Book: History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 20

T >> Thomas Carlyle >> History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 20




"OCTOBER 14th, after two weeks and a day, the Hereditary Prince
sees, not guns from Bielefeld, but Castries pushing into Wesel a
7,000 of additional garrison,--and the Enterprise on Wesel grown
impossible. Impossible, and probably far more; Castries in a
condition to devour us, if he prove sharp. It behooves the
Hereditary Prince to be himself sharp;--which he undoubtedly was,
in this sharp crisis. Next day, our Erbprinz, taking survey of
Castries in his strong ground of Kloster Kampen, decides, like a
gallant fellow, to attack HIM;--and straightway does it.
Breaks, that same night (October 15th-16th, 1760), stealthily,
through woods and with precautions, into Castries's Post;--
intending surprisal, and mere ruin to Castries. And there ensued,
not the SURPRISAL as it turned out, but the BATTLE OF KLOSTER
KAMPEN; which again proved unsuccessful, or only half-successful,
to the Hereditary Prince. A many-winged, intricate Night-Battle;
to be read of in Books. This is where the Chevalier d'Assas, he or
Somebody, gave the alarm to the Castries people at the expense of
his life. 'A MOI, AUVERGNE, Ho, Auvergne!' shouted D'Assas (if it
was D'Assas at all), when the stealthy English came upon him;
who was at once cut down. [Preuss (ii. 270 n.) asserts it to be
proved, in "Miscellen aus den neuesten auslandischen
Litteratur (1824, No. 3, p. 409)," a Book which none
of us ever saw, "That the real hero [equal to a Roman Decius or
more] was not Captain d'Assas, of the Regiment Auvergne, but a poor
Private Soldier of it, called Dubois"!--Is not this a strange turn,
after such be-PENSIONING, be-painting, singing and celebrating, as
rose upon poor D'Assas, or the Family of D'Assas, twenty years
afterwards (1777-1790)!--Both Dubois and D'Assas, I conclude, lay
among the slain at Kloster Kampen, silent they forever:--and a
painful doubt does rise, As to the miraculous operation of
Posthumous Rumor and Wonder; and Whether there was any "miracle of
heroism," or other miracle at all, and not rather a poor nocturnal
accident,--poor sentry in the edge of the wood, shrieking out, on
apparition of the stealthy English, "Ho, Auvergne, help!" probably
firing withal; and getting killed in consequence? NON NOSTRUM EST.]
It is certain, Auvergne gave fire; awoke Castries bodily; and saved
him from what was otherwise inevitable. Surprise now there was none
farther; but a complex Fight, managed in the darkness with uncommon
obstinacy; ending in withdrawal of the Erbprinz, as from a thing
that could not be done. His loss in killed, wounded and prisoners,
was 1,638; that of Castries, by his own counting, 2,036:
but Kloster Kampen, in the wide-awake state, could not be won.

"During the Fight, the Erbprinz's Rhine-Bridge had burst in two:
his ammunition was running short;--and, it would seem, there is no
retreat, either! The Erbprinz put a bold face on the matter, stood
to Castries in a threatening attitude; mamoeuvred skilfully for two
days longer, face still to Castries, till the Bridge was got
mended; then, night of October 18th-19th, crossed to his own side;
gathered up his goods; and at a deliberate pace marched home, on
those terms;--doing some useful fighting by the road."
[Mauvillon, ii. 120-129: Tempelhof, ii. 325-332.]

Had lost nothing, say his admirers, "but one cannon, which burst."
One burst cannon left on the field of Kloster Kampen;--but also, as
we see, his errand along with it; and 1,600 good fighters lost aud
burst: which was more important! Criticisms there were on it in
England, perhaps of the unwise sort generally; sorrow in the
highest quarter. "An unaccountable expedition," Walpole calls it,
"on which Prince Ferdinand suddenly despatched his Nephew, at the
head of a considerable force, towards the frontiers of Holland,"--
merely to see the country there?--"which occasioned much solicitude
in England, as the Main Army, already unequal to that of France,
was thus rendered much weaker. King George felt it with much
anxiety." [Walpole's George Second, iii.
299.] An unaccountable Enterprise, my poor Gazetteer friends,--
very evidently an unsuccessful one, so far as Wesel went.
Many English fallen in it, too: "the English showed here again a
GANZ AUSNEHMENDE TAPFERKEIT," says Mauvillon; and probably their
share of the loss was proportionate.

Clearly enough there is no Wesel to be had. Neither could Broglio,
though disturbed in his Gottingen fortifyings and operations, be
ejected out of Gottingen. Ferdinand, on failure of Wesel, himself
marched to Gottingen, and tried for some days; but found he could
not, in such weather, tear out that firmly rooted French Post, but
must be content to "mask it," for the present; and, this done,
withdrew (December 13th) to his winter-quarters near by, as did
Broglio to his,--about the time Friedrich and Daun had finally
settled in theirs.

Ferdinand's Campaigns henceforth, which turn all on the defence of
Hanover, are highly recommended to professional readers; but to the
laic sort do not prove interesting in proportion to the trouble.
In fact, the huge War henceforth begins everywhere, or everywhere
except in Pitt's department of it, to burn lower, like a lamp with
the oil getting done; and has less of brilliancy than formerly.
"Let us try for Hanover," the Belleisles, Choiseuls and wise French
heads had said to themselves: "Canada, India, everything is lost;
but were dear Hanover well in our clutch, Hanover would be a remedy
for many things!" Through the remaining Campaigns, as in this now
done, that is their fixed plan. Ferdinand, by unwearied effort,
succeeded in defending Hanover,--nothing of it but that
inconsiderable slice or skirt round Gottingen, which they kept
long, could ever be got by the French. Ferdinand defended Hanover;
and wore out annually the big French Armies which were missioned
thither, as in the spasm of an expiring last effort by this poor
hag-ridden France,--at an expense to her, say, of 50,000 men per
year. Which was good service on Ferdinand's part; but done less and
less in the shining or universally notable way.

So that with him too we are henceforth, thank Heaven, permitted and
even bound to be brief. Hardly above two Battles more from him, if
even two:--and mostly the wearied Reader's imagination left to
conceive for itself those intricate strategies, and endless
manoeuvrings on the Diemel and the Dill, on the Ohm River and the
Schwalm and the Lippe, or wherever they may be, with small help
from a wearied Editor!--



Chapter VI.

WINTER-QUARTERS 1760-1761.

A melancholy little event, which afterwards proved unexpectedly
unfortunate for Friedrich, had happened in England ten days before
the Battle of Torgau. Saturday, 25th October, 1760, George II.,
poor old gentleman, suddenly died. He was in his 77th year;
feeble, but not feebler than usual,--unless, perhaps, the
unaccountable news from Kloster Kampen may have been too agitating
to the dim old mind? On the Monday of this week he had, "from a
tent in Hyde Park," presided at a Review of Dragoons; and on
Thursday, as his Coldstream Guards were on march for Portsmouth and
foreign service, "was in his Portico at Kensington to see them
pass;"--full of zeal always in regard to military matters, and to
this War in particular. Saturday, by sunrise he was on foot;
took his cup of chocolate; inquired about the wind, and the chances
of mails arriving; opened his window, said he would have a turn in
the Gardens, the morning being so fine. It was now between 7 and 8.
The valet then withdrew with the chocolate apparatus; but had
hardly shut the door, when he heard a deep sigh, and fall of
something,--"billet of wood from the fire?" thought he;--upon
which, hurrying back, he found it was the King, who had dropt from
his seat, "as if in attempting to ring the bell." King said
faintly, "Call Amelia," and instantly died. Poor deaf Amelia
(Friedrich's old love, now grown old and deaf) listened wildly for
some faint sound from those lips now mute forever. George Second
was no more; his grandson George Third was now King.
[Old Newspapers (in Gentleman's Magazine,
xxx. 486-488).]

Intrinsically taken, this seemed no very great event for Friedrich,
for Pitt, for England or mankind: but it proved otherwise.
The merit of this poor King deceased, who had led his Nation
stumbling among the chimney-pots at such a rate in these mad German
Wars for Twenty Years past, was, That he did now stand loyal to the
Enterprise, now when it had become sane indeed; now when the Nation
was broad awake, and a Captain had risen to guide it out of that
perilous posture, into never-expected victory and triumph! Poor old
George had stood by his Pitt, by his Ferdinand, with a perfect
loyalty at all turns; and been devoted, heart and soul and
breeches-pocket, to completely beating Bourbon's oppressive ideas
out of Bourbon's head. A little fact, but how important, then and
there! Under the Successor, all this may be different:--ghastly
beings, Old Tutors, Favorites, Mother's-Favorites, flit, as yet
invisible, on the new backstairs:--should Bute and Company get into
the foreground, people will then know how important it was.
Walpole says:--

"The Yorkes [Ex-Chancellor Hardwicke people] had long distasted
this War:" yes, and been painfully obliged to hold their tongues:
"but now," within a month or so of the old King's death, "there was
published, under Lord Hardwicke's countenance, a Tract setting
forth the burden and ill policy of our German measures. It was
called CONSIDERATIONS ON THE GERMAN WAR; was ably written, and
changed many men's minds." This is the famous "Mauduit Pamphlet:"
first of those small stones, from the sling of Opposition not
obliged to be dormant, which are now beginning to rattle on Pitt's
Olympian Dwelling-place,--high really as Olympus, in comparison
with others of the kind, but which unluckily is made of GLASS like
the rest of them! The slinger of this first resounding little
missile, Walpole informs us, was "one Mauduit, formerly a
Dissenting Teacher,"--son of a Dissenting Minister in Bermondsey, I
hear, and perhaps himself once a Preacher, but at present concerned
with Factorage of Wool on the great scale; got soon afterwards
promoted to be Head of the Custom-house in Southampton, so lovely
did he seem to Bute and Company. "How agreeable his politics were
to the interior of the Court, soon appeared by a place [Southampton
Custom-house] being bestowed on him by Lord Bute." A fortunate
Mauduit, yet a stupidly tragical; had such a destiny in English
History! Hear Walpole a little farther, on Mauduit, and on other
things then resonant to Arlington Street in a way of their own.
"TO SIR HORACE MANN [at Florence]:--

"NOVEMBER 14th, 1760 [tenth night after Torgau]. ... We are all in
guns and bonfires for an unexpected victory of the King of Prussia
over Daun; but as no particulars are yet arrived, there
are doubters."

"DECEMBER 5th, 1760. I have received the samples of brocadella. ...
I shall send you a curious Pamphlet, the only work I almost ever
knew that changed the opinions of many. It is called CONSIDERATIONS
ON THE PRESENT GERMAN WAR, ["London: Printed for John Wilkie, at
the Bible, in St. Paul's Churchyard, 1761," adds my poor Copy (a
frugal 12mo, of pp. 144), not adding of what edition.] and is
written by a wholesale Woollen-Draper [connected with Wool, in some
way; "Factor at Blackwell Hall," if that mean Draper:--and a
growing man ever after; came to be "Agent for Massachusetts," on
the Boston-TEA occasion, and again did Tracts; was "President of
the"--in short, was a conspicuous Vice-President, so let us define
him, of The general Anti-Penalty or Life-made-Soft Association,
with Cause of civil and religious Liberty all over the World, and
such like; and a Mauduit comfortably resonant in that way till he
died [Chalmers, BIOG. DICTIONARY; Nichols, LITERARY ANECDOTES;
&c. &c.]; but the materials are supposed to be furnished by the
faction of the Yorkes. The confirmation of the King of Prussia's
victory near Torgau does not prevent the disciples of the Pamphlet
from thinking that the best thing which could happen for us would
be to have that Monarch's head shot off. [Hear, hear!]--

"There are Letters from the Hague [what foolish Letters do fly
about, my friend!], that say Daun is dead of his wounds. If he is,
I shall begin to believe that the King of Prussia will end
successfully at last. [Oh!] It has been the fashion to cry down
Daun; but, as much as the King of Prussia may admire himself [does
immensely, according to our Selwyn informations], I dare say he
would have been glad to be matched with one much more like himself
than one so opposite as the Marshal."

"JANUARY 2d, i761. The German War is not so popular as you imagine,
either in the Closet or in the Nation." [Walpole, Letters
to Sir Horace Mann (Lond. 1843), i. 6, 7.]
(Enough, enough.)

The Mauduit Pamphlet, which then produced such an effect, is still
to be met in old Collections and on Bookstalls; but produces little
save weariness to a modern reader. "Hanover not in real danger,"
argues he; "if the French had it, would not they, all Europe
ordering them, have to give it up again?" Give it up,--GRATIS, or
in return for Canada and Pondicherry, Mauduit's does not say.
Which is an important omission! But Mauduit's grand argument is
that of expense; frightful outlay of money, aggravated by ditto
mismanagement of same.

A War highly expensive, he says--(and the truth is, Pitt was never
stingy of money: "Nearly the one thing we have in any plenty;
be frank in use of that, in an Enterprise so ill-provided
otherwise, and involving life and death!" thinks Pitt);--
"dreadfully expensive," urges Mauduit, and gives some instances of
Commissariat moneys signally wasted,--not by Pitt, but by the
stupidity of Pitt's War Offices, Commissariat Offices, Offices of
all kinds; not to be cured at once by any Pitt:--How magazines of
hay were shipped and reshipped, carried hither, thither, up this
river, down that (nobody knowing where the war-horses would be that
were to eat it); till at length, when it had reached almost the
value of bohea tea, the right place of it was found to be Embden
(nearest to Britain from the first, had one but known), and not a
horse would now taste it, so spoiled was the article; all horses
snorted at it, as they would have done at bohea, never so
expensive. [Mauduit (towards the end) has a story of that
tenor,--particulars not worth verifying.] These things are incident
to British warfare; also to Swedish, and to all warfares that have
their War Offices in an imaginary state,--state much to be abhorred
by every sane creature; but not to be mended all at once by the
noblest of men, into whose hands they are suddenly thrust for
saving his Nation. Conflagration to be quenched; and your buckets
all in hideous leakage, like buckets of the Danaides:--your one
course is, ply them, pour with them, such as they are.

Mauduit points out farther the enormous fortunes realized by a
swindling set of Army-Furnishers, Hebrews mainly, and unbeautiful
to look on. Alas, yes; this too is a thing incident to the case;
and in a degree to all such cases, and situations of sudden crisis;
--have not we seen Jew Ephraim growing rich by the copper money
even of a Friedrich? Christian Protestants there are, withal,
playing the same game on a larger scale. Herr Schimmelmann
("MOULDY-man") the Dane, for instance,--Dane or Holsteiner,--is
coining false money for a Duke of Holstein-Plon, who has not a
Seven-Years War on his hands. Diligently coining, this Mouldy
Individual; still more successfully, is trading in Friedrich's
Meissen China (bought in the cheapest market, sold in the dearest);
has at Hamburg his "Auction of Meissen Porcelain," steadily going
on, as a new commercial institution of that City;--and, in short,
by assiduously laboring in such harvest-fields, gathers a colossal
fortune, 100,000 pounds, 300,000 pounds, or I will not remember
what. Gets "ennobled," furthermore, by a Danish Government prompt
to recognize human merit: Elephant Order, Dannebrog Order; no Order
good enough for this Mouldy-man of merit; [Preuss, ii. 391, 282,
&c.]--and is, so far as I know, begetting "Nobles," that is to say,
Vice-Kings and monitory Exemplars, for the Danish People, to this
day. Let us shut down the iron lid on all that.

Mauduit's Pamphlet, if it raised in the abhorrent unthinking
English mind some vague notion, as probably it did, that Pitt was
responsible for these things, or was in a sort the cause or author
of them, might produce some effect against him. "What a splash is
this you are making, you Great Commoner; wetting everybody's feet,
--as our Mauduit proves;--while the Conflagration seems to be going
out, if you let it alone!" For the heads of men resemble--
My friend, I will not tell you what they, in multitudinous
instances, resemble.

But thus has woollen Mauduit, from his private camp ("Clement's
Lane, Lombard Street," say the Dictionaries), shot, at a very high
object, what pigeon's-egg or small pebble he had; the first of many
such that took that aim; with weak though loud-sounding impact, but
with results--results on King Friedrich in particular, which were
stronger than the Cannonade of Torgau! As will be seen. For within
year and day,--Mauduit and Company making their noises from
without, and the Butes and Hardwickes working incessantly with such
rare power of leverage and screwage in the interior parts,--a
certain Quasi-Olympian House, made of glass, will lie in sherds,
and the ablest and noblest man in England see himself forbidden to
do England any service farther: "Not needed more, Sir! Go you,--and
look at US for the remainder of your life!"


KING FRIEDRICH IN THE APEL HOUSE AT LEIPZIG
(8th December, 1760-17th March, 1761).

Friedrich's Winter in the Apel House at Leipzig is of cheerfuler
character than we might imagine. Endless sore business he doubtless
has, of recruiting, financiering, watching and providing, which
grows more difficult year by year; but he has subordinates that
work to his signal, and an organized machinery for business such as
no other man. And solacements there are withal: his Books he has
about him; welcomer than ever in such seasons: Friends too,--he is
not solitary; nor neglectful of resources. Faithful D'Argens came
at once (stayed till the middle of March): [ OEuvres de
Frederic, xix. 212, 213. Sends a Courier to conduct
D'Argens "FOR December 8th;" "21st March," D'Argens is back at
Berlin.] D'Argens, Quintus Icilius, English Mitchell; these three
almost daily bore him company. Till the middle of January, also, he
had his two Nephews with him (Sons of his poor deceased Brother,
the late tragic Prince of Prussia),--the elder of whom, Friedrich
Wilhelm, became King afterwards; the second, Henri by name, died
suddenly of small-pox within about seven years hence, to the King's
deep and sore grief, who liked him the better of the two.
Their ages respectively are now about 16 and 14. [Henri, born 30th
December, 1747, died 26th May, 1767;--Friedrich Wilhelm, afterwards
Friedrich Wilhelm II. (sometimes called DER DICKE, The Big), born
25th December, 1744; King, 17th August, 1786; died 16th November,
1797.] Their appetite for dancing, and their gay young ways, are
pleasant now and afterwards to the old Uncle in his grim element.
[Letters, &c. in SCHONING.]

Music, too, he had; daily evening Concert, though from himself
there is no fluting now. One of his Berlin Concert people who had
been sent for was Fasch, a virtuoso on I know not what instrument,
--but a man given to take note of things about him. Fasch was
painfully surprised to see his King so altered in the interim past:
"bent now, sunk into himself, grown old; to whom these five years
of war-tumult and anxiety, of sorrow and hard toil, had given a
dash of gloomy seriousness and melancholy, which was in strong
contrast with his former vividly bright expression, and was not
natural to his years." [Zelter's Life of Fasch italic> (cited in PREUSS, ii. 278).]

From D'Argens there is one authentic Anecdote, worth giving.
One evening D'Argens came to him; entering his Apartment, found him
in a situation very unexpected; which has been memorable ever
since. "One evening [there is no date to it, except vaguely, as
above, December, 1760-March, 1761], D'Argens, entering the King's
Apartment, found him sitting on the ground with a big platter of
fried meat, from which he was feeding his dogs. He had a little
rod, with which he kept order among them, and shoved the best bits
to his favorites. The Marquis, in astonishment, recoiled a step,
struck his hands together, and exclaimed: 'The Five Great Powers of
Europe, who have sworn alliance, and conspired to undo the Marquis
de Brandebourg, how might they puzzle their heads to guess what he
is now doing! Scheming some dangerous plan for the next Campaign,
think they; collecting funds to have money for it; studying about
magazines for man and horse; or he is deep in negotiations to
divide his enemies, and get new allies for himself? Not a bit of
all that. He is sitting peaceably in his room, and feeding his
dogs!'" [Preuss, ii. 282.]


INTERVIEW WITH HERR PROFESSOR GELLERT
(Thursday, 18th December, 1760).

Still more celebrated is the Interview with Gellert; though I
cannot say it is now more entertaining to the ingenuous mind.
One of Friedrich's many Interviews, this Winter, with the Learned
of Leipzig University; for he is a born friend of the Muses so
called, and never neglects an opportunity. Wonderful to see how, in
such an environment, in the depths of mere toil and tribulation,
with a whole breaking world lying on his shoulders, as it were,--he
always shows such appetite for a snatch of talk with anybody
presumably of sense, and knowledge on something!

This Winter, say the Books, "he had, in vacant intervals, a great
deal of communing with the famed of Leipzig University;" this or
the other famed Professor,--Winkler, Ernesti, Gottsched again, and
others, coming to give account, each for himself, of what he
professed to be teaching in the world: "on the Natural Sciences,
more especially the Moral; on Libraries, on Rare Books.
Gottsched was able to satisfy the King on one point; namely, That
the celebrated passage of St. John's Gospel--"THERE ARE THREE THAT
BEAR RECORD--was NOT in the famous Manuscript of the Vienna
Library; Gottsched having himself examined that important CODEX,
and found in the text nothing of said Passage, but merely, written
on the margin, a legible intercalation of it, in Melanchthon's
hand. Luther, in his Version, never had it at all."
[ Helden-Geschichte, vi. 596.] A Gottsched
inclined to the Socinian view? Not the least consequence to
Friedrich or us! Our business is exclusively with Gellert here.

Readers have heard of Gellert; there are, or there were, English
Writings about him, LIVES, or I forget what: and in his native
Protestant Saxony, among all classes, especially the higher, he
had, in those years and onwards to his death, such a popularity and
real splendor of authority as no man before or since. Had risen,
against his will in some sort, to be a real Pope, a practical
Oracle in those parts. In his modest bachelor lodging (age of him
five-and-forty gone) he has sheaves of Letters daily,--about
affairs of the conscience, of the household, of the heart:
from some evangelical young lady, for example, Shall I marry HIM,
think you, O my Father?" and perhaps from her Papa, "Shall SHE,
think you, O my ditto?"--Sheaves of Letters: and of oral consulters
such crowds, that the poor Oracle was obliged to appoint special
hours for that branch of his business. His class-room (he lectures
on MORALS, some THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENT, or such like) is crowded
with "blue uniforms" (ingenuous Prussian Officers eager to hear a
Gellert) in these Winters. Rugged Hulsen, this very season, who
commands in Freyberg Country, alleviates the poor village of
Hainichen from certain official inflictions, and bids the poor
people say "It is because Gellert was born among you!" Plainly the
Trismegistus of mankind at that date:--who is now, as usual, become
a surprising Trismegistus to the new generations!

He had written certain thin Books, all of a thin languid nature;
but rational, clear; especially a Book of FABLES IN VERSE, which
are watery, but not wholly water, and have still a languid flavor
in them for readers. His Book on LETTER-WRITING was of use to the
rising generation, in its time. Clearly an amiable, ingenious,
correct, altogether good man; of pious mind,--and, what was more,
of strictly orthodox, according to the then Saxon standard in the
best circles. This was the figure of his Life for the last fifteen
years of it; and he was now about the middle of that culminating
period. A modest, despondent kind of man, given to indigestions,
dietetics, hypochondria: "of neat figure and dress; nose hooked,
but not too much; eyes mournfully blue and beautiful, fine open
brow;"--a fine countenance, and fine soul of its sort, poor
Gellert: "punctual like the church-clock at divine service, in all
weathers." [Jordens, Lexikon Deutscher Dichter und
Prosaisten (Leipzig, 1807), ii. 54-68 (§ Gellert).]

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