History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 18

In two days' time (November 7th), the French had got to Langensalza, fifty-five miles from the Battle-field of Rossbach; plundering, running, SACRE-DIEU-ing; a wild deluge of molten wreck, filling the Eichsfeld with its waste noises, making night hideous and day too;—in the villages Placards were stuck up, appointing Nordhausen and Heiligenstadt for rallying place. [Muller, p. 73.]

Soubise rode, with few attendants, all night towards Nordhausen,—eighty miles off, foot of the Bracken Country, where the Richelieu resources are;—Soubise with few attendants, face set towards the Brocken; himself, it is like, in a somewhat hag-ridden condition.

"The joy of poor Teutschland at large," says one of my Notes, "and how all Germans, Prussian and Anti-Prussian alike, flung up their caps, with unanimous LEBE-HOCH, at the news of Rossbach, has often been remarked; and indeed is still almost touching to see. The perhaps bravest Nation in the world, though the least braggart, very certainly EIN TAPFERES VOLK (as their Goethe calls them); so long insulted, snubbed and trampled on, by a luckier, not a braver:—has not your exultant Dauphiness got a beautiful little dose administered her; and is gone off in foul shrieks, and pangs of the interior,—let no man ask whitherward! 'SI UN ALLEMAND PEUT AVOIR DE L'ESPRIT (Can a German possibly have sharpness of wits)?' Well, yes, it would seem: here is one German graduate who understands his medicine-chest, and the quality of patients!—Dauphiness got no pity anywhere; plenty of epigrams, and mostly nothing but laughter even in Paris itself. Napoleon long after, who much admires Friedrich, finds that this Victory of Rossbach was inevitable; 'but what fills me with astonishment and shame,' adds he, 'is that it was gained by six battalions and thirty squadrons [seven properly, and thirty-eight] over such a multitude!' [Montholon, MEMOIRES &C. DE NAPOLEON (Napoleon's Precis des Guerres de Frederic II., vii. 210).]—It is well known, Napoleon, after Jena, as if Jena had not been enough for him, tore down the first Monument of Rossbach, some poor ashlar Pyramid or Pillar, raised by the neighborhood, with nothing more afflictive inscribed on it than a date; and sent it off in carts for Paris (where no stone of it ever arrived, the Thuringen carmen slinking off, and leaving it scattered in different places over the face of Thuringen in general); so that they had the trouble of a new one lately." [Rodenbeck, Beitrage, i. 299; ib. p. 385, Lithograph of the poor extinct Monument itself.]

From Friedrich the "Army of the Circles," that is, Dauphiness and Company,—called HOOPERS or "Coopers" (TONNELIERS), with a desperate attempt at wit by pun,—get their Adieu in words withal. This is the famed CONGE DE L'ARMEE DES CERCLES ET DES TONNELIERS; a short metrical Piece; called by Editors the most profane, most indecent, most &c.; and printed with asterisk veils thrown over the worst passages. Who shall dare, searching and rummaging for insight into Friedrich, and complaining that there is none, to lift any portion of the veil; and say, "See—Faugh!" The cynicism, truly, but also the irrepressible honest exultation, has a kind of epic completeness, and fulness of sincerity; and, at bottom, the thing is nothing like so wicked as careless commentators have given out. Dare to look a little:—

"ADIEU, GRANDS ERASEURS DE ROIS," so it starts: "Adieu, grand crushers of Kings; arrogant wind-bags, Turpin, Broglio, Soubise,—Hildburghausen with the gray beard, foolish still as when your beard was black in the Turk-War time:—brisk journey to you all!" That is the first stanza; unexceptionable, had we room. The second stanza is,—with the veils partially lifted; with probably "MOISE" put into the first blank, and into the third something of or belonging to "CESAR,"—

          "Je vows ai vu comme...           Dans des ronces en certain lieu           Eut l'honneur de voir...           Ou comme au gre de sa luxure           Le bon Nicomede a l'ecart           Aiguillonnait sa flamme impure           Des..."

Enough to say, the Author, with a wild burst of spiritual enthusiasm, sings the charms of the rearward part of certain men; and what a royal ecstatic felicity there sometimes is in indisputable survey of the same. He rises to the heights of Anti-Biblical profanity, quoting Moses on the Hill of Vision; sinks to the bottomless of human or ultra-human depravity, quoting King Nicomedes's experiences on Caesar (happily known only to the learned); and, in brief, recognizes that there is, on occasion, considerable beauty in that quarter of the human figure, when it turns on you opportunely. A most cynical profane affair: yet, we must say by way of parenthesis, one which gives no countenance to Voltaire's atrocities of rumor about Friedrich himself in this matter; the reverse rather, if well read; being altogether theoretic, scientific; sings with gusto the glow of beauty you find in that unexpected quarter,—while KICKING it deservedly and with enthusiasm. "To see the"—what shall we call it: seat of honor, in fact, "of your enemy:" has it not an undeniable charm? "I own to you in confidence, O Soubise and Company, this fine laurel I have got, and was so in need of, is nothing more or other than the sight of your"—FOUR ASTERISKS. "Oblige me, whenever clandestine Fate brings us together, by showing me that"—always that, if you would give me pleasure when we meet. "And oh," next stanza says, "to think what our glory is founded on,"—on view of that unmentionable object, I declare to you!—And through other stanzas, getting smutty enough (though in theory only), which we need not prosecute farther. [OEuvres de Frederic, xii. 70-73 (WRITTEN at Freiburg, 6th November, when his Majesty got thither, and found the Bridge burnt).] A certain heartiness and epic greatness of cynicism, life's nakedness grown almost as if innocent again; an immense suppressed insuppressible Haha, on the part of this King. Strange TE-DEUM indeed. Coming from the very heart, truly, as few of them do; but not, in other points, recommendable at all!—Here, of the night before, is something better:—

TO WILHELMINA.

"NEAR WEISSENFELS [OBSCHUTZ, in fact; does not know yet what the Battle will be CALLED], 5th November, 1757.

"At last, my dear Sister, I can announce you a bit of good news. You were doubtless aware that the Coopers with their circles had a mind to take Leipzig. I ran up, and hove them beyond Saale. The Duc de Richelieu sent them a reinforcement of twenty battalions and fourteen squadrons [say 15,000 horse and foot]; they then called themselves 63,000 strong. Yesterday I went to reconnoitre them; could not attack them in the post they held. This had rendered them rash. Today they came out with the intention of attacking me; but I took the start of them (LES AI PREVENU). It was a Battle EN DOUCEUR (soft to one's wish). Thanks to God I have not a hundred men killed; the only General ill wounded is Meinecke. My Brother Henri and General Seidlitz have slight hurts [gun-shots, not so slight, that of Seidlitz] in the arm. We have all the Enemy's cannon, all the... I am in full march to drive them over the Unstrut [already driven, your Majesty; bridge burning].

"You, my dear Sister, my good, my divine and affectionate Sister [faithful to the bone, in good truth, poor Wilhelmina], who deign to interest yourself in the fate of a Brother who adores you, deign also to share in my joy. The instant I have time, I will tell you more. I embrace you with my whole heart; Adieu. F." [OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. i. 310.]

ULTERIOR FATE OF DAUPHINESS; FLIES OVER THE RHINE IN BAD FASHION: DAUPHINESS'S WAYS WITH THE SAXON POPULATION IN HER DELIVERANCE-WORK.

Friedrich had no more fighting with the French. November 9th, at Merseburg, in all stillness, Duke Ferdinand got his Britannic Commission, his full Powers, from Friedrich and the parties interested; in all stillness made his arrangements, as if for Magdeburg and his Governorship there,—Friedrich hastening off for Silesia the while. Duke Ferdinand did stay six days in Magdeburg, inspecting or pretending to inspect; very pleasant with his Sister and the Royalties that, are now there; but, at midnight of day sixth shot off silently on wider errand. And, in sum, on Thursday, 24th November, 1757, appeared in Stade, on horseback at morning parade there; intimating, to what joy of the poor Brunswick Grenadiers and others, That he was come to take command; that Kloster-Zeven is abolished; that we are not an "Observation Army," rotting here in the parish pound, any longer, but an "Allied Army" (such now our title), intending to strike for ourselves, and get out of pound straightway!—

"THURSDAY, 24th NOVEMBER-TUESDAY, 29th. Duke Ferdinand did accordingly pick up the reins of this distracted Affair; and, in a way wonderful to see, shot sanity into every fibre of it; and kept it sane and road-worthy for the Five Years coming. With a silent velocity, an energy, an imperturbable steadfastness and clear insight into cause and effect; which were creditable to the school he came from; and were a very joyful sight to Pitt and others concerned. So that from next Tuesday, 'November 29th, before daylight,' when Ferdinand's batteries began playing upon Harburg (French Fortress nearest to Stade), the reign of the French ceased in those Countries; and an astonished Richelieu and his French, lying scattered over all the West of Germany, in readiness for nothing but plunder, had to fall more or less distracted in their turn; and do a number of astonishing things. To try this and that, of futile, more or less frantic nature; be driven from post after post; be driven across the Aller first of all;—Richelieu to go home thereupon, and be succeeded by one still more incompetent.

"DECEMBER 13th, a fortnight after Ferdinand's appearance, Richelieu had got to the safe side of the Aller (burning of Zelle Bridge and Zelle Town there, his last act in Germany); Ferdinand's quarters now wide enough; and vigorous speed of preparation going on for farther chase, were the weather mended. FEBRUARY 17th, 1758, Ferdinand was on foot again; Prince de Clermont, the still more incompetent successor of Richelieu, gazing wide-eyed upon him, but doing nothing else: and for the next six weeks there was seen a once triumphant Richelieu-D'Estrees French Army, much in rags, much in disorder, in terror, and here and there almost in despair,—winging their way; like clouds of draggled poultry caught by a mastiff in the corn. Across Weser, across Ems, finally across the Rhine itself, every feather of them,—their long-drawn cackle, of a shrieky type, filling all Nature in those months; the mastiff steadily following. [Mauvillon, i. 252-284 ("9th November, 1757-1st April, 1758"); Westphalen, i. 316-503 (abundantly explicit, authentic and even entertaining,—with the ample Correspondences, ib. ii. 147-350); Schaper, Vie militaire du Marechal Prince Ferdinand (2 tomes, 8vo, Magdebourg, 1796, 1799), i. 7-100 (a careful Book; of an official exactitude, like Westphalen's,—and appears to be left incomplete like his).] To the astonishment of Pitt and mankind. Can this be the same Army that Royal Highness led to the Sea and the Parish Pound? The same identically, wasted to about two-thirds by Royal Highness; not a drum in it changed otherwise, only One Man different,—and he is the important one!

"Pitt, when the news of Rossbach came, awakening the bonfires and steeple-bells of England to such a pitch, had resolved on an emphatic measure: that of sending English Troops to reinforce our Allied Army, and its new General;—such an Ally as that Rossbach one being rare in the eyes of Pitt. 'Postpone the meeting of Parliament, yet a few days, your Majesty,' said Pitt, 'till I get the estimates ready!' [Thackeray, i. 310.] To which Majesty assented, and all England with him: 'England's own Cause,' thinks Pitt, with confidence: 'our way of Conquering America,—and, in the circumstances, our one way!' English did land, accordingly; first instalment of them, a 12,000 (in August next), increased gradually to 20,000; with no end of furnishings to them and everybody; with results again satisfactory to Pitt; and very famous in the England that then was, dim as they are now grown."

The effect of all which was, that Pitt, with his Ferdinands and reinforcements, found work for the French ever onwards from Rossbach; French also turning as if exclusively upon perfidious Albion: and the thing became, in Teutschland, as elsewhere, a duel of life and death between these natural enemies,—Teutschland the centre of it,—Teutschland and the accessible French Sea-Towns,—but the circumference of it going round from Manilla and Madras to Havana and Quebec again. Wide-spread furious duel; prize, America and life. By land and sea; handsomely done by Pitt on both elements. Land part, we say, was always mainly in Germany, under Ferdinand,—in Hessen and the Westphalian Countries, as far west as Minden, as far east as Frankfurt-on-Mayn, generally well north of Rhine, well south of Elbe: that was, for five years coming, the cockpit or place of deadly fence between France and England. Friedrich's arena lies eastward of that, occasionally playing into it a little, and played into by it, and always in lively sympathy and consultation with it: but, except the French subsidizings, diplomatizings. and great diligenae against him in foreign Courts, Friedrich is, in practical respects, free of the French; and ever after Rossbach, Ferdinand and the English keep them in full work,—growing yearly too full. A heavy Business for England and Ferdinand; which is happily kept extraneous to Friedrich thenceforth; to him and us; which is not on the stage of his affairs and ours, but is to be conceived always as vigorously proceeding alongside of it, close beyond the scenes, and liable at any time to make tragic entry on him again:—of which we shall have to notice the louder occurrences and cardinal phases, but, for the future, nothing more.

Soubise, who had crept into the skirts of the Richelieu Army in Hanover or Hessen Country, had of course to take wing in that general fright before the mastiff. Soubise did not cross the Rhine with it; Soubise made off eastward; [Westphalen, i. 501 ("end of March, 1758").]—found new roost in Hanau-Frankfurt Country; and had thoughts of joining the Austrians in Bohemia next Campaign; but got new order,—such the pinches of a winged Clermont with a mastiff Ferdinand at his poor draggled tail;—and came back to the Ferdinand scene, to help there; and never saw Friedrich again. Both Broglio and he had a good deal of fighting (mostly beating) from Ferdinand; and a great deal of trouble and sorrow in the course of this War; but after Rossbach it is not Friedrich or we, it is Ferdinand and the Destinies that have to do with them. Poor Soubise, except that he was the creature of Generalissima Pompadour, which had something radically absurd in it, did not deserve all the laughter he got: a man of some chivalry, some qualities. As for Broglio, I remember always, not without human emotion, the two extreme points of his career as a soldier: Rossbach and the Fall of the Bastille. He was towards forty, when Friedrich bestrode the Janus Hill in that fiery manner; he was turned of seventy when, from the pavements of Paris, the Chimera of Democracy rose on him, in fire of a still more horrible description.

Dauphiness-Bellona, in her special and in her widest sense, has made exit, then. Gone, like clouds of draggled poultry home across the Rhine. She was the most marauding Army lately seen, also the most gasconading, and had the least capacity for fighting: three worse qualities no army could have. How she fought, we have seen sufficiently. Before taking leave of her forever, readers, as she is a paragon in her kind, would perhaps take a glance or two at her marauding qualities,—by a good opportunity that offers. Plotho at Regensburg, that a supreme Reichs Diet may know what a "deliverance of Saxony" this has been, submits one day the following irrefragable Documents, "which have happened," not without good industry of my own, "to fall into my [Plotho's] hands." They are Documents partly of epistolary, partly of a Petitionary form, presented to Polish Majesty, out of that Saxon Country; and have an AFFIDAVIT quality about them, one and all.

1. BIG DAUPHINESS (that is, D'Estrees) IN THE WESEL COUNTRIES, AT AN EARLY STAGE,—WHILE STILL ENDEAVORING WHAT SHE COULD TO BEHAVE WELL, HANGING 1,000 MARAUDERS AND THE LIKE (A private Letter):—

"COUNTY MARK, 20th JUNE, 1757. The French troops are going on here in a way to utterly ruin us. Schmidt, their President of Justice, whom they set up in Cleve, has got orders to change all the Magistracies of the Country [Protestant by nature], so as that half the members shall be Catholic. Bielefeld was openly plundered by the French for three hours long. You cannot by possibility represent to yourself what the actual state of misery in these Countries is. A SCHEFFEL of rye costs three thalers sixteen groschen [who knows how many times its natural price!]. And now we are to be forced to eat the spoiled meal those French troops brought with them; which is gone to such a state no animal would have it. This poisoned meal we are to buy from them, ready money, at the price they fix; and that famine may induce us, they are about to stop the mills, and forcibly take away what little bread-corn we have left. God have pity on us, and deliver us soon! Next week we are to have a transit of 6,000 Pfalzers [Kur-Pfalz, foolish idle fellow, and Kur-Baiern too, are both in subsidy of France, as usual; 6,000 Pfalzers just due here]; these, I suppose, will sweep us clean bare." [Helden-Geschichte, iv. 399.]:

Wesel Fortress, Gate of the Rhine, could not be defended by Friedrich: and the Hanover Incapables, and England still all in St. Vitus, would not hear of undertaking it; left it wide open for the French; never could recover it, or get the Rhine-Gate barred again, during the whole War. One hopes they repented;—but perhaps it was only Pitt and Duke Ferdinand that did so, instead! The Wesel Countries were at once occupied by the French; "a conquest of her Imperial Majesty's;" continued to be administered in Imperial Majesty's name,—and are thriving as above.

2. DAUPHINESS PROPER (that is, Soubise) IN THURINGEN, AT A LATE STAGE:—

"LETTER FROM FREIBURG, SHORTLY AFTER ROSSBACH.—It was on the 23d October, a Sunday, that we of Freiburg had our first billeting of French; a body of Cavalry from different regiments [going to take Leipzig, take Torgau, what not]: and from that day Freiburg never emptied of French, who kept marching through it in extraordinary quantities. The marching lasted fourteen days, namely, till the 6th November [day AFTER Rossbach; when they burnt our poor Bridge, and marched for the last time]; and often the billeting was so heavy, that in a single house there were forty or fifty men. Who at all times had to be lodged and dieted gratis; nay many householders, over and above the ordinary meal, were obliged to give them money too; and many poor people, who can scarcely get their own bit of bread, had to run and bring at once their sixteen or eighteen groschen [pence] worth of wine, not to speak of coffee and sugar. And a great increase of the mischief it was always, that the soldiers and common people did not understand one another's language."—Heavy billeting; but what was that?... "Vast, nearly impossible, quantities of forage and provision," were wrung from us, as from all the other Towns and Villages about, "under continual threatening to burn and raze us from the earth. Often did our French Colonel threaten, 'He would have the cannon opened on Freiburg straightway.' Nay, had it stood by foraging, we might have reckoned ourselves lucky. But our straits increased day by day; and sheer plundering became more and more excessive.

"The robbing and torturing of travellers, the plundering and burning of Saxon Villages... Almost all the Towns and Villages hereabouts are so plundered out, that many a one now has nothing but what he carries on his body. Plundering was universal: and no sooner was one party away, than another came, and still another; and often the same house was three or four times plundered. Branderode, a Village two leagues from this [stands on the Field of Rossbach, if we look], is so ruined out, that nobody almost has anything left: Chief Inspector Baron von Bose's Schloss there, with its splendid appointments, they ruined utterly; took all money, victuals, valuables, furniture, clothes, linen and beds, all they could carry; what could not be carried away, they cut, hewed and smashed to pieces; broke the wine-casks; and even tore up the documents and letters they found lying in the place. Branderode Dorf was twice set fire to by them; and was, at last, with Zeuchfeld, which is an Amtsdorf,—after both had been plundered,—reduced to ashes. The Churches of Branderode and Zeuchfeld, with several other Churches, were plundered; the altars broken, the altar-cloths and other vestures cut to pieces, and the sacred vessels and cups carried away,—except [for we have a notarial exactness, and will exaggerate nothing] that in the case of Branderode they sent the cup back. Of the pollution of the altars, and of the blasphemous songs these people sang in the churches, one cannot think without horror.

"And it was merely our pretended Allies and Protectors that have desecrated our divine service, utterly wasted our Country, reduced the inhabitants to want and desperation, and, in short, have so behaved that you would not know this region again. Truly these troops have realized for us most of the infamies we heard reported of the Cossacks, and their ravagings in Preussen lately.

"It is one of their smallest doings that they robbed a Saxon Clergyman (name and circumstances can be given if required), three times over, on the public Highway; shot at him, tied him to a horse's tail and dragged him along with them; so that he is now lying ill, in danger of his life. On the whole, it is our beloved Pastors, Clergymen most of all, that have been plundered of everything they had.

"Balgart and Zschieplitz, both Villages half a league from this, have likewise been heavily plundered; they have even left the Parson nothing but what he wore on his back. Grost," another Rossbach place, "which belongs to the Kammerjunker Heldorf, has likewise"... OHE, SATIS!—"All this happened between the 23d and 31st October; consequently before the Battle.... In many Villages you see the trees and fields sprinkled with feathers from the beds that have been slit up.

"In several Villages belonging to the Royal Electoral privy Councillor von Bruhl [who is properly the fountain of all this and of much other misery to us, if we knew it!] the plundering likewise had begun; and a quantity of about a hundred swine [so ho!] had been cut in pieces: but in the midst of their work, the Allies heard that these were Bruhl estates, and ceased their havoc of them. These accordingly are the only lands in all this region whose fate has been tolerable.

"The appellation, every moment renewed, of 'Heretic!' was the courteous address from these people to our fellow-Christians; 'heretic dogs (KETZERISCHE HUNDE)' was a PRADICAT always in their mouth.

"In Weischutz," a mile or two from us, up the Unstrut, "a French Colonel who wanted to ride out upon the works, made the there Pastor, Magister Schren, stoop down by way of horse-block, and mounted into the saddle from his back. [Messieurs, you will kindle the wrath of mankind some day, and get a terrible plucking, with those high ways of yours!]

"Churches are all smashed; obscene songs were sung, in form of litany, from the pulpits and altars; what was done with the communion-vessels, when they were not worth stealing,"—is hideous to the religious sense, and shall not be mentioned in human speech.

3. THE BROGLIO REINFORCEMENT COMING ACROSS TO JOIN SOUBISE, AND PERFORM AT ROSSBACH (Humble Petition from the Magistrates of Sangerhausen, To the King of Poland's Majesty):—

SANGERHAUSEN, 23d OCTOBER, 1757.—"Scarcely had we, with profound submission (ALLERUNTERTHANIGST), under date of the 13th current, represented to your Royal Majesty and Electoral Translucency how heavily we were pressed down by the forage requisitions and transits of troops, and the consequent, expenditure in food, drinking, in oats and hay, which no one pays,—when directly thereafter, on the 14th of October, a new French party, of the Fischer Corps,"—Fischer is a mighty Hussar, scarcely inferior to Turpin; and stands in astonishing authority with Richelieu, and an Army whose object is plunder, [Ferdinand's Correspondente, SOEPIUS (Westphalen, i. 40-127); &c. &c.]—"new party of the Fischer Corps, of some sixty men and horse, arrived in the Town; demanded meat, drink, oats and hay, and all things necessary; which they received from us;—and not only paid not one farthing for all this, but furthermore some of them, instead of thanks to their Landlord, Rossold, forcibly broke up his press, drank his brandy, and carried off a TOUTE (gather-all) with money in it. From a Tanner, Lindauer by name, they bargained for a buckskin; and having taken, would not pay it. In the RATHSKELLER (Town Public-house) they drank much wine, and gave nothing for it: nay on marching off,—because no mounted guide (REITENDER BOTE) was at hand, and though they had before expressly said none such would be needed,—they rushed about like distracted persons (WIE RASENDE LEUTE) in the market-place and in the streets; beat the people, tumbled them about, and lugged them along, in a violent manner; using abusive language to a frightful extent, and threatening every misfortune.