Book: History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 21

T >> Thomas Carlyle >> History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 21




WINTER OF 1766, Imperial Majesty, whether after or before that
miraculous Carmelite Monk, I do not remember, became impatient of
these tedious languors and tortuosities about the Dissident
Question, and gave express order, "Settle it straightway!" To which
end, Confederations and the other machinery were set agoing:
Confederations among the Protestants and Dissidents themselves,
about Thorn and such places (got up by Russian engineering), and
much more extensively in the Lithuanian parts; Confederations of
great extent, imperative, minatory; ostensibly for reinstating
these poor people in their rights (which, by old Polish Law, they
quite expressly were, if that were any matter), but in reality for
bringing back drunken Radzivil, who has covenanted to carry that
measure. And so,

JUNE 23d, 1767, These multiplex Polish-Lithuanian Confederations,
twenty-four of them in all, with their sublime marshals and
officials, and above 80,000 noblemen in them, meet by deputies at
Radom, a convenient little Town within wind of Warsaw (lies 60
miles to south of Warsaw); and there coalesce into one general
"Confederation of Radom," [Hermann, v. 420.] with drunken Radzivil
atop, who, glad to be reinstated in his ample Domains and Wine-
cellars, and willing at any rate to spite the Czartoryskis and
others, has pledged himself to carry that great measure in Diet,
and quash any NIE POZWALAMS and difficulties there may be. This is
the once world-famous, now dimly discoverable, CONFEDERATION OF
RADOM, which--by preparatory declaring, under its hand and seal,
That the Law of the Land must again become valid, and "Free Polacks
of Dissident opinions concerning Religion (NOS DISSIDENTES DE
RELIGIONE)," as the old Law phrases it, "shall have equal rights of
citizenship"--was beautifully instrumental in achieving that bit of
Human Progress, and pushing it through the Diet, and its
difficulties shortly ensuing.

Not that the Diet did not need other vigorous treatment as well,
the flame of fanaticism being frightfully ardent; many of the poor
Bishops having run nearly frantic at this open spoliation of Mother
Church, and snatching of the sword from Peter. So that Imperial
Majesty had to decide on picking out a dozen, or baker's dozen, of
the hottest Bishops; and carrying them quietly into Russia under
lock and key, till the thing were done. Done it was, surely to the
infinite relief of mankind;--I cannot say precisely on what day:
October 13th-14th (locking up of the dozen Bishops), was one vital
epoch of it; November 19th, 1767 (report of Committee on it, under
Radzivil's and Russia's coercion), was another: first and last it
took about five months baking in Diet. Diet met Oct. 4th, 1767,
Radzivil controlling as Grand-Marshal, and Russia as minatory
Phantom controlling Radzivil; Diet, after adjournments, after one
long adjournment, disappeared 5th March, 1768; and of work
mentionable it had done this of the Dissidents only. That of
contributing to "the sovereign contempt with which King Stanislaus
is regarded by all ranks of men," is hardly to be called peculiar
work or peculiarly mentionable.

At this point, to relieve the reader's mind, and, at any rate, as
the date is fully come, we will introduce a small NEWSPAPER ARTICLE
from a very high hand, little guessed till long afterwards as the
writer,--namely, from King Friedrich's own. It does not touch on
the Dissident Question, or the Polish troubles; but does, in a
back-handed way, on Prussian Rumors rising about them; and may
obliquely show more of the King's feeling on that subject than we
quite suppose. It seems the King had heard that the Berlin people
were talking and rumoring of "a War being just at hand;"
whereupon--"MARCH 5th, 1767, IN THE VOSSISCHE ZEITUNG (Voss's
Chronicle), No. 28," an inquisitive Berlin public read
as follows:--

"We are advised from Potsdam, that, on the 27th of February,
towards evening, the sky began to get overcast; black clouds,
presaging a tempest of unexampled fury, covered all the horizon:
the thunder, with its lightnings, forked bolts of amazing
brilliancy, burst out; and, under its redoubled peals, there
descended such a torrent of hail as within man's memory had not
been seen. Of two bullocks yoked in their plough, with which a
peasant was hastening home, one was struck on the head by a piece
of it, and killed outright. Many of the common people were wounded
in the streets; a brewer had his arm broken. Roofs are destroyed by
the weight of this hail; all the windows that looked windward while
it fell were broken. In the streets, hailstones were found of the
size of pumpkins (CITROUILLES), which had not quite melted two
hours after the storm ceased. This singular phenomenon has made a
very great impression. Scientific people say, the air had not
buoyancy enough to support these solid masses when congealed to
ice; that the small hailstones in these clouds getting so lashed
about in the impetuosity of the winds, had united the more the
farther they fell, and had not acquired that enormous magnitude
till comparatively near the earth. Whatever way it may have
happened, it is certain that occurrences of that kind are rare, and
almost without example." [VOSSISCHE ZEITUNG, ubi supra:
OEuvres de Frederic, xv. 204.]

Another singularity is, "Professor Johann Daniel Titius of
Wittenberg," who teaches NATURAL PHILOSOPHY in that famous
University, one may judge with what effect, wrote a Monograph on
this unusual Phenomenon! [Rodenbeck (ii. 285) gives the Title of
it, "CONSIDERATIONS ON THE POTSDAM HAIL OF LAST YEAR
(Wittenberg, 1768)."]


CONFEDERATION OF BAR ENSUES, ON THE PER-CONTRA SIDE (March 28th, 1768);
AND, AS FIRST RESULT OF ITS ACHIEVEMENTS (October 6th, 1768),
A TURK-RUSSIAN WAR.

The Confederation of Radom, and its victorious Diet, had hardly
begun their Song of Triumph, when there ensued on the per-contra
side a flaming CONFEDERATION OF BAR;--which, by successive stages,
does at last burn out the Anarchies of Poland, and reduce them to
ashes. Confederation of Bar; and then, as progeny of that, for and
against, such a brood of Confederations, orthodox, heterodox, big,
little, short-lived, long-lived, of all complexions and degrees of
noisy fury, potent, at any rate, each of them for murder and arson,
within a certain radius, as the Earth never saw before. Now was the
time of those inextricable marchings (as inroads and outroads)
through the Lithuanian Bogs, of those death-defiant, unparalleled
exploits, skirmishings, scaladings, riding by the edge of
precipices, of Pulawski, Potocki and others,--in which Rulhiere
loses himself and turns on his axis, amid impatient readers.

For the Russian troops (summoned by a trembling Stanislaus and his
Senate, in terms of Treaty 1764), and in more languid manner, the
Stanislaus soldiery, as per law of the case, proceeded to strike
in,--generally, my impression was, with an eye to maintain the
King's Peace and keep down murder and arson:--and sure enough, the
small bodies of drilled Russians blew an infuriated orthodox Polack
chivalry to right and left at a short notice; but as to the
Constable's Peace or King's, made no improvement upon that, far the
reverse. It is certain the Confederate chivalry were driven about,
at a terrible rate,--over the Turk frontier for shelter; began to
appeal to the Grand Turk, in desperate terms: "Brother of the Sun
and Moon, saw you ever such a chance for finishing Russia?
Polack chivalry is Orthodox Catholic, but also it is Anti-Russian!"
The Turk beginning to give ear to it, made the matter pressing and
serious. Here, more specifically, are some features and successive
phases,--unless the reader prefer to skip.

"BAR, MARCH, 1768. The Confederation of Radom, as efficient
preliminary, and chief agent in that Diet of emancipation to the
Dissident human mind, might long have been famous over Poland and
the world; but there instantly followed as corollary to it a
CONFEDERATION OF BAR, which quite dimmed the fame of Radom, and
indeed of all Confederations prior or posterior! As the
Confederation of Bar and its Doings, or rather sufferings and
tragical misdoings and undoings, still hang like fitful
spectralities, or historical shadows, of a vague ghastly
complexion, in the human memory, one asks at least: Since they were
on this Planet, tell us where? Bar is in the Waiwodship Podol (what
we call Podolia), some 400 miles southeast of Warsaw; not far from
the Dniester River:--not far very from that mystery of the
Dniester, the Zaporavian Cossacks,--from those rapids or cataracts
(quasi-cataracts of the Dniester, with Islands in them, where those
Cossack robbers live unassailable):--across the Dniester lies
Turkey, and its famed Fortress of Choczim. This is a commodious
station for Polish Gentlemen intending mutiny by law.

"MARCH 8th, 1768, Three short days after the Diet of Radom had done
its fine feat, and retired to privacy, news came to Warsaw, That
Podolia and the Southern parts are all up, confederating with the
highest animation; in hot rage against such decision of a Diet,
contrary to Holy Religion and to much else; and that the said
decision will have to fight for itself, now that it has done
voting. This interesting news is true; and goes on intensifying and
enlarging itself, one dreadful Confederation springing up, and then
another and ever another, day after day; till at last we hear that
on the 27th of the month, MARCH 27th, 1768, at Bar, a little Town
on the Southern or Turkish Frontier, all these more or less
dreadful Confederations have met by delegates, and coalesced into
one 'Confederatiou of Bar,'--which did surely prove dreadful
enough, to itself especially, in the months now ensuing!"

No history of Bar Confederation shall we dream of; far be such an
attempt from us. It consists of many Confederations, and out of
each, PRO and CONTRA, spring many. Like the Lernean Hydra, or even
Hydras in a plural condition. A many-headed dog: and how many
whelps it had,--I cannot give even the cipher of them, or I would!
One whelp Confederation, that of Cracow, is distinguished by having
frequently or generally been "drunk;" and of course its procedures
had often a vinous character. [In HERMANN (v. 431-448);
and especially in RULHIERE (ii. livre 8 et seq.), details in
superabundance.] I fancy to have read somewhere that the number of
them was one hundred and twenty-five. The rumor and the furious
barking of Bar and its whelps goes into all lands: such rabid loud
baying at mankind and the moon; and then, under Russia's treatment,
such shrill yelping and shrieking, was not heard in the world
before, though perhaps it has since.

Poor BAR'S exploits in the fighting way were highly inconsiderable;
all on the same scale; and spread over such a surface of country,
mostly unknown, as renders it impossible to give them head-room,
were you never so unfurnished. They can be read in eloquent
Rulhiere; but by no mortal held in memory. Anarchy is not a thing
to be written of; a Lernean Hydra, several Lernean Hydras, in
chaotic genesis, getting their heads lopped off, and at the same
time sprouting new ones in such ratio, where is the Zoologist that
will give account of it? There was not anything considerable of
fighting; but of bullying, plundering, murdering and being
murdered, a frightful amount. There are seizures of castles,
convents, defensible houses; marches at a rate like that of
antelopes, through the Lithuanian parts, boggy, hungry, boundless,
opening to the fancy the Infinitude of Peat, in the solid and the
fluid state. This, perhaps, is the finest species of feats, though
they never lead to anything. There are heroes famed for
these marches.

The Pulawskis, for example,--four of them, Lawyer people,--showed
much activity, and a talent for impromptu soldiering, in that kind.
The Magnates of the Confederation, I was surprised to learn, had
all quitted it, the instant it came to strokes: "You Lawyer people,
with your priests and orthodox peasantries, you do the fighting
part; ours is the consulting!" And except Potocki (and he worse
than none), there is presently not a Magnate of them left in
Poland,--the rest all gone across the Austrian Border, to Teschen,
to Bilitz, a handy little town and domain in that Duchy of
Teschen;--and sit there as "Committee of Government:" much at their
ease in comparison, could they but agree among themselves, which
they cannot. Bilitz is one of the many domains of Magnate
Sulkowski:--do readers recollect the Sulkowski who at one time
"declared War" on King Friedrich; and was picked up, both War and
he, so compendiously by General Goltz, and locked in Glogau to
cool? This is the same Sulkowski; much concerned now in these
matters; a rich Magnate, glad to see his friends about him as
Governing Committee; but gets, and gives, a great deal of vexation
in it, the element proving again too hot!--

I said there were four famed Pulawskis; [Hermann, v. 465.] a
father, once Advocate in Warsaw, with three sons and a nephew;
who, though extremely active people, could do no good whatever.
The father Pulawski had the fine idea of introducing the British
Constitution; clothing Poland wholly in British tailorage, and so
making it a new Poland: but he never could get it done. This poor
gentleman died in Turkish prison, flung into jail at
Constantinople, on calumnious accusation and contrivance by a rival
countryman; his sons and nephew, poor fellows, all had their fame,
more or less, in the Cause of Freedom so called; but no other
profit in this world, that I could hear of. Casimir, the eldest
son, went to America; died there, still in the Cause of Freedom so
called; Fort Pulawski, in the harbor of Charleston (which is at
present, on very singular terms, RE-engaged in the same so-called
Cause!), was named in memory of this Casimir. He had defended
Czenstochow (if anybody knew what Czenstochow was, or could find it
in the Polish map); and it was also he that contrived that
wonderful plan of suddenly snapping up King Stanislaus from the
streets of Warsaw one night, ["3d November, 1771."] and of locking
him away (by no means killing him), as the source of all our woes.
O my Pulawskis, men not without manhood, what a bedlam of a Time
have you and I fallen into, and what Causes of Freedom it has got
in hand!

Bar, a poor place, with no defences but a dry ditch and some
miserable earthworks, the Confederates had not the least chance to
maintain; Kaminiec, the only fortress of the Province, they never
even got into, finding some fraction of royal soldiery who stood
for King Stanislaus there, and who fired on the Confederates when
applied to. Bar a small Russian division, with certain Stanislaus
soldieries conjoined, took by capitulation; and (date not given)
entered in a victorious manner. The War-Epic of the Confederates,
which Rulhiere sings at such length, is blank of meaning.

Of "Cloister Czenstochow," a famed feat of Pulawski's, also without
result, I could not from my Rulhiere discover (what was altogether
an illuminative fact to me!) that the date of Czenstochow was not
till 1771. A feat of "Cloister BERDICZOW," almost an exact
facsimile by the same Pulawski, also resultless, I did, under
Hermann's guidance, at once find;--and hope the reader will be
satisfied to accept it instead: Cloister Berdiczow, which lies in
the Palatinate of Kiow; and which has a miraculous Holy Virgin, not
less venerated far and wide in those eastern parts, than she of
Cloister Czenstochow in the western: THIS Cloister Berdiczow and
its salutary Virgin, Pulawski (the Casimir, now of Charleston
Harbor) did defend, with about 1,000 men, in a really obstinate
way, The Monastery itself had in it gifts of the faithful,
accumulated for ages; and all the richest people in those
Provinces, Confederate or not, had lodged their preciosities there,
as in an impregnable and sure place, in those times of trouble.
Intensely desirous, accordingly, the Russians were to take it, but
had no cannon; desperately resolute Pulawski and his 1,000 to
defend. Pulawski and his 1,000 fired intensely, till their cannon-
balls were quite done; then took to firing with iron-work, and hard
miscellanies of every sort, especially glad when they could get a
haul of glass to load with;--and absolutely would not yield till
famine came; though the terms offered were good,--had they
been kept.

So that Pulawski, it would appear, did Two Cloister Defences?
Two, each with a miraculous Holy Virgin; an eastern, and then a
westerly. This of Berdiczow, not dated to me farther, is for
certain of the year 1768; and Pulawski, owing to famine, did yield
here. In 1771, at miraculous Cloister Czenstochow, in the western
parts, Pulawski did an external feat, or consented to see it done,
--that of trying to snuff out poor King Stanislaus on the streets
(3d November, 10 P.M., "miraculously" in vain, as most readers
know),--which brought its obloquies and troubles on the Defender of
Czenstochow. Obloquies and troubles: but as to surrendering
Czenstochow on call of obloquy, or of famine itself, Pulawski would
not, not he for his own part; but solemnly left his men to do it,
and walked away by circuitous uncertain paths, which end in
Charleston Harbor, as we have seen. [At Savannah, in a stricter
sense. "Perished at the Siege [futile attempt to storm, by the
French, which they called a Siege] of Savannah, 9th October,
1779."] Defence of Czenstochow in 1771 shall not concern us
farther. Truly these two small defences of monasteries by Pulawski
are almost all, I do not say of glorious, but even of creditable or
human, that reward the poor wanderer in that Polish Valley of
Jehoshaphat, much of it peat-country; wherefore I have, as before,
marked the approximate localities, approximate dates, for behoof of
ingenuous readers.

The Russians, ever since 1764, from the beginnings of those
Stanislaus times, are pledged to maintain peace in Poland; and it
is they that have to deal with this affair,--they especially, or
almost wholly, poor Stanislaus having scarcely any power, military
or other, and perhaps being loath withal. There was more of
investigating and parleying, bargaining and intriguing, than of
fighting, on Stanislaus's part. "June 11th, 1768," says a Saxon
Note from Warsaw, "Mokranowski, Stanislaus's General [the same that
was with Friedrich], has been sent down to Bar to look into those
Confederates. Mokranowski does not think there are above 8,000 of
them; about 3,000 have got their death from Russian castigation.
The 8,000 might be treated with, only Russians are so dreadfully
severe, especially so intent on wringing money from them.
Confederates have been complaining to the Turk; Turk ambiguous;
gives them no definite ground of hope. 'What then, is your hope?'
I inquired. 'Little or none, except in Heaven,' several answered:
'it is for our religion and our liberty:' religion cut to pieces by
this Dissident Toleration-blasphemy; liberty ditto by the Russian
guarantee of peace among us: 'what can we do but trust in God and
our own despair?'" ["Essen's Report, 11th June, 1768" (in HERMANN,
v. 441).] "Prave worts, Ancient Pistol,"--but much destitute of
sense, and not to be realized in present circumstances. Here is
something much more critical:--

JUNE-JULY, 1768. "The peasants in the Southern regions, Palatinates
Podol, Kiow, Braclaw, called UKRAINE or Border-Country by the
Poles, are mostly of Greek and other schismatic creeds. Their Lords
are of an orthodox religion, and not distinguished by mild
treatment of such Peasantry, upon whom civil war and plunder have
been latterly a sore visitation. To complete the matter, the
Confederates in certain quarters, blown upon by fanatical priests,
set about converting these poor peasants, or forcing them, at the
point of the bayonet, to swear that they adopt the 'Greek united
rite,' which I suppose to be a kind of half-way house towards
perfect orthodoxy. In one Village, which was getting converted in
this manner, the military party seemed to be small; the Village
boiled over upon it; trampled orthodoxy and military both under
foot, in a violent and sanguinary manner; and was extremely
frightened when it had done. Extremely frightened, not the Village
only, but the schismatic mind generally in those parts, dreading
vengeance for such a paroxysm. But the atrocious Russians whispered
them, 'We are here to protect you in your religions and rights, in
your poor consciences and skins.' Upon which hint of the atrocious
Russians, the schismatic mind and population one and all rose;
and, 'with the cannibal's ferocity, gave way to their appetite
for plunder!' ...

"Nay, the Russian Government [certain Russian Officials hard
pressed] had invited the Zaporavian Cossacks to step over from
their Islands in the Dniester, and assist in defending their
Religion [true Greek, of course]; who at once did so; and not only
extinguished the last glimmer of Confederation there, but
overwhelmed the Country, thousands on thousands of them, attended
by revolted peasants,--say a 20,000 of peasants under command of
these Zaporavians,--who went about plundering and burning.
That they plundered the Jew pot-houses of their brandy, and drank
it, was a small matter. Very furious upon Jews, upon Noblemen,
Landlords, upon Catholic Priests. 'On one tree [tree should have
been noted] was found hanged a specimen of each of those classes,
with a Dog adjoined, as fit company.' In one little Town, Town of
HUMAN [so called in that foreign dialect], getting some provocation
or other, they set to massacring; and if brandy were plentiful, we
can suppose they made short work. By the lowest computation the
number of slain Jews and Catholics amounted to 10,000 odd [Hermann,
v. 444; Rulhiere, iii. 93.]--Rulhiere says '50,000, by some
accounts 200,000.'" This I guess to have been at its height about
the end of June; this leads direct to the Catastrophe, as will
presently be seen.

Foreign States don't seem to pay much attention,--indeed, what sane
person would like to interfere, or hope to do it with profit?
France, Austria, both wish well to Poland, at least ill to Russia;
Choiseul has no finance, can do nothing but intrigue, and stir up
trouble everywhere: a devout Kaiserinn goes with Holy Church, and
disapproves of these Dissident Tolerations: it is remarked that all
through 1768 the Confederates of Bar are permitted to retire over
the Austrian Frontier into Austrian Silesia, and find themselves
there in safety. Permitted to buy arms, to make preparations, issue
orders: at Sulkowski's Bilitz, in the Duchy of Teschen, supreme
Managing Committee sits there; no Kaunitz or Official person
meddling with it. About the beginning of next year (1769), it is,
ostensibly, a little discountenanced; and obliged to go to Eperjes,
on the Hungarian Frontier [See Busching: for Eperjes, ii. 1427;
for Bilitz, viii. 885.] (as a more decent or less conspicuous
place),--such trouble now rising; a Turk War having broken out,
momentous not to the Confederation alone. March, 1769, the ever-
intriguing Choiseul--fancy with what rapturous effect--had sent
some kind of Agent or Visitor to Teschen; Vergennes in Turkey, from
the beginning of these things, has been plying night and day his
diplomatic bellows upon every live-coal ("I who myself kindled this
Turk-War!" brags he afterwards);--not till next year (1770) did
Choiseul send his Dumouriez to the Bilitz neighborhoods; not till
next again, when Choiseul was himself out, [Thrown out "2d
December, 1770,"--by Louis's NEW Pompadour.] did his Viomenil come:
[Hermann, v. 469-471; in RULHIERE (iv. 241-289) account of
Dumouries and his fencings and spyings, still more of Viomenil, who
had "French Volunteers," and did some bits of real fighting on the
small scale.] neither of whom, by their own head alone, without
funds, without troops, could do other than with fine effort make
bad worse.

It is needless continuing such a subject. Here is one glimpse two
years later, and it shall be our last: "NEAR LUBLIN, 25th
SEPTEMBER, 1770. It is frightful, all this that is passing in these
parts,--about the Town of Labun, for example. The dead bodies
remain without burial; they are devoured by the dogs and the pigs.
... Everywhere reigns Pestilence; nor do we fear contagion so much
as famine. Offer 100 ducats for a fowl or for a bit of bread, I
swear you won't get it. General von Essen [Russian, we will hope]
has had to escape from Laticzew, then from" some other place,
"Pestilence chasing him everywhere."

To apply to the Turks,--afflicted Polish Patriots prostrating
themselves with the hope of despair, "Save us, your sublime
Clemency; throw a ray of pity on us, Brother of the Sun and Moon:
oh, chastise our diabolic oppressors!"--this was one of the first
resources of the Bar Confederates. The Turks did give ear;
not inattentive, though pretending to be rather deaf. M. de
Vergennes,--of whose "diplomatic bellows" we just heard (in fact,
for diligence in this Turk element, in this young time, the like of
him was seldom seen; we knew him long afterwards as a diligent old
gentleman, in French-Revolution days),--M. de Vergennes zealously
supports; zealous to let loose the Turk upon Anti-French parties.
The Turks seem to wag their heads, for some time; and their
responses are ambiguous. For some time, not for long. Here, fast
enough, comes, in disguised shape, the Catastrophe itself, ye poor
plaintive Poles!

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