new Czar received the
Congratulations of all classes, and also of the Pastors of the
Foreign Churches, in the following manner. He came walking slowly
through a suite of rooms, in each of which a body of Congratulators
were assembled. Court-officials preceded, State-officials followed
him. Then came the Czarina, attended in a similar way. And always
on entering a new room they received a new Congratulation from the
spokesman of the party there. The spokesman of us Protestant
Pastors was my colleague, Senior Trefurt; but the General-in-Chief
and Head-of-Police, Baron von Korf [Hordt's friend, known to us
above, German, we perceive, by creed and name], thinking it was I
that had to make the speech, and intending to present me at the
same time to the Czar, motioned to me from his place behind the
Czar to advance. But I did not push forward; thinking it
inopportune and of no importance to me."--"Neither did I share the
great expectations which Baron von Korf and everybody entertained
of this new reign. All people now promised themselves better times,
without reflecting [as they should have done!] that the better men
necessary to produce these were nowhere forthcoming!" [Busching's
Beitrage, vi. ("Author's own Biography") 462
et seq.]
For the first two or three months, Peter was the idol of all the
world: such generosities and magnanimities; Such zeal and
diligence, one magnanimous improvement following another! He had at
once abolished Torture in his Law-Courts: resolved to have a
regular Code of Laws,--and Judges to be depended on for doing
justice. He "destroyed monopolies;" "lowered the price of salt."
To the joy of everybody, he had hastened (January 18th, second week
of reign) to abolish the SECRET CHANCERY,--a horrid Spanish-
Inquisition engine of domestic politics. His Nobility he had
determined should be noble: January 28th (third week of reign just
beginning), he absolved the Nobility from all servile duties to
him: "You can travel when and where you please; you are not obliged
to serve in my Armies; you may serve in anybody's not at war with
me!" under plaudits loud and universal from that Order of men.
And was petitioned by a grateful Petersburg world: "Permit us,
magnanimous Czar, to raise a statue of your Majesty in solid Gold!"
"Don't at all!" answered Peter: "Ah, if by good governing I could
raise a memorial in my People's hearts; that would be the Statue
for me!" [Hermann, v. 248.] Poor headlong Peter!--It was a less
lucky step that of informing the Clergy (date not given), That in
the Czarship lay Spiritual Sovereignty as well as Temporal, and
that HE would henceforth administer their rich Abbey Lands and the
like:--this gave a sad shock to the upper strata of Priesthood,
extending gradually to the lower, and ultimately raising an ominous
general thought (perhaps worse than a general cry) of "Church in
Danger! Alas, is our Czar regardless of Holy Religion, then?
Perhaps, at heart still Lutheran, and has no Religion?" This, and
his too headlong Prussian tendencies, are counted to have done him
infinite mischief.
HERR BUSCHING SEES THE CZAR ON HORSEBACK. "When the Czar's own
Regiment of Cuirassiers came to Petersburg, the Czar, dressed in
the uniform of the regiment, rode out to meet it; and returning at
its head, rode repeatedly through certain quarters of the Town.
His helmet was buckled tight with leather straps under the chin;
he sat his horse as upright and stiff as a wooden image; held his
sabre in equally stiff manner; turned fixedly his eyes to the
right; and never by a hair's-breadth changed that posture. In such
attitude he twice passed my house with his regiment, without
changing a feature at sight of the many persons who crowded the
windows. To me [in my privately austere judgment] he seemed so
KLEINGEISTISCH, so small-minded a person, that I"--in fact, knew
not what to think of it. [Busching, Beitrage,
vi. 464.]
HORDT SEES THE DECEASED CZARINA LYING IN STATE. "One day, after
dining at Court, General Korf proposed that we should go and see
the LIT DE PARADE" (Parade-bed) of the late Czarina, which is in
another Palace, not far off. "Count Schuwalof [NOT her old lover,
who has DIED since her, poor old creature; but his Son, a
cultivated man, afterwards Voltaire's friend] accompanied us;
and, his rooms being contiguous to those of the dead Lady, he asked
us to take coffee with him afterwards. The Imperial Bier stood in
the Grand Saloon, which was hung all round with black, festooned
and garlanded with cloth-of-silver; the glare of wax-lights quite
blinding. Bier, covered with cloth-of-gold trimmed with silver
lace, was raised upon steps. A rich Crown was on the head of the
dead Czarina. Beside the bier stood Four Ladies, two on each hand,
in grand mourning; immense crape training on the ground behind
them. Two Officers of the Life-Guard occupied the lowest steps:
on the topmost, at the foot of the bier, was an Archimandrite
(superior kind of ABBOT), who had a Bible before him, from which he
read aloud,--continuously till relieved by another. This went on
day and night without interruption. All round the bier, on stools
(TABOURETS), were placed different Crowns, and the insignia of
various Orders,--those of Prussia, among others. It being
established usage, I had, to my great repugnance, to kiss the hand
of the corpse! We then talked a little to the Ladies in attendance
(with their crape trains), joking about the article of hand-
kissing; finally we adjourned for coffee to Count Schuwalof's
apartments, which were of an incredible magnificence." That same
evening, farther on,--
"I supped with the Czar in his PETIT APPARTEMENT, Private Rooms [a
fine free-and-easy nook of space!]. The company there consisted of
the Countess Woronzow, a creature without any graces, bodily or
mental, whom the Czar had chosen for his Mistress [snub-nosed,
pock-marked, fat, and with a pert tongue at times], whom I liked
the less, as there were one or two other very handsome women there.
Some Courtiers too; and no Foreigners but the English Envoy and
myself. The supper was very gay, and was prolonged late into the
night. These late orgies, however, did not prevent his Majesty from
attending to business in good time next morning. He would appear
unexpectedly, at an early hour, at the Senate, at the Synod [Head
CONSISTORY], making them stand to their duties,"--or pretend to do
it. His Majesty is not understood to have got much real work out of
either of these Governing Bodies; the former, the Senate, or
SECULAR one, which had fallen very torpid latterly, was, not long
after this, suffered to die out altogether. Peter himself was a
violently pushing man, and never shrank from labor; always in a
plunge of hurries, and of irregular hours. In his final time,
people whispered, "The Czar is killing himself; sits smoking,
tippling, talking till 2 in the morning; and is overhead in
business again by 7!"
CZARINA ELIZABETH'S FUNERAL, AS SEEN BY HORDT (much abridged).
"At 10 in the morning all the bells in Petersburg broke out;
and tolled incessantly [day or month not hinted at,--nor worth
seeking; grim darkness of universal frost perceptible enough;
clangor of bells; and procession seemingly of miles long,--on this
extremely high errand!]--Minute-guns were fired from the moment the
procession set out from the Castle till it arrived at the Citadel,
a distance of two English miles and a half. Planks were laid all
the way; forming a sort of bridge through the streets, and over the
ice of the Neva. All the soldiers of the Garrison were ranked in
espalier on each side. Three hundred grenadiers opened the march;
after them, three hundred priests, in sacerdotal costume;
walking two-and-two, singing hymns. All the Crowns and Orders,
above mentioned by me, were carried by high Dignitaries of the
Court, walking in single file, each a chamberlain behind him.
Hearse was followed by the Czar, skirt of his black cloak held up
by Twelve Chamberlains, each a lighted taper in the OTHER hand.
Prince George of Holstein [Czar's Uncle] came next, then Holstein-
Beck [Czar's Cousin]. Czarina Catharine followed, also on foot,
with a lighted taper; her cloak borne by all her Ladies.
Three hundred grenadiers closed the procession. Bells tolling,
minute-guns firing, seas of people crowding."--Thus the Russians
buried their Czarina. Day and its dusky frost-curtains sank;
and Bootes, looking down from the starry deeps, found one Telluric
Anomaly forever hidden from him. She had left of unworn Dresses,
the richest procurable in Nature (five a day her usual allowance,
and never or seldom worn twice), "15,000 and some hundreds."
[Hermann, v. 176.]
HORDT IS OF THE NEW CZARINA CATHARINE'S EVENING PARTIES.
"The Czarina received company every morning. She received everybody
with great affability and grace. But notwithstanding her efforts to
appear gay, one could perceive a deep background of sadness in her.
She knew better than anybody the violent (ARDENTE) character of her
husband; and perhaps she then already foresaw what would come.
She also had her circle every evening, and always asked the company
to stay supper. One evening, when I was of her party, a
confidential Equerry of the Czar came in, and whispered me That I
had been searched for all over Town, to come to supper at the
COUNTESS'S (that was the usual designation of the Sultana,"--DAS
FRAULEIN, spelt in Russian ways, is the more usual). "I begged to
be excused for this time, being engaged to sup with the Czarina, to
whom I could not well state the reason for which I was to leave.
The Equerry had not gone long, when suddenly a great noise was
heard, the two wings of the door were flung open, and the Czar
entered. He saluted politely the Czarina and her circle; called me
with that smiling and gracious air which he always had; took me by
the arm, and said to the Czarina: 'Excuse me, Madam, if to-night I
carry off one of your guests; it is this Prussian I had searched
for all over the Town.' The Czarina laughed; I made her a deep bow,
and went away with my conductor. Next morning I went to the
Czarina; who, without mentioning what had passed last night, said
smiling, 'Come and sup with me always when there is nothing to
prevent it.'"
FEBRUARY 21st, HORDT AT ZARSKOE-ZELOE. "On occasion of the Czar's
birthday [which gives us a date, for once], [Michaelis, ii. 627:
"Peter born, 21st February, 1728."] there were great festivities,
lasting a week. It began with a grand TE DEUM, at which the Czar
was present, but not the Czarina. She had, that morning, in
obedience to her husband's will, decorated 'the Countess' with the
cordon of the Order of St. Catharine. She was now detained in her
Apartment 'by indisposition;' and did not leave it during the eight
days the festivities lasted." This happened at the Country Palace,
Zarskoe-Zeloe; and is a turning-point in poor Peter's History.
[Hermann, p. 253.] From that day, his Czarina saw that, by the
medium of her Peter, it was not she that would ever come to be
Autocrat; not she, but a pock-marked, unbeautiful Person, with
Cordon of the Order of St. Catharine,--blessings on it! From that
day the Czarina sat brooding her wrongs and her perils,--wrongs
DOUE, very many, and now wrongs to be SUFFERED, who can say how
many! She perceives clearly that the Czar is gone from her, fixedly
sullen at her (not without cause);--and that Siberia, or worse, is
possible by and by. The Czarina was helplessly wretched for some
time; and by degrees entered on a Plot;--assisted by Princess
Dashkof (Sister of the Snub-nosed), by Panin (our Son's Tutor,
"a genuine Son, I will swear, whatever the Papa may think in his
wild moments!"), by Gregory Orlof (one's present Lover), and
others of less mark;--and it ripened exquisitely within the next
four months!--
HORDT HEARS THE PRAISES OF HIS KING. "Next day [nobody can guess
what DAY] I dined at Court. I sat opposite the Czar, who talked of
nothing but of his 'good friend the King of Prussia.' He knew all
the smallest details of his Campaigns; all his military
arrangements; the dress and strength of all his Regiments; and he
declared aloud that he would shortly put all his troops upon the
same footing [which he did shortly, to the great disgust of his
troops].--Rising from table, the Czar himself did me the honor to
say, 'Come to-morrow; dine with me EN PETIT APPARTEMENT [on the
SNUG, where we often play high-jinks, and go to great lengths in
liquor and tobacco]; I will show you something curious, which you
will like.' I went at the accustomed hour; I found--Lieutenant-
General Werner [hidden since his accident at Colberg last winter,
whom a beneficent Czar has summoned again into the light of noon]!
I made a great friendship with this distinguished General, who was
a charming man; and went constantly about with him, till he left me
here,"--Czarish kindness letting Werner home, and detaining me, to
my regret. [HORDT, i. 133-145, 151.]
The Prussian Treaties, first of Peace (May 5th), with all our
Conquests flung back, and then of Alliance, with yourself and
ourselves, as it were, flung into the bargain,--were by no means so
popular in Petersburg as in Berlin! From May 5th onwards, we can
suppose Peter to be, perhaps rather rapidly, on the declining hand.
Add the fatal element, "Church in Danger" (a Czar privately
Apostate); his very Guardsmen indignant at their tight-fitting
Prussian uniforms, and at their no less tight Prussian DRILL
(which the Czar is uncommonly urgent with); and a Czarina Plot
silently spreading on all sides, like subterranean mines filled
with gunpowder!--
HERR BUSCHING SEES THE CATASTROPHE (Friday, 9th July, 1762).
"This being the day before Peter-and-Paul, which is a great Holiday
in Petersburg, I drove out, between 9 and 10 in the morning, to
visit the sick. On my way from the first house where I had called,
I heard a distant noise like that of a rising thunder-storm, and
asked my people what it was. They did not know; but it appeared to
them like the Shouting of a Mob (VOLKSGESCHREI), and there were all
sorts of rumors afloat. Some said, 'The Czar had suddenly resolved
to get himself crowned at Petersburg, before setting out for the
War on Denmark.' Others said, 'He had named the Czarina to be
Regent during his absence, and that she was to be crowned for this
purpose.' These rumors were too silly: meanwhile the noise
perceptibly drew nearer; and I ordered my coachman to proceed no
farther, but to turn home.
"On getting home, I called my Wife; and told her, That something
extraordinary was then going on, but that I could not learn what;
that it appeared to me like some popular Tumult, which was coming
nearer to us every moment. We hurried to the corner room of our
house; threw open the window, which looks to the Church of St. Mary
of Casan [where an Act of Thanksgiving has just been consummated,
of a very peculiar kind!]--and we then saw, near this Church, an
innumerable crowd of people; dressed and half-dressed soldiers of
the foot-regiments of the Guards mixed with the populace.
We perceived that the crowd pressed round a common two-seated
Hackney Coach drawn by two horses; in which, after a few minutes, a
Lady dressed in black, and wearing the Order of St. Catharine,
coming out of the church, took a seat. Whereupon the church-bells
began ringing, and the priests, with their assistants carrying
crosses, got into procession, and walked before the Coach. We now
recognized that it was the Czarina Catharine saluting the multitude
to right and left, as she fared along." [ Beitrage,
italic> vi. 465: compare RULHIERE, p. 95; HERMANN, v. 287.]
Yes, Doctor, that Lady in black is the Czarina; and has come a
drive of twenty miles this morning; and done a great deal of
business in Town,--one day before the set time. In her remote
Apartment at Peterhof, this morning, between 2 and 3, she awoke to
see Alexei Orlof, called oftener SCARRED Orlof (Lover GREGORY'S
Brother), kneeling at her bedside, with the words, "Madam, you must
come: there is not a moment to lose!"--who, seeing her awake,
vanished to get the vehicles ready. About 7, she, with the Scarred
and her maid and a valet or two, arrived at the Guards' Barracks
here,--Gregory Orlof, and others concerned, waiting to receive her,
in the fit temper for playing at sharps. She has spoken a little,
wept a little, to the Guards (still only half-dressed, many of
them): "Holy religion, Russian Empire thrown at the feet of
Prussia; my poor Son to be disinherited: Alack, ohoo!"
Whereupon the Guards (their Officers already gained by Orlof) have
indignantly blazed up into the fit Hurra-hurra-ing:--and here,
since about 9 A.M., we have just been in the "Church of St. Mary of
Casan" ("Oh, my friends, Orthodox Religion, first of all!") doing
TE-DEUMS and the other Divine Offices, for the thrice-happy
Revolution and Deliverance now vouchsafed us and you! And the Herr
Doctor, under outburst of the chimes of St. Mary, and of the
jubilant Soldieries and Populations, sees the Czarina saluting to
right and left; and Priests, with their assistants and crucifixes
("Behold them, ye Orthodox; is there anything equal to true
Religion?"), walking before her Hackney Coach.
"On the one step of her Coach," continues the Herr Doctor, "stood
Grigorei Grigorjewitsh Orlow," so he spells him, "and in front of
it, with drawn sword, rode the Field-marshal and Hetman Count
Kirila Grigorjewitsh Rasomowski, Colonel of the Ismailow Guard.
Lieutenant-General (soon to be General-Ordnance-Master) Villebois
came galloping up; leapt from his horse under our windows, and
placed himself on the other step of the Coach. The procession
passed before our house; going first to the New stone Palace, then
to the Old wooden Winter Palace. Common Russians shouted mockingly
up to us, 'Your god [meaning the Czar] is dead!' And others, 'He is
gone; we will have no more of him!'"--
About this hour of the day, at Oranienbaum (ORANGE-TREE, some
twenty miles from here, and from Peterhof guess ten or twelve),
Czar Peter is drilling zealously his brave Holsteiners (2,000 or
more, "the flower of all my troops"); and has not, for hours after,
the least inkling of all this. Catharine had been across to visit
him on Wednesday, no farther back; and had kindled Oranienbaum into
opera, into illumination and what not. Thursday (yesterday), Czar
and Czarina met at some Grandee's festivity, who lives between
their two Residences. This day the Czar is appointed for Peterhof;
to-morrow, July 10th (Peter-and-Paul's grand Holiday), Czar,
Czarina and united Court were to have done the Festivities together
there,--with Czarina's powder-mine of Plot laid under them;
which latter has exploded one day sooner, in the present happy
manner! The poor Czar, this day, on getting to Peterhof, and
finding Czarina vanished, understood too well; he saw "big smoke-
clouds rise suddenly over Petersburg region," withal,--"Ha, she has
cannon going for her yonder; salvoing and homaging!"--and rushed
back to Oranienbaum half mad. Old Munnich undertook to save him, by
one, by two or even three different methods, "Only order me, and
stand up to it with sword bare!"--but Peter's wits were all flying
miscellaneously about, and he could resolve on nothing.
Peter and his Czarina never met more. Saturday (to-morrow), he
abdicates; drives over to Peterhof, expecting, as per bargain,
interview with his Wife; freedom to retire to Holstein, and "every
sort of kindness compatible with his situation:" but is met there
instead, on the staircase, by brutal people, who tear the orders
off his coat, at length the very clothes off his back,--and pack
him away to Ropscha, a quiet Villa some miles off, to sit silent
there till Orlof and Company have considered. Consideration is:
"To Holstein? He has an Anti-Danish Russian Army just now in that
neighborhood; he will not be safe in Holstein;--where will he be
safe?" Saturday, 17th, Peter's seventh day in Ropscha, the Orlofs
(Scarred Orlof and Four other miscreants, one of them a Prince, one
a Play-actor) came over, and murdered poor Peter, in a treacherous,
and even bungling and disgusting, and altogether hideous manner.
"A glass of burgundy [poisoned burgundy], your Highness?" said
they, at dinner with his poor Highness. On the back of which, the
burgundy having failed and been found out, came grappling and
hauling, trampling, shrieking, and at last strangulation.
Surely the Devil will reward such a Five of his Elect?-- But we
detain Herr Busching: it is still only Friday morning, 9th of the
month; and the Czarina's Hackney Coach, in the manner of a comet
and tail, has just gone into other streets:--
"After this terrible uproar had left our quarter, I hastened to the
Danish Ambassador, Count Haxthausen, who lived near me, to bring
him the important news that the Czar was said to be dead. The Count
was just about to burn a mass of Papers, fearing the mob would
plunder his house; but he did not proceed with it now, and thanked
Heaven for saving his Country. His Secretary of Legation, my friend
Schumacher, gave me all the money he had in his pockets, to
distribute amongst the poor; and I returned home. Directly after,
there passed our house, at a rate as if the horses were running
away, a common two-horse coach, in which sat Head-Tutor (OBER-
HOFMEISTER) von Panin with the Grand Duke [famous Czar Paul that is
to be], who was still in his nightgown," poor frightened
little boy!--
"Not long after, I saw some of the Foot-guards, in the public
street near the Winter Palace, selling, at rates dog-cheap, their
new uniforms after the Prussian cut, which they had stript off;
whilst others, singing merrily, carried about, stuck on the top of
their muskets, or on their bayonets, their new grenadier caps of
Prussian fashion. [See in HERMANN (v. 291) the Saxon Ambassador's
Report.] I saw several soldiers,, out on errand or otherwise,
seizing the coaches they met in the streets, and driving on in
them. Others appropriated the eatables which hucksters carried
about in baskets. But in all this wild tumult, nobody was killed;
and only at Oranienbaum a few Holstein soldiers got wounded by some
low Russians, in their wantonness.
"July 11th, the disorder amongst the soldiers was at its height;
yet still much less than might have been expected. Many of them
entered the houses of Foreigners, and demanded money. Seeing a
number of them come into my house, I hastily put a quantity of
roubles and half-roubles in my pocket, and went out with a servant,
especially with a cheerful face, to meet them,"--and no harm
was done.
"SATURDAY, JULY 17th, was the day of the Czar's death; on the same
17th, the Empress was informed of it; and next day, his body was
brought from Ropscha to the Convent of St. Alexander Newski, near
Petersburg. Here it lay in state three days; nay, an Imperial
Manifesto even ordered that the last honors and duty be paid to it.
July 20th, I drove thither with my Wife; and to be able to view the
body more minutely, we passed twice through the room where it lay.
[An uncommonly broad neckcloth on it, did you observe?] Owing to
the rapid dissolution, it had to be interred on the following day:
--and it was a touching circumstance, that this happened to be the
very day on which the Czar had fixed to start from Petersburg on
his Campaign against Denmark." [Busching, vi. 464-467.]
Catharine, one must own with a shudder, has not attained the
Autocracy of All the Russias gratis. Let us hope she would once--
till driven upon a dire alternative--have herself shuddered to
purchase at such a price. A kind of horror haunts one's notion of
her red-handed brazen-faced Orlofs and her, which all the cosmetics
of the world will never quite cover. And yet, on the spot, in
Petersburg at the moment--! Read this Clipping from Smelfungus, on
a collateral topic:--
"In BUSCHING'S MAGAZINE are some Love-letters from the old Marshal
Munnich to Catharine just after this event, which are
psychologically curious. Love-letters, for they partake of that
character; though the man is 82, and has had such breakages and
vicissitudes in this Earth. Alive yet, it would seem; and full of
ambitions. Unspeakably beautiful is this young Woman to him;
radiant as ox-eyed Juno, as Diana of the silver bow,--such a power
in her to gratify the avarices, ambitions, cupidities of an
insatiable old fellow: O divine young Empress, Aurora of bright
Summer epochs, rosy-fingered daughter of the Sun,--grant me the
governing of This, the administering of That: and see what a thing
I will make of it (I, an inventive old gentleman), for your
Majesty's honor and glory, and my own advantage! [Busching,
Magazin fur die neue Historie und Geographie
(Halle, Year 1782), xvi. 413-477 (22 LETTERS, and only thrice or so
a word of RESPONSE from "MA DIVINITE:" dates, "Narva, 4th August,
1762" ... "Petersburg, 3d October, 1762").]--Innumerable persons of
less note than Munnich have their Biographies, and are known to the
reading public and in all barbers'-shops, if that were an advantage
to them. Very considerable, this Munnich, as a soldier, for one
thing. And surely had very strange adventures; an original German
character withal:--about the stature of Belleisle, for example;
and not quite unlike Belleisle in some of his ways? Came originally
from the swamps of Oldenburg, or Lower Weser Country,--son of a
DEICHGRAFE (Ditch-Superintendent) there. REQUIESCANT in oblivious
silence, Belleisle and he; it is better than being lied of, and
maundered of, and blotched and blundered of.
"Biographies were once rhythmic, earnest as death or as life,
earnest as transcendent human Insight risen to the Singing pitch;
some Homer, nay some Psalmist or Evangelist, spokesman of reverent
Populations, was the Biographer. Rhythmic, WITH exactitude,
investigation to the very marrow; this, or else oblivion, Biography
should now, and at all times, be; but is not,--by any manner of
means. With what results is visible enough, if you will look!
Human Stupor, fallen into the dishonest, lazy and UNflogged
condition, is truly an awful thing."
Catharine did not persist in her Anti-Prussian determination.
July 9th, the Manifesto had been indignantly emphatic on Prussia;
July 22d, in a Note to Goltz from the Czarina, it was all withdrawn
again. [Rodenbeck, ii. 171.] Looking into the deceased Czar's
Papers, she found that Friedrich's Letters to him had contained
nothing of wrong or offensive; always excellent advices, on the
contrary,--advice, among others, To be conciliatory to his clever-
witted Wife, and to make her his ally, not his opponent, in living
and reigning. In Konigsberg (July 16th, seven days after July 9th),
the Russian Governor, just on the point of quitting, emitted
Proclamation, to everybody's horror: "No; altered, all that;
under pain of death, your Oath to Russia still valid!" Which for
the next ten days, or till his new proclamation, made such a
Konigsberg of it as may be imagined. The sight of those Letters is
understood to have turned the scale; which had hung wavering till
July 22d in the Czarina's mind. "Can it be good," she might
privately think withal, "to begin our reign by kindling a foolish
War again?" How Friedrich received the news of July 9th, and into
what a crisis it threw him, we shall soon see. His Campaign had
begun July 1st;-- and has been summoning us home, into ITS horizon,
for some time.
Chapter XI.
SEVENTH CAMPAIGN OPENS.
Freidrich's plan of Campaign is settled long since: Recapture
Schweidnitz; clear Silesia of the enemy; Silesia and all our own
Dominions clear, we can then stand fencible against the Austrian
perseverances. Peace, one day, they must grant us. The general tide
of European things is changed by these occurrences in Petersburg
and London. Peace is evidently near. France and England are again
beginning to negotiate; no Pitt now to be rigorous. The tide of War
has been wavering at its summit for two years past; and now, with
this of Russia, and this of Bute instead of Pitt, there is ebb
everywhere, and all Europe determining for peace. Steady at the
helm, as heretofore, a Friedrich, with the world-current in his
favor, may hope to get home after all.
Austrian Head-quarters had been at Waldenburg, under Loudon or his
Lieutenants, all Winter. Loudon returned thither from Vienna April
7th; but is not to command in chief, this Year,--Schweidnitz still
sticking in some people's throats: "Dangerous; a man with such rash
practices, rapidities and Pandour tendencies!" Daun is to command
in Silesia; Loudon, under him, obscure to us henceforth, and
inoffensive to Official people. Reichs Army shall take charge of
Saxony; nominally a Reichs Army, though there are 35,000 Austrians
in it, as the soul of it, under some Serbelloni, some Stollberg as
Chief--(the fact, I believe, is: Serbelloni got angrily displaced
on that "crossing of the Mulda by Prince Henri, May 13th;"
Prince of Zweibruck had angrily abdicated a year before; and a
Prince von Stollberg is now Generalissimo of Reich and Allies:
but it is no kind of matter),--some Stollberg, with Serbelloni,
Haddick, Maguire and such like in subaltern places. Cunctator Daun,
in spite of his late sleepy ways, is to be Head-man again:
this surely is a cheering circumstance to Friedrich; Loudon, not
Daun, being the only man he ever got much ill of hitherto.
Daun arrives in Waldenburg, May 9th; and to show that he is not
cunctatory, steps out within a week after. May 15th, he has
descended from his Mountains; has swept round by the back and by
the front of Schweidnitz, far and wide, into the Plain Country, and
encamped himself crescent-wise, many miles in length, Head-quarter
near the Zobtenberg. Bent fondly round Schweidnitz; meaning, as is
evident, to defend Schweidnitz against all comers,--his very
position symbolically intimating: "I will fight for it, Prussian
Majesty, if you like!"
Prussian Majesty, however, seemed to take no notice of him;
and, what was very surprising, kept his old quarters:
"a Cantonment, or Chain of Posts, ten miles long; Schweidnitz Water
on his right flank, Oder on his left;" perfectly safe, as he
perceives, being able to assemble in four hours, if Daun try
anything. [Tempelhof, vi. 66.] And, in fact, sat there, and did not
come into the Field at all for five weeks or more;--waiting till
Czernichef's 20,000 arrive, who are on march from Thorn since June
2d. Mere small-war goes on in the interim; world getting all
greener and flowerier; the Glatz Highlands, to one's left yonder
(Owl-Mountains, EULENGEBIRGE so called), lying magically blue and
mysterious:--on the Plain in front of them, ten miles from the
final peaks of them, is Schweidnitz Fortress, lying full in view,
with a picked Garrison of 12,000 under a picked Captain, and all
else of defence or impregnability; and Friedrich privately
determined to take it, though by methods of his own choosing, and
which cannot commence till Czernichef come. Daun, with his right
wing, has hold of those Highland Regions, and cautiously guards
them; can, when he pleases, wend back to Waldenburg Country; and at
once, with his superior numbers, block all passages, and sit there
impregnable. The methods of dislodging him are obscure to Friedrich
himself; but methods there must be, dislodged he must be, and sent
packing. Without that, all siege of Schweidnitz is
flatly impossible.
June 27th, Friedrich's Head-quarter is Tintz, Czernichef now nigh:
[Tempelhof, vi. 76.] two days ago (June 25th), Czernichef's
Cossacks "crossed the Oder at Auras,"--with how different objects
from those they used to have! JULY 1st, Czernichef himself is here,
in full tale and equipment. Had encamped, a day ago, on the Field
of Lissa; where Majesty reviewed him, inspected and manoeuvred him,
with great mutual satisfaction. "Field of Lissa;" it is where our
poor Prussian people encamped on the night of Leuthen, with their
"NUN DANKET ALLE GOTT," five years ago, in memorable circumstances:
to what various uses are Earth's Fields liable!
Friedrich, by degrees, has considerably changed his opinion, and
bent towards the late Keith's, about Russian Soldiery: a Soldiery
of most various kinds; from predatory Cossacks and Calmucks to
those noble Grenadiers, whom we saw sit down on the Walls of
Schweidnitz when their work was done. A perfectly steady obedience
is in these men; at any and all times obedient, to the death if
needful, and with a silence, with a steadfastness as of rocks and
gravitation. Which is a superlative quality in soldiers. Good in
Nations too, within limits; and much a distinction in the Russian
Nation: rare, or almost unique, in these unruly Times. The Russians
have privately had their admirations of Friedrich, all this while;
and called him by I forget what unpronounceable vernacular epithet,
signifying "Son of Lightning," or some such thing.
[Buchholz, Neueste Preussisch-Brandenburgische Geschichte
(1775), vol ii. (page irrecoverable).] No doubt they
are proud to have a stroke of service under such a one, since
Father Peter Feodorowitsh graciously orders it: the very Cossacks
show an alertness, a vivacity; and see cheery possibilities ahead,
in Countries not yet plundered out. They stayed with Friedrich only
Three Weeks,--Russia being an uncertain Country. As we have seen
above; though Friedrich, who is vitally concerned, has not yet
seen! But their junction with him, and review by him in the Field
of Lissa, had its uses by and by; and may be counted an epoch in
Russian History, if nothing more. The poor Russian Nation, most
pitiable of loyal Nations,--struggling patiently ahead, on those
bad terms, under such CATINS and foul Nightmares,--has it, shall we
say, quite gone without conquest in this mad War? Perhaps, not
quite. It has at least shown Europe that it possesses fighting
qualities: a changed Nation, since Karl XII. beat them easily, at
Narva, 8,000 to 80,000, in the snowy morning, long since!--
Czernichef once come, and in his place in the Camp of Tintz,
business instantly begins,--business, and a press of it, in right
earnest;--upon the hitherto idle Daun. July 1st, there is general
complex Advance everywhere on Friedrich's part; general attempt
towards the Mountains. Upon which Daun, well awake, at once rolls
universally thitherward again; takes post in front of the
Mountains,--on the Heights of Kunzendorf, to wit (Loudon's old post
in Bunzelwitz time);-and elaborately spreads himself out in defence
there. "Take him multifariously by the left flank, get between him
and his Magazine at Braunau!" thinks Friedrich. Discovering which,
Daun straightway hitches back into the Mountains altogether,
leaving Kunzendorf to Friedrich's use as main camp. His outmost
Austrians, on the edge of the Mountain Country, and back as far as
suitable, Daun elaborately posts; and intrenches himself behind
them in all the commanding points,--Schweidnitz still well in
sight; and Braunau and the roads to it well capable of being
guarded. Daun's Head-quarter is Tannhausen; Burkersdorf,
Ludwigsdorf, if readers can remember them, are frontward posts:--in
his old imperturbable way Daun sits there waiting events.
And for near three weeks there ensues a very multiplex series of
rapid movements, and alarming demonstrations, on Daun's front, on
Daun's right flank; with serious extensive effort (masked in that
way) to turn Daun's left flank, and push round by Landshut Country
upon Bohemia and Braunau. Effort very serious indeed on that
Landshut side: conducted at first by Friedrich in person, with
General Wied (called also NEUwied, a man of mark since Liegnitz
time) as second under him; latterly by Wied himself, as Friedrich
found it growing dubious or hopeless. That was Friedrich's first
notion of the Daun problem. There are rapid marches here, there,
round that western or left flank of Daun; sudden spurts of fierce
fighting, oftenest with a stiff climb as preliminary: but not the
least real success on Daun. Daun perfectly comprehends what is on
foot; refuses to take shine for substance; stands massed, or
grouped, at his own skilful judgment, in the proper points for
Braunau, still more for Schweidnitz; and is very vigilant
and imperturbable.
Kunzendorf Heights, which are not of the Hills, but in front of
them, with a strip of flat still intervening;--these, we said, Daun
had at once quitted: and these are now Friedrich's;--but yield him
a very complex prospect at present. A line of opposing Heights,
Burkersdorf, Ludwigsdorf, Leuthmannsdorf, bristling with abundant
cannon; behind is the multiplex sea of Hills, rising higher and
higher, to the ridge of the Eulenberg in Glatz Country 10 or 12
miles southward: Daun, with forces much superior, calmly lord of
all that; infinitely needing to be ousted, could one but say how!
Friedrich begins to perceive that Braunau will not do; that he must
contrive some other plan. General Wied he still leaves to prosecute
the Braunau scheme: perhaps there is still some chance in it;
at lowest it will keep Daun's attention thitherward. And Wied
perseveres upon Braunau; and Braunau proving impossible, pushes
past it deeper into Bohemia, Daun loftily regardless of him.
Wied's marches and attempts were of approved quality;
though unsuccessful in the way of stirring Daun. Wied's Light
troops went scouring almost as far as Prag,--especially a 500
Cossacks that were with him, following their old fashion, in a new
Country. To the horror of Austria; who shrieked loudly, feeling
them in her own bowels; though so quiet while they were in other
people's on her score. This of the 500 Cossacks under Wied, if this
were anything, was all of actual work that Friedrich had from his
Czernichef Allies;--nothing more of real or actual while they
stayed, though something of imaginary or ostensible which had its
importance, as we shall see.
Friedrich, in the third week, recalls Wied: "Braunau clearly
impossible; only let us still keep up appearances!" July 18th, Wied
is in Kunzendorf Country again; on an important new enterprise, or
method with the Daun Problem, in which Wied is to bear a principal
hand. That is to say, The discomfiture and overturn of Daun's right
wing, if we can,--since his left has proved impossible. This was
the STORMING OF BURKERSDORF HEIGHTS; Friedrich's new plan.
Which did prove successful, and is still famous in the Annals of
War: reckoned by all judges a beautiful plan, beautifully executed,
and once more a wonderful achieving of what seemed the impossible,
when it had become the indispensable. One of Friedrich's prettiest
feats; and the last of his notable performances in this War.
Readers ought not to be left without some shadowy authentic notion
of it; though the real portraiture or image (which is achievable
too, after long study) is for the professional soldier only,--for
whom TEMPELHOF, good maps and plenty of patience are the recipe.
"The scene is the Wall of Heights, running east and west, parallel
to Friedrich's Position at Kunzendorf; which form the Face, or
decisive beginning, of that Mountain Glacis spreading up ten miles
farther, towards Glatz Country. They, these Heights called of
Burkersdorf, are in effect Daun's right wing; vitally precious to
Daun, who has taken every pains about them. Burkersdorf Height (or
Heights, for there are two, divided by the Brook Weistritz; but we
shall neglect the eastern or lower, which is ruled by the other,
and stands or falls along with it), Burkersdorf Height is the
principal: a Hill of some magnitude (short way south of the Village
of Burkersdorf, which also is Daun's); Hill falling rather steep
down, on two of its sides, namely on the north side, which is
towards Friedrich and Kunzendorf, and on the east side, where
Weistritz Water, as yet only a Brook, gushes out from the
Mountains,--hastening towards Schweidnitz or Schweidnitz Water;
towards Lissa and Leuthen Country, where we have seen it on an
important night. Weistritz, at this part, has scarped the eastern
flank of Burkersdorf Height; and made for itself a pleasant little
Valley there: this is the one Pass into the Mountains. A Valley of
level bottom; where Daun has a terrific trench and sunk battery
level with the ground, capable of sweeping to destruction whoever
enters there without leave.
"East from Burkersdorf Lesser Height (which we neglect for the
present), and a little farther inwards or south, are Two other
Heights: Ludwigsdorf and Leuthmannsdorf; which also need capture,
as adjuncts of Burkersdorf, or second line to Burkersdorf; and are
abundantly difficult, though not so steep as Burkersdorf.
"The Enterprise, therefore, divides itself into two. Wied is to do
the Ludwigsdorf-Leuthmannsdorf part; Mollendorf, the Burkersdorf.
The strength of guns in these places, especially on Burkersdorf,--
we know Daun's habit in that particular; and need say nothing.
Man-devouring batteries, abatis; battalions palisaded to the teeth,
'the pales strong as masts, and room only for a musket-barrel
between;' nay, they are 'furnished with a lath or cross-strap all
along, for resting your gun-barrel on and taking aim:'--so careful
is Daun. The ground itself is intricate, in parts impracticably
steep; everywhere full of bushes, gnarls and impediments.
Seldom was there such a problem altogether! Friedrich's position,
as we say, is Kunzendorf Heights, with Schweidnitz and his old
ground of Bunzelwitz to rear, Czernichef and others lying there,
and Wurben and the old Villages and Heights again occupied as
posts:--what a tale of Egyptian bricks has one to bake, your
Majesty, on certain fields of this world; and with such
insufficiency of raw-material sometimes!"
By the 16th of July, Friedrich's plans are complete. Contrived, I
must say, with a veracity and opulent potency of intellect,
flashing clear into the matter, and yet careful of the smallest
practical detail. FRIDAY, 17th, Mollendorf, with men and furnitures
complete, circles off northwestward by Wurben (for the benefit of
certain on-lookers), but will have circled round to Burkersdorf
neighborhood two days hence; by which time also Wied will be
quietly in his place thereabouts, with a view to business on the
20th and 21st. Mollendorf, Wied and everything, are prosperously
under way in this manner,--when, on the afternoon of that same
Friday, 17th, [Compare Tempelhof, vi. 99, and Rodenbeck, ii. 164.]
Czernichef steps over, most privately, to head-quarters: with what
a bit of news! "A Revolution in Petersburg [JULY 9th, as we saw
above, or as Herr Busching saw]; Czar Peter,--your Majesty's
adorer, is dethroned, perhaps murdered; your Majesty's enemies, in
the name of Czarina Catharine, order me instantly homeward with my
20,000!" This is true news, this of Czernichef. A most unexpected,
overwhelming Revolution in those Northern Parts;--not needing to be
farther touched upon in this place.
What here concerns us is, Friedrich's feelings on hearing of it;
which no reader can now imagine. Horror, amazement, pity, very
poignant; grief for one's hapless friend Peter, for one's still
more hapless self! "The Sisyphus stone, which we had got dragged to
the top, the chains all beautifully slack these three months past,
--has it leapt away again? And on the eve of Burkersdorf, and our
grand Daun problem!" Truly, the Destinies have been quite dramatic
with this King, and have contrived the moment of hitting him to the
heart. He passionately entreats Czernichef to be helpful to him,--
which Czernichef would fain be, only how can he? To be helpful;
at least to keep the matter absolutely secret yet for some hours:
this the obliging Czernichef will do. And Friedrich remains,
Czernichef having promised this, in the throes of desperate
consideration and uncertainty, hour after hour,--how many hours I
do not know. It is confidently said, [Retzow, ii. 415.] Friedrich
had the thought of forcibly disarming Czernichef and his 20,000:--
in which case he must have given up the Daun Enterprise;
for without Czernichef as a positive quantity, much more with
Czernichef as a negative, it is impossible. But, at any rate, most
luckily for himself, he came upon a milder thought: "Stay with us
yet three days, merely in the semblance of Allies, no service
required of you, but keeping the matter a dead secret;--on the
fourth day go, with my eternal thanks!" This is his milder
proposal; urged with his best efforts upon the obliging Czernichef:
who is in huge difficulty, and sees it to be at peril of his head,
but generously consents. It is the same Czernichef who got lodged
in Custrin cellars, on one occasion: know, O King,--the King,
before this, does begin to know,--that Russians too can have
something of heroic, and can recognize a hero when they see him!
In this fine way does Friedrich get the frightful chasm, or sudden
gap of the ground under him, bridged over for the moment;
and proceeds upon Burkersdorf all the same.
Of the Attack itself we propose to say almost nothing. It consists
of Two Parts, Wied and Mollendorf, which are intensely Real; and of
a great many more which are Scenic chiefly,--some of them Scenic to
the degree of Drury-Lane itself, as we perceive;--all cunningly
devised, and beautifully playing into one another, both the real
and the scenic. EVENING OF THE 20th, Friedrich is on his ground,
according to Program. Friedrich--who has now his Mollendorf and
Wied beside him again, near this Village of Burkersdorf; and has
his completely scenic Czernichef, and partly scenic Ziethen and
others, all in their places behind him--quietly crushes Daun's
people out of Burkersdorf Village; and furthermore, so soon as
Night has fallen, bursts up, for his own uses, Burkersdorf old
Castle, and its obstinate handful of defenders, which was a noisier
process. Which done, he diligently sets to trenching, building
batteries in that part; will have forty formidable guns, howitzers
a good few of them, ready before sunrise. And so,
WEDNESDAY, 21st JULY, 1762, All Prussians are in motion, far and
wide; especially Mollendorf and Wied (VERSUS O'Kelly and Prince de
Ligne),--which Pair of Prussians may be defined rather as near and
close; these Two being, in fact, the soul of the matter, and all
else garniture and semblance. About 4 in the morning, Friedrich's
Battery of 40 has begun raging; the howitzers diligent upon O'Kelly
and his Burkersdorf Height,--not much hurting O'Kelly or his
Height, so high was it, but making a prodigious noise upon O'Kelly;
--others of the cannon shearing home on those palisades and
elaborations, in the Weistritz Valley in particular, and quite
tearing up a Cavalry Regiment which was drawn out there; so that
O'Kelly had instantly to call it home, in a very wrecked condition.
Why O'Kelly ever put it there--except that he saw no place for it
in his rugged localities, or no use for it anywhere--is still a
mystery to the intelligent mind. [Tempelhof, vi. 107.]
The howitzers, their shells bursting mostly in the air, did O'Kelly
little hurt, nor for hours yet was there any real attack on
Burkersdorf or him; but the noise, the horrid death-blaze was
prodigious, and kept O'Kelly, like some others, in an agitated,
occupied condition till their own turn came.
For it had been ordered that Wied and Mollendorf were not to attack
together: not together, but successively,--for the following
reasons. TOGETHER; suppose Mollendorf to prosper on O'Kelly (whom
he is to storm, not by the steep front part as O'Kelly fancies, but
to go round by the western flank and take him in rear); suppose
Mollendorf to be near prospering on Burkersdorf Height,--unless
Wied too have prospered, Ludwigsdorf batteries and forces will have
Mollendorf by the right flank, and between two fires he will be
ruined; he and everything! On the other hand, let Wied try first:
if Wied can manage Ludwigsdorf, well: if Wied cannot, he comes home
again with small damage; and the whole Enterprise is off for the
present. That was Friedrich's wise arrangement, and the reason why
he so bombards O'Kelly with thunder, blank mostly.
And indeed, from 4 this morning and till 4 in the afternoon, there
is such an outburst and blazing series of Scenic Effect, and
thunder mostly blank, going on far and near all over that District
of Country: General This ostentatiously speeding off, as if for
attack on some important place; General That, for attack on some
other; all hands busy,--the 20,000 Russians not yet speeding, but
seemingly just about to do it,--and blank thunder so mixed with not
blank, and scenic effect with bitter reality, [Tempelhof, vi.
105-111.]--as was seldom seen before. And no wisest Daun, not to
speak of his O'Kellys and lieutenants, can, for the life of him,
say where the real attack is to be, or on what hand to turn
himself. Daun in person, I believe, is still at Tannhausen, near
the centre of this astonishing scene; five or six miles from any
practical part of it. And does order forward, hither, thither,
masses of force to support the De Ligne, the O'Kelly, among
others,--but who can tell what to support? Daun's lieutenants were
alert some of them, others less: General Guasco, for instance, who
is in Schweidnitz, an alert Commandant, with 12,000 picked men, was
drawing out, of his own will, with certain regiments to try
Friedrich's rear: but a check was put on him (some dangerous shake
of the fist from afar), when he had to draw in again. In general
the O'Kelly supports sat gazing dubiously, and did nothing for
O'Kelly but roll back along with him, when the time came. But let
us first attend to Wied, and the Ludwigsdorf-Leuthmannsdorf part.
Wied, divided into Three, is diligently pushing up on Ludwigsdorf
by the slacker eastern ascents; meets firm enough battalions,
potent, dangerous and resolute in their strong posts; but endeavors
firmly to be more dangerous than they. Dislodges everything, on his
right, on his left; comes in sight of the batteries and ranked
masses atop, which seem to him difficult indeed; flatly impossible,
if tried on front; but always some Colonel Lottum, or quick-eyed
man, finds some little valley, little hollow; gets at the Enemy
side-wise and rear-wise; rushes on with fixed bayonets, double-
quick, to co-operate with the front: and, on the whole, there are
the best news from Wied, and we perceive he sees his way through
the affair.
Upon which, Mollendorf gets in motion, upon his specific errand.
Mollendorf has been surveying his ground a little, during the
leisure hour; especially examining what mode of passage there may
be, and looking for some road up those slacker western parts:
has found no road, but a kind of sheep track, which he thinks will
do. Mollendorf, with all energy, surmounting many difficulties,
pushes up accordingly; gets into his sheep-track; finds, in the
steeper part of this track, that horses cannot draw his cannon;
sets his men to do it; pulls and pushes, he and they, with a right
will;--sees over his left shoulder, at a certain point, the ranked
Austrians waiting for him behind their cannon (which must have been
an interesting glimpse of scenery for some moments); tugs along,
till he is at a point for planting his cannon; and then, under help
of these, rushes forward,--in two parts, perhaps in three, but with
one impetus in all,--to seize the Austrian fruit set before him.
Surely, if a precious, a very prickly Pomegranate, to clutch hold
of on different sides, after such a climb! The Austrians make stiff
fight; have abatis, multiplex defences; and Mollendorf has a
furious wrestle with this last remnant, holding out wonderfully,--
till at length the abatis itself catches fire, in the musketry, and
they have to surrender. This must be about noon, as I collect:
and Feldmarschall Daun himself now orders everybody to fall back.
And the tug of fight is over;--though Friedrich's scenic effects
did not cease; and in particular his big battery raged till 5 in
the afternoon, the more to confirm Daun's rearward resolutions and
quicken his motions. On fall of night, Daun, everybody having had
his orders, and been making his preparations for six hours past,
ebbed totally away; in perfect order, bag and baggage. Well away to
southward; and left Friedrich quit of him. [Tempelhof. vi. 100-115:
compare Bericht von der bey Leutmannsdorf den 21sten
Julius 1762 vorgefallenen Action (Seyfarth,
Beylagen, iii. 302-308); Anderweiter Bericht
von der &c. (ib. 308-314); Archenholtz, &c. &c.]
Quit of Daun forevermore, as it turned out. Plainly free, at any
rate, to begin upon Schweidnitz, whenever he sees good. Of the
behavior of Wied, Mollendorf, and their people, indeed of the
Prussians one and all, what can be said, but that it was worthy of
their Captain and of the Plannings he had made? Which is saying a
great deal. "We got above 14 big guns," report they; "above 1,000
prisoners, and perhaps twice as many that deserted to us in the
days following." Czernichef was full of admiration at the day's
work: he marched early next morning,--I trust with lasting
gratitude on the part of an obliged Friedrich.
Some three weeks before this of Burkersdorf, Duke Ferdinand, near a
place called Wilhelmsthal, in the neighborhood of Cassel, in woody
broken country of Hill and Dale, favorable for strategic
contrivances, had organized a beautiful movement from many sides,
hoping to overwhelm the too careless or too ignorant French, and
gain a signal victory over them: BATTLE, so called, OF
WILHELMSTHAL, JUNE 24th, 1762, being the result. Mauvillon never
can forgive a certain stupid Hanoverian, who mistook his orders;
and on getting to his Hill-top, which was the centre of all the
rest,--formed himself with his BACK to the point of attack;
and began shooting cannon at next to nothing, as if to warn the
French, that they had better instantly make off! Which they
instantly set about, with a will; and mainly succeeded in;
nothing all day but mazes of intricate marching on both sides, with
spurts of fight here and there,--ending in a truly stiff bout
between Granby and a Comte de Stainville, who covered the retreat,
and who could not be beaten without a great deal of trouble.
The result a kind of victory to Ferdinand; but nothing like what he
expected. [Mauvillon, ii. 227-236; Tempelhof, vi. &c. &c.]
Soubise leads the French this final Year; but he has a D'Estrees
with him (our old D'Estrees of HASTENBECK), who much helps the
account current; and though generally on the declining hand
(obliged to give up Gottingen, to edge away farther and farther out
of Hessen itself, to give up the Weser, and see no shift but the
farther side of Fulda, with Frankfurt to rear),--is not often
caught napping as here at Wilhelmsthal. There ensued about the
banks of the Fulda, and the question, Shall we be driven across it
sooner or not so soon? a great deal of fighting and pushing (Battle
called of LUTTERNBERG, Battle of JOHANNISBERG, and others): but all
readers will look forward rather to the CANNONADE OF AMONEBURG,
more precisely Cannonade of the BRUCKEN-MUHLE (September 2lst),
which finishes these wearisome death-wrestlings. Peace is coming;
all the world can now count on that!
Bute is ravenous for Peace; has been privately taking the most
unheard-of steps:--wrote to Kaunitz, "Peace at once and we will
vote for your HAVING Silesia;" to which Kaunitz, suspecting
trickery in artless Bute, answered, haughtily sneering, "No help
needed from your Lordship in that matter!" After which repulse, or
before it, Bute had applied to the Czar's Minister in London:
"Czarish Majesty to have East Preussen guaranteed to him, if he
will insist that the King of Prussia DISPENSE with Silesia;"
which the indignant Czar rejected with scorn, and at once made his
Royal Friend aware of; with what emotion on the Royal Friend's part
we have transiently seen. "Horrors and perfidies!" ejaculated he,
in our hearing lately; and regarded Bute, from that time, as a
knave and an imbecile both in one; nor ever quite forgave Bute's
Nation either, which was far from being Bute's accomplice in this
unheard-of procedure. "No more Alliances with England!" counted he:
"What Alliance can there be with that ever-fluctuating People?
To-day they have a thrice-noble Pitt; to-morrow a thrice-paltry
Bute, and all goes heels-over-head on the sudden!" [Preuss, ii.
308; Mitchell, ii. 286.]
Bute, at this rate of going, will manage to get hold of Peace
before long. To Friedrich himself, a Siege of Schweidnitz is now
free; Schweidnitz his, the Austrians will have to quit Silesia.
"Their cash is out: except prayer to the Virgin, what but Peace can
they attempt farther? In Saxony things will have gone ill, if there
be not enough left us to offer them in return for Glatz. And Peace
and AS-YOU-WERE must ensue!"
Let us go upon Schweidnitz, therefore; pausing on none of these
subsidiary things; and be brief upon Schweidnitz too.
Chapter XII.
SIEGE OF SCHWEIDNITZ: SEVENTH CAMPAIGN ENDS.
Daun being now cleared away, Friedrich instantly proceeds upon
Schweidnitz. Orders the necessary Siege Materials to get under way
from Neisse; posts his Army in the proper places, between Daun and
the Fortress,--King's head-quarter Dittmannsdorf, Army spread in
fine large crescent-shape, to southwest of Schweidnitz some ten
miles, and as far between Daun and it;--orders home to him his
Upper-Silesia Detachments, "Home, all of you, by Neisse Country, to
make up for Czernichef's departure; from Neisse onwards you can
guard the Siege-Ammunition wagons!" Naturally he has blockaded
Schweidnitz, from the first; he names Tauentzien Siege-Captain,
with a 10 or 12,000 to do the Siege: "Ahead, all of you!"--and in
short, AUGUST 7th, with the due adroitness and precautions, opens
his first parallel; suffering little or nothing hitherto by a
resistance which is rather vehement. [Tempelhof, vi. 126.]
He expects to have the place in a couple of weeks--"one week (HUIT
JOUR)" he sometimes counts it, but was far out in his reckoning as
to time.
The Siege of Schweidnitz occupied two most laborious, tedious
months;--and would be wearisome to every reader now, as it was to
Friedricb then, did we venture on more than the briefest outline.
The resistance is vehement, very skilful:--Commandant is Guasco
(the same who was so truculent to Schmettau in the Dresden time);
his Garrison is near 12,000, picked from all regiments of the
Austrian Army; his provisions, ammunitions, are of the amplest;
and he has under him as chief Engineer a M. Gribeauval, who
understands "counter-mining" like no other. After about a fortnight
of trial, and one Event in the neighborhood which shall be
mentioned, this of Mining and Counter-mining--though the External
Sap went restlessly forward too, and the cannonading was incessant
on both sides--came to be regarded more and more as the real
method, and for six or seven weeks longer was persisted in, with
wonderful tenacity of attempt and resistance. Friedrich's chief
Mining Engineer is also a Frenchman, one Lefebvre; who is
personally the rival of Gribeauval (his old class-fellow at
College, I almost think); but is not his equal in subterranean
work,--or perhaps rather has the harder task of it, that of Mining,
instead of COUNTER-mining, or SPOILING Mines. Tempelhof's account
of these two people, and their underground wrestle here, is really
curious reading;--clear as daylight to those that will study, but
of endless expansion (as usual in Tempelhof), and fit only to be
indicated here. [Tempelhof, vi. 122-219; Bericht und
Tagebuch von der Belagerung von Schweidnitz vom 7ten August bis 9
October, 1762 (Seyfarth, Beylagen,
italic> iii. 376-479); Archenholtz, Retzow, &c.]
The external Event I promised to mention is an attempt on Daun's
part (August 16th) to break in upon Friedrich's position, and
interrupt the Siege, or render it still impossible. Event called
the BATTLE OF REICHENBACH, though there was not much of battle in
it;--in which our old friend the Duke of Brunswick-Bevern (whom we
have seen in abeyance, and merely a Garrison Commandant, for years
back, till the Russians left Stettin to itself) again played a
shining part.
Daun--at Tannhausen, 10 miles to southwest of Friedrich, and spread
out among the Hills, with Loudons, Lacys, Becks, as lieutenants,
and in plenty of force, could he resolve on using it--has at last,
after a month's meditation, hit upon a plan. Plan of flowing round
by the southern skirt of Friedrich, and seizing certain Heights to
the southeastern or open side of Schweidnitz,--Koltschen Height the
key one; from which he may spread up at will, Height after Height,
to the very Zobtenberg on that eastern side, and render Schweidnitz
an impossibility. The plan, people say, was good; but required
rapidity of execution,--a thing Daun is not strong in.
Bevern's behavior, too, upon whom the edge of the matter fell, was
very good. Bevern, coming on from Neisse and Upper Silesia, had
been much manoeuvred upon for various days by Beck; Beck, a
dangerous, alert man, doing his utmost to seize post after post,
and bar Bevern's way,--meaning especially, as ultimate thing, to
get hold of a Height called Fischerberg, which lies near
Reichenbach (in the southern Schweidnitz vicinities), and is
preface to Koltschen Height and to the whole Enterprise of Daun.
In most of which attempts, especially in this last, Bevern, with
great merit, not of dexterity alone (for the King's Orders had
often to be DISobeyed in the letter, and only the spirit of them
held in view), contrived to outmanoeuvre Beck; and be found (August
13th) already firm on the Fischerberg, when Beck, in full
confidence, came marching towards it. "The Fischerberg lost to us!"
Beck had to report, in disappointment. "Must be recovered, and my
grand Enterprise no longer put off!" thinks Daun to himself, in
still more disappointment ("Laggard that I am!").--And on the third
day following, the BATTLE OF REICHENBACH ensued. Lacy, as chief,
with abundant force, and Beck and Brentano under him: these are to
march, "Recover me that Fischerberg; it is the preface to Koltschen
and all else!" [Tempelhof, vi. 144.]
MONDAY, AUGUST 16th, pretty early in the day, Lacy, with his Becks
and Brentanos, appeared in great force on the western side of
Fischerberg; planted themselves there, about the three Villages of
Peilau (Upper, Nether and Middle Peilau, a little way to south of
Reichenbach), within cannon-shot of Bevern; their purpose
abundantly clear. Behind them, in the gorges of the Mountains, what
is not so clear, lay Daun and most of his Army; intending to push
through at once upon Koltschen and seize the key, were this of
Fischerberg had. Lacy, after reconnoitring a little, spreads his
tents (which it is observable Beck does not); and all Austrians
proceed to cooking their dinner. "Nothing coming of them till
to-morrow!" said Friedrich, who was here; and went his way home, on
this symptom of the Austrian procedures;--hardly consenting to
regard them farther, even when he heard their cannonade begin.
Lacy, the general composure being thus established, and dinner well
done, suddenly drew out about five in the evening, in long strong
line, before these Hamlets of Peilau, on the western side of the
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