Book: History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 21

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




JULY-OCTOBER, 1768. Those Zaporavian and other Cossacks, with
20,000 peasants plundering about on both sides of the Dniester, had
set fire to the little Town of Balta, which is on the south side,
and belongs to the Turks: a very grave accident, think all
political people, think especially the Foreign Excellencies at
Warsaw, when news of it arrives. Burning of Balta, not to be
quenched by the amplest Russian apologies, proved a live-coal at
Constantinople; and Vergennes says, he set population and Divan on
fire by it: a proof that the population and Divan had already been
in a very inflammable state. Not a wise Divan, though a zealous.
Plenty of fury in these people; but a sad deficiency of every other
faculty. They made haste, in their hot humor, to declare War (6th
October, 1768); [Hermann, v. 608-611.] not considering much how
they would carry it on. Declared themselves in late Autumn,--as if
to give the Russians ample time for preparing; those poor Turks
themselves being as yet ready with nothing, and even the season for
field-operations being over.

King Friedrich, who has still a Minister at the Porte, endeavored
to dissuade his old Turk friends, in this rash crisis; but to no
purpose; they would listen to nothing but Vergennes and their own
fury. Friedrich finds this War a very mad one on the part of his
old Turk friends; their promptitude to go into it (he has known
them backward enough when their chances were better!), and their
way of carrying it on, are alike surprising to him. He says:
"Catharine's Generals were unacquainted with the first elements of
Castrametation and Tactic; but the Generals of the Sultan had a
still more prodigious depth of ignorance; so that to form a correct
idea of this War, you must figure a set of purblind people, who, by
constantly beating a set of altogether blind, end by gaining over
them a complete mastery." [ OEuvres de Frederic, italic> vi. 23, 24.] This, as Friedrich knows, is what Austria
cannot suffer; this is what will involve Austria and Russia, and
Friedrich along with them, in-- Friedrich, as the matter gradually
unfolds itself, shudders to think what. The beginnings of this War
were perhaps almost comical to the old Soldier-King; but as it
gradually developed itself into complete shattering to pieces of
the stupid Blind by the ambitious Purblind, he grew abundantly
serious upon it.

It is but six months since Polish Patriotism, so effulgent to its
own eyes in Orthodoxy, in Love of glorious Liberty, confederated at
Bar, and got into that extraordinary whirlpool, or cesspool, of
miseries and deliriums we have been looking at; and now it has
issued on a broad highway of progress,--broad and precipitous,--and
will rapidly arrive at the goal set before it. All was so rapid, on
the Polish and on the Turkish part. The blind Turks, out of mere
fanaticism and heat of humor, have rushed into this adventure;--and
go rushing forward into a series of chaotic platitudes on the huge
scale, and mere tragical disasters, year after year, which would
have been comical, had they not been so hideous and sanguinary:
constant and enormous blunders on the Turk part, issuing in
disasters of like magnitude; which in the course of Two Campaigns
had quite finished off their Polish friends, in a very unexpected
way; and had like to have finished themselves off, had not drowned
Poland served as a stepping-stone.

Not till March 26th, 1769, six months after declaring in such
haste, did the blind Turks "display their Banner of Mahomet," that
is, begin in earnest to assemble and make ready. Nor were the
Russians shiningly strategic, though sooner in the field,--a Prince
Galitzin commanding them (an extremely purblind person);
till replaced by Romanzow, our old Colberg acquaintance, who saw
considerably better. Galitzin, early in the season, made a rush on
Choczim (ChoTzim), the first Turk Fort beyond the Dniester;
and altogether failed,--not by Turk prowess, but by his own
purblind mal-arrangements (want of ammunition, want of bread, or I
will forget what);--which occasioned mighty grumblings in Russia:
till in a month or two, by favor of Fortune and blindness of the
Turk, matters had come well round again; and Galitzin, walking up
to Choczim the second time, found there was not a Turk in the
place, and that Choczim was now his on those uncommonly easy terms!

Instead of farther details on such a War,--the shadow or reflex of
which, as mirrored in the Austrian mind, has an importance to
Friedrich and us; but the self or substance of which has otherwise
little or none,--we will close here with a bit of Russian satire on
it, which is still worth reading. The date is evidently Spring,
1769; the scene what we are now treating of: Galitzin obliged to
fall back from Choczim; great rumor--"What a Galitzin; what a Turk
War his, in contrast to the last we had!" [Turk War of 1736-1739,
under Munnich (supra, vii. 81-126).]--no Romanzow yet appointed in
his room. And here is a small Manuscript, which was then
circulating fresh and new in Russian Society; and has since gone
over all the world (though mostly in an uncertain condition, in old
Jest-Books and the like), as a genuine bit of CAVIARE from those
Northern parts:--

MANUSCRIPT CIRCULATING IN RUSSIAN SOCIETY. Galitzin, much grieved
about Choczim, could not sleep; and, wandering about in his tent,
overheard, one night, a common soldier recounting his dream to the
sentry outside the door.

"A curious dream," said the soldier: "I dreamt I was in a battle;
that I got my head cut off; that I died; and, of course, went to
Heaven. I knocked at the door: Peter came with a bunch of Keys;
and made such rattling that he awoke God; who started up in haste,
asking, 'What is the matter?' 'Why,' says Peter, 'there is a great
War on earth between the Russians and the Turks.' 'And who commands
my Russians?' said the Supreme Being. 'Count Munnich,' answered
Peter. 'Very well; I may go to sleep again!'--But this was not the
end of my dream," continued the soldier; "I fell asleep and dreamt
again, the very same as before, except that the War was not Count
Munnich's, but the one we are now in. Accordingly, when God asked,
'Who commands my Russians?' Peter answered, 'Prince Galitzin.'
'Galitzin? Then get me my boots!' said the [Russian] Supreme
Being." [W. Richardson (then at Petersburg, Tutor to Excellency
Cathcart's Children; afterwards Professor at Glasgow, and a man of
Some reputation in his old age), Anecdotes of the Russian
Empire, in a Series of Letters written a few years ago from St.
Petersburg (London, 1784), p. 110: date of this Letter
is "17th October, 1769."]



Chapter IV.

PARTITION OF POLAND.

These Polish phenomena were beginning to awaken a good deal of
attention, not all of it pleasant, on the part of Friedrich.
From the first he had, as usual, been a most clear-eyed observer of
everything; and found the business, as appears, not of tragical
nature, but of expensive-farcical, capable to shake the diaphragm
rather than touch the heart of a reflective on-looker. He has a
considerable Poem on it,--WAR OF THE CONFEDERATES by title (in the
old style of the PALLADION, imitating an unattainable JEANNE
D'ARC),--considerable Poem, now forming itself at leisure in his
thoughts, ["LA GUERRE DES CONFEDERES [ OEuvres, italic> xiv. 183 et seq.], finished in November, 1771."] which
decidedly takes that turn; and laughs quite loud at the rabid
fanaticisms, blusterous inanities and imbecilities of these noisy
unfortunate neighbors:--old unpleasant style of the PALLADION and
PUCELLE; but much better worth reading; having a great deal of
sharp sense in its laughing guise, and more of real Historical
Discernment than you will find in any other Book on that
delirious subject.

Much a laughing-stock to this King hitherto, such a "War of the
Confederates,"--consisting of the noisiest, emptiest bedlam
tumults, seasoned by a proportion of homicide, and a great deal of
battery and arson. But now, with a Russian-Turk War springing from
it, or already sprung, there are quite serious aspects rising amid
the laughable. By Treaty, this War is to cost the King either a
12,000 of Auxiliaries to the Czarina, or a 72,000 pounds (480,000
thalers) annually; [ OEuvres de Frederic,
vi. 13.]--which latter he prefers to pay her, as the alternative:
not an agreeable feature at all; but by no means the worst feature.
Suppose it lead to Russian conquests on the Turk, to Austrian
complicacies, to one knows not what, and kindle the world round one
again! In short, we can believe Friedrich was very willing to stand
well with next-door neighbors at present, and be civil to Austria
and its young Kaiser's civilities.


FIRST INTERVIEW BETWEEN FRIEDRICH AND KAISER JOSEPH
(Neisse, 25th-28th August, 1769).

In 1766, the young Kaiser, who has charge of the Military
Department, and of little else in the Government, and is already a
great traveller, and enthusiastic soldier, made a pilgrimage over
the Bohemian and Saxon Battle-fields of the Seven-Years War.
On some of them, whether on all I do not know, he set up memorial-
stones; one of which you still see on the field of Lobositz;--of
another on Prag field, and of reverent salutation by Artillery to
the memory of Schwerin there, we heard long ago. Coming to Torgau
on this errand, the Kaiser, through his Berlin Minister, had
signified his "particular desire to make acquaintance with the King
in returning;" to which the King was ready with the readiest;--
only that Kaunitz and the Kaiserinn, in the interim, judged it
improper, and stopped it. "The reported Interview is not to take
place," Friedrich warns the Newspapers; "having been given up,
though only from courtesy, on some points of ceremonial."
["FRIEDRICH TO ONE OF HIS FOREIGN AMBASSADORS" (the common way of
announcing in Newspapers): Preuss, iv. 22 n.]

The young Kaiser felt a little huffed; and signified to Friedrich
that he would find a time to make good this bit of uncivility,
which his pedagogues had forced upon him. And now, after three
years, August, 1769, on occasion of the Silesian Reviews, the
Kaiser is to come across from his Bohemian businesses, and actually
visit him: Interview to be at Neisse, 25th August, 1769, for three
days. Of course the King was punctual, everybody was punctual, glad
and cordial after a sort,--no ceremony, the Kaiser, officially
incognito, is a mere Graf von Falkenstein, come to see his
Majesty's Reviews. There came with him four or five Generals,
Loudon one of them; Lacy had preceded: Friedrich is in the palace
of the place, ready and expectant. With Friedrich are: Prince
Henri; Prince of Prussia; Margraf of Anspach: Friedrich's Nephew
(Lady Craven's Margraf, the one remnant now left there); and some
Generals and Military functionaries, Seidlitz the notablest figure
of these. And so, FRIDAY, AUGUST 25th, shortly after noon-- But the
following Two Letters, by an Eye-witness, will be preferable;
and indeed are the only real Narrative that can be given:--


No. 1. ENGINEER LEFEBVRE TO PERPETUAL SECRETARY FORMEY
(at Berlin).

"NEISSE, 26th [partly 25th] August, 1769.

"MY MOST WORTHY FRIEND,-I make haste to inform you of the Kaiser's
arrival here at Neisse, this day, 25th August, 1769, at one in the
afternoon. The King had spent the morning in a proof Manoeuvre,
making rehearsal of the Manoeuvre that was to be. When the Kaiser
was reported just coming, the King went to the window of the grand
Episcopal Saloon, and seeing him alight from his carriage, turned
round and said, 'JE L'AI VU (I have seen him).' His Majesty then
went to receive him on the grand staircase [had hardly descended
three or four steps], where they embraced; and then his Majesty led
by the hand his august Guest into the Apartments designed for him,
which were all standing open and ready,"--which, however, the
august Guest will not occupy except with a grateful imagination,
being for the present incognito, mere Graf von Falkenstein, and
judging that THE THREE-KINGS Inn will be suitabler.

"Arrived in the Apartments, they embraced anew; and sat talking
together for an hour and half.--
[The talk, unknown to
Lefebvre, began in this strain. KAISER: "Now are my wishes
fulfilled, since I have the honor to embrace the greatest of Kings
and Soldiers." KING: "I look upon this day as the fairest of my
life; for it will become the epoch of uniting Two Houses which have
been enemies too long, and whose mutual interests require that they
should strengthen, not weaken one another." KAISER: "For Austria
there is no Silesia farther." [Preuss, v. 23; OEuvres de
Frederic, vi. 25, 26.] Talk, it appears, lasted an
hour and half.]

--"The Kaiser [continues our Engineer]
had brought with him the Prince of Sachsen-Teschen [his august
Brother-in-law, Duke of Teschen, son of the late Polish Majesty of
famous memory]: afterwards there came Feldmarschall Lacy, Graf von
Dietrichstein, General von Loudon," and three others of no account
to us. "At the King's table were the Kaiser, the Prince of Prussia
[dissolute young Heir-Apparent, of the polygamous tendency], Prince
Henri, the Margraf of Anspach [King's Nephew, unfortunate Lady-
Craven Margraf, ultimately of Hammersmith vicinity]; the above
Generals of the Austrian suite, and Generals Seidlitz and
Tauentzien. The rest of the Court was at two other tables." Of the
dinner itself an Outside Individual will say nothing.

"The Kaiser, having expressly requested the King to let him lodge
in an Inn (THREE KINGS), under the name of Graf von Falkenstein,
would not go into the carriage which had stood expressly ready to
conduct him thither. He preferred walking on foot [the loftily
scornful Incognito] in spite of the rain; it was like a lieutenant
of infantry stepping out of his quarters. Some moments after, the
King went to visit him; and they remained together from 5 in the
evening till 8. It was thought they would be present (ASSISTER) at
a Comic Opera which was to be played: but after waiting till 7
o'clock, the people received orders to go on with the Piece;"--both
Majesties did afterwards look in; but finding it bad, soon went
their way again. (MAJOR LEFEBVRE STOPS WRITING FOR THE NIGHT.)

"This morning, 26th, the Manoeuvre [rehearsed yesterday] has been
performed before both their Majesties; the troops, by way of
finish, filing past them in the highest order. The Kaiser
accompanied the King to his abode; after which he returned to his
own. This is all the news I have to-day: the sequel by next Post
[apparently a week hence). I am, and shall ever be,--your true
Friend, LEFEBVRE."


No. 2. SAME TO SAME.

"NEISSE, 2d September, 1769.

"MONSIEUR AND DEAREST FRIEND,--We had, as you heard, our first
Manoeuvre on Saturday, 26th, in presence of the Kaiser and the
King, and of the whole Court of each. That evening there was Opera;
which their Majesties honored by attending. Sunday was our Second
Manoeuvre; OPERETTE in the evening. Monday, 28th, was our last
Manoeuvre; at the end of which the two Majesties, without alighting
from horseback, embraced each other; and parted, protesting
mutually the most constant and inviolable friendship. One took the
road for Breslau; the other that of Konigsgratz. All the time the
Kaiser was here, they have been continually talking together, and
exhibiting the tenderest friendship,--from which I cannot but think
there will benefit result.

"I am almost in the mind of coming to pass this Winter at Berlin;
that I may have the pleasure of embracing you,--perhaps as
cordially as King and Kaiser here. I am, and shall always be, with
all my heart,--your very good Friend, "LEFEBVRE."
[Formey, Souvenirs d'un Citoyen, ii.
145-148.]

The Lefebvre that writes here is the same who was set to manage the
last Siege of Schweidnitz, by Globes of Compression and other fine
inventions; and almost went out of his wits because he could not do
it. An expert ingenious creature; skilful as an engineer; had been
brought into Friedrich's service by the late Balbi, during Balbi's
ascendency (which ended at Olmutz long ago). At Schweidnitz, and
often elsewhere, Friedrich, who had an esteem for poor Lefebvre,
was good to him; and treated his excitabilities with a soft hand,
not a rough. Once at Neisse (1771, second year after these
Letters), on looking round at the works done since last review, in
sight of all the Garrison he embraced Lefebvre, while commending
his excellent performance; which filled the poor soul with a now
unimaginable joy.

"HELAS," says Formey, "the poor Gentleman wrote to me of his
endless satisfaction; and how he hoped to get through his building,
and retire on half-pay this very season, thenceforth to belong to
the Academy and me; he had been Member for twenty years past."
With this view, thinks Formey, he most likely hastened on his
buildings too fast: certain it is, a barrack he was building
tumbled suddenly, and some workmen perished in the ruins.
"Enemies at Court suggested," or the accident itself suggested
without any enemy, "Has not he been playing false, using cheap bad
materials?"--and Friedrich ordered him arrest in his own
Apartments, till the question were investigated. Excitable Lefebvre
was like to lose his wits, almost to leap out of his skin.
"One evening at supper, he managed to smuggle away a knife; and, in
the course of the night, gave himself sixteen stabs with it;
which at length sufficed. The King said, 'He has used himself worse
than I should have done;' and was very sorry." Of Lefebvre's
scientific structures, globes of compression and the rest, I know
not whether anything is left; the above Two Notes, thrown off to
Formey, were accidentally a hit, and, in the great blank, may last
a long while.

The King found this young Kaiser a very pretty man; and could have
liked him considerably, had their mutual positions permitted.
"He had a frankness of manner which seemed natural to him," says
the King; "in his amiable character, gayety and great vivacity were
prominent features." By accidental chinks, however, one saw "an
ambition beyond measure" burning in the interior of this young man,
[ OEuvres de Frederic, (in Memoires
de 1763 jusqu'a 1775, a Chapter which yields the
briefest, and the one completely intelligible account we yet have
of those affairs), vi. 25.]--let an old King be wary. A three days,
clearly, to be marked in chalk; radiant outwardly to both; to a
certain depth, sincere; and uncommonly pleasant for the time.
King and Kaiser were seen walking about arm in arm. At one of the
Reviews a Note was brought to Friedrich: he read it, a Note from
her Imperial Majesty; and handing it to Kaiser Joseph, kissed it
first. At parting, he had given Joseph, by way of keepsake, a copy
of Marechal de Saxe's REVERIES (a strange Military Farrago,
dictated, I should think, under opium ["MES REVERIES; OUVRAGE
POSTHUME, par" &c. (2 vols. 4to: Amsterdam et Leipzig, 1757).]):
this Book lay continually thereafter on the Kaiser's night-table;
and was found there at his death, Twenty-one years hence,--not a
page of it read, the leaves all sticking together under their
bright gilding. [Preuss, iv. 24 n.]

It was long believed, by persons capable of seeing into millstones,
that, under cover of this Neisse Interview, there were important
Political negotiations and consultings carried on;--that here, and
in a Second Interview or Return-Visit, of which presently, lay the
real foundation of the Polish Catastrophe. What of Political passed
at the Second Interview readers shall see for themselves, from an
excellent Authority. As to what passed at the present ("mutual
word-of-honor: should England and France quarrel, we will stand
neutral" [ OEuvres de Frederic, ubi supra.]),
it is too insignificant for being shown to readers. Dialogues there
were, delicately holding wide of the mark, and at length coming
close enough; but, at neither the one Interview nor the other, was
Poland at all a party concerned,--though, beyond doubt, the Turk
War was; silently this first time, and with clear vocality on the
second occasion.

In spite of Galitzin's blunders, the Turk War is going on at a fine
rate in these months; Turks, by the hundred thousand, getting
scattered in panic rout:--but we will say nothing of it just yet.
Polish Confederation--horror-struck, as may be imagined, at its
auxiliary Brother of the Sun and Moon and his performances--is
weltering in violently impotent spasms into deeper and ever deeper
wretchedness, Friedrich sometimes thinking of a Burlesque Poem on
the subject;--though the Russian successes, and the Austrian
grudgings and gloomings, are rising on him as a very serious
consideration. "Is there no method, then, of allowing Russia to
prosecute its Turk War in spite of Austria and its umbrages?"
thinks Friedrich sometimes, in his anxieties about Peace in
Europe:--"If the Ukraine, and its meal for the Armies, were but
Russia's! At present, Austria can strike in there, cut off the
provisions, and at once put a spoke in Russia's wheel."
Friedrich tells us, "he (ON," the King himself, what I do not find
in any other Book) "sent to Petersburg, under the name of Count
Lynar, the seraphic Danish Gentleman, who, in 1757, had brought
about the Convention of Kloster-Zeven, a Project, or Sketch of
Plan, for Partitioning certain Provinces of Poland, in that view;"
--the Lynar opining, so far as I can see, somewhat as follows:
"Russia to lay hold of the essential bit of Polish Territory for
provisioning itself against the Turk, and allow to Austria and
Prussia certain other bits; which would content everybody, and
enable Russia and Christendom to extrude and suppress AD LIBITUM
that abominable mass of Mahometan Sensualism, Darkness and
Fanaticism from the fairest part of God's Creation." An excellent
Project, though not successful! "To which Petersburg, intoxicated
with its own outlooks on Turkey, paid not the least attention,"
says the King. [ OEuvres de Frederic, vi. 26.]
He gives no date to this curious statement; nor does anybody else
mention it at all; but we may fancy it to have been of Winter,
1769-1770,--and leave it with the curious, or the idly curious,
since nothing came of it now or afterwards.

POTSDAM, 20th-29th OCTOBER, 1769. Only two months after Neisse,
what kindles Potsdam into sudden splendor, Electress Marie-Antoine
makes a Visit of nine days to the King. "In July last," says a
certain Note of ours, "the Electress was invited to Berlin, to a
Wedding; 'would have been delighted to come, but letter of
invitation arrived too late. Will, however, not give up the plan of
seeing the great Friedrich.' Comes to Potsdam 20th-29th October.
Stays nine days; much delighted, both, with the visit.
'Magnificent palaces, pleasant gardens, ravishing concerts,
charming Princes and Princesses: the pleasantest nine days I ever
had in my life,' says the Electress. Friedrich grants, to her
intercession, pardon for some culprit. 'DIVA ANTONIA' he calls her
henceforth for some time; she him, 'PLUS GRAND DES MORTELS,'
'SALOMON DU NORD,' and the like names." [ OEuvres de
Frederic, (CORRESPONDANCE AVEC L'ELECTRICE MARIE-
ANTOINE), xxiv. 179-186.] Next year too (September 26th-October
5th, 1770), the bright Lady made a second visit; [Rodenbeck, iii.
24.] no third,--the times growing too political, perhaps; the times
not suiting. The Correspondence continues to the end; and is really
pretty. And would be instructive withal, were it well edited. For
example,--if we might look backwards, and shoot a momentary spark
into the vacant darkness of the Past,--Friedrich wrote (the year
before this):--

POTSDAM, 3d MAY, 1768. ... "Jesuits have got all cut adrift: A dim
rumor spreads that his Holiness will not rest with that first
anathema, but that a fulminating Bull is coming out against the
Most Christian, the Most Catholic and the Most Faithful. If that be
so, my notion is, Madam, that the Holy Father, to fill his table,
will admit the Defender of the Faith [poor George III.] and your
Servant; for it does not suit a Pope to sit solitary. ...

"A pity for the human race, Madam, that men cannot be tranquil,--
but they never and nowhere can! Not even the little Town of
Neufchatel but has had its troubles; your Royal Highness will be
astonished to learn how. A Parson there [this was above seven years
ago, in old Marischal's reign [See Letters to Marischal, "Leipzig,
9th March, 1761," "Breslau, 14th May, 1762:" in OEuvres de
Frederic, xx. 282, 287.]] had set forth in a sermon,
That considering the immense mercy of God, the pains of Hell could
not last forever. The Synod shouted murder at such scandal; and has
been struggling, ever since, to get the Parson exterminated.
The affair was of my jurisdiction; for your Royal Highness must
know that I am Pope in that Country;--here is my decision: Let the
parsons, who make for themselves a cruel and barbarous God, be
eternally damned, as they desire, and deserve; and let those
parsons, who conceive God gentle and merciful, enjoy the plenitude
of his mercy! However, Madam, my sentence has failed to calm men's
minds; the schism continues; and the number of the damnatory
theologians prevails over the others." ["April 2d, 1768" (a month
before this Letter to Madam), there is "riot at Neufchatel;
and Avocat Gardot [heterodox Parson's ADVOCATE] killed in it"
(Rodenbeck, ii. 303).]--Or again:--

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