History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 18

At Leitmeritz the King continues four weeks, with his Army parted in this way; waiting how the endless hostile element, which begirdles his horizon all round, will shape itself into combinations, that he may set upon the likeliest or the needfulest of these, when once it has disclosed itself. Horizon all round is black enough: Austrians, French, Swedes, Russians, Reichs Army; closer upon him or not so close, all are rolling in: Saxony, the Lausitz and Silesia, Brandenburg itself, it is uncertain which of these may soonest require his active presence.

The very day after his arrival in Leitmeritz,—Tuesday, 28th June, while that junction with Keith was going on, and the troops were defiling along the Bridge for junction with Keith,—a heavy sorrow had befallen him, which he yet knew not of. An irreparable Domestic loss; sad complement to these Military and other Public disasters. Queen Sophie Dorothee, about whose health he had been anxious, but had again been set quiet, died at Berlin that day. [Monbijou, 28th June, 1757; born at Hanover, 27th March, 1687.] In her seventy-first year: of no definite violent disease; worn down with chagrins and apprehensions, in this black whirlpool of Public troubles. So far as appears, the news came on Friedrich by surprise:—"bad cough," we hear of, and of his anxieties about it, in the Spring time; then again of "improvement, recovery, in the fine weather;"—no thought, just now, of such an event: and he took it with a depth of affliction, which my less informed readers are far from expecting of him.

July 2d, the news came: King withdrew into privacy; to weep and bewail under this new pungency of grief, superadded to so many others. Mitchell says: "For two days he had no levee; only the Princes dined with him [Princes Henri and Ferdinand; Prince of Prussia is gone to Jung-Bunzlau, would get the sad message there, among his other troubles]: yesterday, July 3d, King sent for me in the afternoon,—the first time he has seen anybody since the news came:—I had the honor to remain with him some hours in his closet. I must own to your Lordship I was most sensibly afflicted to see him indulging his grief, and giving way to the warmest filial affections; recalling to mind the many obligations he had to her late Majesty; all she had suffered, and how nobly she bore it; the good she did to everybody; the one comfort he now had, to think of having tried to make her last years more agreeable." [Papers and Memoirs, i. 253; Despatch to Holderness, 4th July (slightly abridged);—see ib. i. 357-359 (Private Journal). Westphalen, ii. 14. See OEuvres de Frederic, iv. 182.] In the thick of public business, this kind of mood to Mitchell seems to have lasted all the time of Leitmeritz, which is about three weeks yet: Mitchell's Note-books and Despatches, in that part, have a fine Biographic interest; the wholly human Friedrich wholly visible to us there as he seldom is. Going over his past Life to Mitchell; brief, candid, pious to both his Parents;—inexpressibly sad; like moonlight on the grave of one's Mother, silent that, while so much else is too noisy!

This Friedrich, upon whom the whole world has risen like a mad Sorcerer's-Sabbath, how safe he once lay in his cradle, like the rest of us, mother's love wrapping him soft:—and now! These thoughts commingle in a very tragic way with the avalanche of public disasters which is thundering down on all sides. Warm tears the meed of this new sorrow; small in compass, but greater in poignancy than all the rest together. "My poor old Mother, oh, my Mother, that so loved me always, and would have given her own life to shelter mine!"—It was at Leitmeritz, as I guess, that Mitchell first made decisive acquaintance, what we may almost call intimacy, with the King: we already defined him as a sagacious, long-headed, loyal-hearted diplomatic gentleman, Scotch by birth and by turn of character; abundantly polite, vigilant, discreet, and with a fund of general sense and rugged veracity of mind; whom Friedrich at once recognized for what he was, and much took to, finding a hearty return withal; so that they were soon well with one another, and continued so. Mitchell, as orders were, "attended the King's person" all through this War, sometimes in the blaze of battle itself and nothing but cannon-shot going, if it so chanced; and has preserved, in his multifarious Papers, a great many traits of Friedrich not to be met with elsewhere.

Mitchell's occasional society, conversation with a man of sense and manly character, which Friedrich always much loved, was, no doubt, a resource to Friedrich in his lonely roamings and vicissitudes in those dark years. No other British Ambassador ever had the luck to please him or be pleased by him,—most of them, as Ex-Exchequer Legge and the like Ex-Parliamentary people, he seems to have considered dull, obstinate, wooden fellows, of fantastic, abrupt rather abstruse kind of character, not worth deciphering;—some of them, as Hanbury Williams, with the mischievous tic (more like galvanism or St.-Vitus'-dance) which he called "wit," and the inconvenient turn for plotting and intriguing, Friedrich could not endure at all, but had them as soon as possible recalled,—of course, not without detestation on their part.

At Leitmeritz, it appears, he kept withdrawn to his closet a good deal; gave himself up to his sorrows and his thoughts; would sit many hours drowned in tears, weeping bitterly like a child or a woman. This is strange to some readers; but it is true,—and ought to alter certain current notions. Friedrich, flashing like clear steel upon evildoers and mendacious unjust persons and their works, is not by nature a cruel man, then, or an unfeeling, as Rumor reports? Reader, no, far the reverse;—and public Rumor, as you may have remarked, is apt to be an extreme blockhead, full of fury and stupidity on such points, and had much better hold its tongue till it know in some measure. Extreme sensibility is not sure to be a merit; though it is sure to be reckoned one, by the greedy dim fellows looking idly on: but, in any case, the degree of it that dwelt (privately, for most part) in Friedrich was great; and to himself it seemed a sad rather than joyful fact. Speaking of this matter, long afterwards, to Garve, a Silesian Philosopher, with whom he used to converse at Breslau, he says;—or let dull Garve himself report it, in the literal third-person:—

"And herein, I," the Herr Garve (venturing to dispute, or qualify, on one of his Majesty's favorite topics), "believe, lies the real ground of 'happiness:' it is the capacity and opportunity to accomplish great things. This the King would not allow; but said, That I did not sufficiently take into account the natural feelings, different in different people, which, when painful, imbittered the life of the highest as of the lowest. That, in his own life, he had experienced the deepest sufferings of this kind: 'And,' added he, with a touching tone of kindness and familiarity, which never occurred again in his interviews with me, 'if you (ER) knew, for instance, what I underwent on the death of my Mother, you would see that I have been as unhappy as any other, and unhappier than others, because of the greater sensibility I had (WEIL ICH MEHR EMPFINDLICHKEIT GEHABT HABE).'" [Fragmente zur Schilderung des Geistes, des Charakters und der Regierung Friedrichs des Zweiten, von Christian Garve (Breslau, 1798), i. 314-316. An unexpectedly dull Book (Garve having talent and reputation); kind of monotonous Preachment upon Friedrich's character: almost nothing but the above fraction now derivable from it.]

There needed not this new calamity in Friedrich's lot just now! From all points of the compass, his enemies, held in check so long, are floating on: the confluence of disasters and ill-tidings, at this time, very great. From Jung-Bunzlau, close by, his Brother's accounts are bad; and grow ever worse,—as will be seen! On the extreme West, "July 3d," while Friedrich at Leitmeritz sat weeping for his Mother, the French take Embden from him; "July 5th," the Russians, Memel, on the utmost East. June 30th, six days before, the Russians, after as many months of haggling, did cross the Border; 37,000 of them on this point; and set to bombarding Memel from land and sea. Poor Memel (garrison only 700) answered very fiercely, "sank two of their gunboats" and the like; but the end was as we see,—Feldmarschall Lehwald able to give no relief. For there were above 70,000 other Russians (Feldmarschall Apraxin with these latter, and Cossacks and Calmucks more than enough) crossing elsewhere, south in Tilsit Country, upon old Lehwald. [Helden-Geschichte, iv. 407-413.] Lehwald, with 30,000, in such circumstances—what is to become of Preussen and him! Nearer hand, the Austrians, the French, the very Reichs Army, do now seem intent on business.

The Reichs Execution Army, we saw how Mayer and the Battle of Prag had checked it in the birth-pangs; and given rise to pangs of another sort; the poor Reichs Circles generally exclaiming, "What! Bring the war into our own borders? Bring the King of Prussia on our own throats!"—and stopping short in their enlistments and preparations; in vain for Austrian Officials to urge them. Watching there, with awe-struck eye, while the 12,000 bombs flew into Prag.

The Battle of Kolin has reversed all that; and the poor old Reich is again bent on business in the Execution way. Drumming, committeeing, projecting, and endeavoring, with all her might, in all quarters; and, from and after the event of Kolin, holding visible Encampment, in the Nurnberg Country; fractions of actual troops assembling there. "On the Plains of Furth, between Furth and Farrenbach, east side the River Regnitz, there was the Camp pitched," says my Anonymous Friend; who gives me a cheerful Copperplate of the thing: red pennons, blue, and bright mixed colors; generals, tents; order-of-battle, and respective rallying points: with Bamberg Country in front, and the peaks of the Pine Mountains lying pleasantly behind: a sight for the curious. [J.F.S. (whom I named ANONYMOUS OF HAMBURG long since; who has boiled down, with great diligence, the old Newspapers, and gives a great many dates, notes, &c., without Index), i. 211, 224 (the Copperplate).] It is the same ground where Mayer was careering lately; neighboring nobility and gentry glad to come in gala, and dance with Mayer. Hither, all through July, come contingents straggling in, thicker and thicker; "August 8th," things now about complete, the Bishop of Bamberg came to take survey of the Reichs-Heer (Bishop's remarks not given); August 10th, came the young reigning Duke of Hildburghausen (Duke's grand-uncle is to be Commander), on like errand; August 11th) the Reichs-Heer got on march. Westward ho!—readers will see towards what.

A truly ELENDE, or miserable, Reichs Execution Army (as the MISprinter had made it); but giving loud voice in the Gazettes; and urged by every consideration to do something for itself. Prince of Hildburghausen—a general of small merit, though he has risen in the Austrian service, and we have seen him with Seckendorf in old Turk times—has, for his Kaiser's sake, taken the command; sensible perhaps that glory is not likely to be rife here; but willing to make himself useful. Kaiser and Austria urge, everywhere, with all their might: Prince of Hessen-Darmstadt, who lay on the Weissenberg lately, one of Keith's distinguished seconds there and a Prussian Officer of long standing, has, on Kaiser's order, quitted all that, and become Hildburghausen's second here, in the Camp of Furth; thinking the path of duty lay that way,—though his Wife, one of the noble women of her age, thought very differently. [Her Letter to Friedrich, "Berlin, 30th October, 1757," OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. ii. 135.] A similar Kaiser's order, backed by what Law-thunder lay in the Reich, had gone out against Friedrich's own Brothers, and against every Reichs Prince who was in Friedrich's service; but, except him of Hessen-Darmstadt, none of them had much minded. [In Orlich, Furst Moritz von Anhalt Dessau (Berlin, 1842), pp. 74, 75, Prince Moritz's rather mournful Letter on the subject, with Friedrich's sharp Answer.] I did not hear that his strategic talent was momentous: but Prussia had taught him the routine of right soldiering, surely to small purpose; and Friedrich, no doubt, glanced indignantly at this small thing, among the many big ones.

From about the end of June, the Reichs Army kept dribbling in: the most inferior Army in the world; no part of it well drilled, most of it not drilled at all; and for variety in color, condition, method, and military and pecuniary and other outfit, beggaring description. Hildburghausen does his utmost; Kaiser the like. The number should have far exceeded 50,000; but was not, on the field, of above half that number: 25,000; add at least 8,000 Austrian troops, two regiments of them cavalry; good these 8,000, the rest bad,—that was the Reichs Execution Army; most inferior among Armies; and considerable part of it, all the Protestant part, privately wishing well to Friedrich, they say. Drills itself multifariously in that Camp between Furth and Farrenbach, on the east side of Regnitz River. Fancy what a sight to Wilhelmina, if she ever drove that way; which I think she hardly would. The Baireuth contingent itself is there; the Margraf would have held out stiff on that point; but Friedrich himself advised compliance. Margraf of Anspach—perverse tippling creature, ill with his Wife, I doubt—has joyfully sent his legal hundreds; will vote for the Reichs Ban against this worst of Germans, whom he has for Brother-in-law. Dark days in the heart of Wilhelmina, those of the Camp at Furth. Days which grow ever darker, with strange flashings out of empyrean lightning from that shrill true heart; no peace more, till the noble heroine die!—

This ELENDE Reichs-Heer, miserable "Army of the Circles," is mockingly called "the Hoopers, Coopers (TONNELIERS)," and gets quizzing enough, under that and other titles, from an Opposition Public. Far other from the French and Austrians; who are bent that it should do feats in the world, and prove impressive on a robber King. Thus too, "for Deliverance of Saxony," to co-operate with Reichs-Heer in that sacred object, thanks to the zeal of Pompadour, Prince de Soubise has got together, in Elsass, a supplementary 30,000 (40,330 said Theory, but Fact never quite so many): and is passing them across the Rhine, in Frankfurt Country, all through July, while the drilling at Furth goes on. With these, Soubise, simultaneously getting under way, will steer northeastward; join the Reichs-Heer about Erfurt, before August end; and—and we shall see what becomes of the combined Soubise and Reichs Army after that!

It must be owned, the French, Pompadour and love of glory urging, are diligent since the event of Kolin. In select Parisian circles, the Soubise Army, or even that of D'Estrees altogether,—produced by the tears of a filial Dauphiness,—is regarded as a quasi-sacred, or uncommonly noble thing; and is called by her name, "L'ARMEE DE LA DAUPHINE;" or for shortness "LA DAUPHINE" without adjunct. Thus, like a kind of chivalrous Bellona, vengeance in her right hand, tears and fire in her eyes, the DAUPHINESS advances; and will join Reichs-Heer at Erfurt before August end. Such the will of Pompadour; Richelieu encouraging, for reasons of his own. Soubise, I understand, is privately in pique against poor D'Estrees; ["Reappeared unexpectedly in Paris [from D'Estree's Army], 22d June" (four days after Kolin): got up this DAUPHINESS ARMY, by aid of Pompadour, with Richelieu, &c.: BARBIER, iv. 227, 231. Richelieu "busy at Strasburg lately" (29th July: Collini's VOLTAIRE, p. 191).] and intends to eclipse him by a higher style of diligence; though D'Estrees too is doing his best.

July 3d, we saw the D'Estrees people taking Embden; D'Estrees, quiet so long in his Camp at Bielefeld, had at once bestirred himself, Kolin being done;—shot out a detachment leftwards, and Embden had capitulated that day. Adieu to the Shipping Interests there, and to other pleasant things! "July 9th, after sunset," D'Estrees himself got on march from Bielefeld; set forth, in the cool of night, 60,000 strong, and 10,000 more to join him by the road (the rest are left as garrisons, reserves,—1,000 marauders of them swing as monitory pendulums, on their various trees, for one item),—direct towards Hanover and Royal Highness of Cumberland; who retreats, and has retreated, behind the Ems, the Weser, back, ever back; and, to appearance, will make a bad finish yonder.

To Friedrich, waiting at Leitmeritz, all these things are gloomily known; but the most pressing of them is that of the Austrians and Jung-Bunzlau close by. Let us give some utterances of his to Wilhelmina, nearly all we have of direct from him in that time; and then hasten to the Prince of Prussia there:—

FRIEDRICH TO WILHELMINA (at Baireuth).

LEITMERITZ, 1st JULY, 1757.... "Sensible as heart can be to the tender interest you deign to take in what concerns me. Dear Sister, fear nothing on my score: men are always in the hand of what we call Fate" ("Predestination, GNADENWAHL,"—Pardon us, Papa!—"CE QU'ON NOMME LE DESTIN); accidents will befall people, walking on the streets, sitting in their room, lying in their bed; and there are many who escape the perils of war.... I think, through Hessen will be the safest route for your Letters, till we see; and not to write just now except on occasions of importance. Here is a piece in cipher; anonymous,"—intended for the Newspapers, or some such road.

JULY 5th. "By a Courier of Plotho's, returning to Regensburg [who passes near you], I write to apprise my dear Sister of the new misery which overwhelms us. We have no longer a Mother. This loss puts the crown on my sorrows. I am obliged to act; and have not time to give free course to my tears. Judge, I pray you, of the situation of a feeling heart put to so cruel a trial. All losses in the world are capable of being remedied; but those which Death causes are beyond the reach of hope."

JULY 7th. "You are too good; I am ashamed to abuse your indulgence. But do, since you will, try to sound the French, what conditions of Peace they would demand; one might judge as to their intentions. Send that Mirabeau (CE M. DE MIRABEAU) to France. Willingly will I pay the expense. He may offer as much as five million thalers [750,000 pounds] to the Favorite [yes, even to the Pompadour] for Peace alone. Of course, his utmost discretion will be needed;"—should the English get the least wind of it! But if they are gone to St. Vitus, and fail in every point, what can one do? CE M. DE MIRABEAU, readers will be surprised to learn, is an Uncle of the great Mirabeau's; who has fallen into roving courses, gone abroad insolvent; and "directs the Opera at Baireuth," in these years!—One Letter we will give in full:—

"LEITMERITZ, 13th July, 1757.

"MY DEAREST SISTER,—Your Letter has arrived: I see in it your regrets for the irreparable loss we have had of the best and worthiest Mother in this world. I am so struck down with all these blows from within and without, that I feel myself in a sort of Stupefaction.

"The French have just laid hold of Friesland [seized Embden, July 3d]; are about to pass the Weser: they have instigated the Swedes to declare War against me; the Swedes are sending 17,000 men [rather more if anything; but they proved beautifully ineffectual] into Pommern,"—will be burdensome to Stralsund and the poor country people mainly; having no Captain over them but a hydra-headed National Palaver at home, and a Long-pole with Cocked-hat on it here at hand. "The Russians are besieging Memel [have taken it, ten days ago]: Lehwald has them on his front and in his rear. The Troops of the Reich," from your Plains of Furth yonder, "are also about to march. All this will force me to evacuate Bohemia, so soon as that crowd of Enemies gets into motion.

"I am firmly resolved on the extremest efforts to save my Country. We shall see (QUITTE A VOIR) if Fortune will take a new thought, or if she will entirely turn her back upon me. Happy the moment when I took to training myself in philosophy! There is nothing else that can sustain the soul in a situation like mine. I spread out to you, dear Sister, the detail of my sorrows: if these things regarded only myself, I could stand it with composure; but I am bound Guardian of the safety and happiness of a People which has been put under my charge. There lies the sting of it: and I shall have to reproach myself with every fault, if, by delay or by over-haste, I occasion the smallest accident; all the more as, at present, any fault may be capital.

"What a business! Here is the liberty of Germany, and that Protestant Cause for which so much blood has been shed; here are those Two great Interests again at stake; and the pinch of this huge game is such, that an unlucky quarter of an hour may establish over Germany the tyrannous domination of the House of Austria forever! I am in the case of a traveller who sees himself surrounded and ready to be assassinated by a troop of cut-throats, who intend to share his spoils. Since the League of Cambrai [1508-1510, with a Pope in it and a Kaiser and Most Christian King, iniquitously sworn against poor Venice;—to no purpose, as happily appears], there is no example of such a Conspiracy as that infamous Triumvirate [Austria, France, Russia] now forms against me. Was it ever seen before, that three great Princes laid plot in concert to destroy a Fourth, who had done nothing against them? I have not had the least quarrel either with France or with Russia, still less with Sweden. If, in common life, three citizens took it into their heads to fall upon their neighbor, and burn his house about him, they very certainly, by sentence of tribunal, would be broken on the wheel. What! and will Sovereigns, who maintain these tribunals and these laws in their States, give such example to their subjects?... Happy, my dear Sister, is the obscure man, whose good sense from youth upwards, has renounced all sorts of glory; who, in his safe low place, has none to envy him, and whose fortune does not excite the cupidity of scoundrels!

"But these reflections are vain. We have to be what our birth, which decides, has made us in entering upon this world. I reckoned that, being King, it beseemed me to think as a Sovereign; and I took for principle, that the reputation of a Prince ought to be dearer to him than life. They have plotted against me; the Court of Vienna has given itself the liberty of trying to maltreat me; my honor commanded me not to suffer it. We have come to War; a gang of robbers falls on me, pistol in hand: that is the adventure which has happened to me. The remedy is difficult: in desperate diseases there are no methods but desperate ones.

"I beg a thousand pardons, dear Sister: in these three long pages I talk to you of nothing but my troubles and affairs. A strange abuse it would be of any other person's friendship. But yours, my dear Sister, yours is known to me; and I am persuaded you are not impatient when I open my heart to you:—a heart which is yours altogether; being filled with sentiments of the tenderest esteem, with which I am, my dearest Sister, your [in truth, affectionate Brother at all times] F." [OEuvres de Frederic, xxvii. i. 294, 295, 296-298.]

PRINCE AUGUST WILHELM FINDS A BAD PROBLEM AT JUNG-BUNZLAU; AND DOES IT BADLY: FRIEDRICH THEREUPON HAS TO RISE FROM LEITMERITZ, AND TAKE THE FIELD ELSEWHERE, IN BITTER HASTE AND IMPATIENCE, WITH OUTLOOKS WORSE THAN EVER

The Prince of Prussia's Enterprise had its intricacies; but, by good management, was capable of being done. At least, so Friedrich thought;—though, in truth, it would have been better had Friedrich gone himself, since the chief pressure happened to fall there! The Prince has to retire, Parthian-like, as slowly as possible, with the late Kolin or Moritz-Bevern Army, towards the Lausitz, keeping his eye upon Silesia the while; of course securing the passes and strong places in his passage, for defence of his own rear at lowest; especially securing Zittau, a fine opulent Town, where his chief Magazine is, fed from Silesia now. The Army is in good strength (guess 30,000), with every equipment complete, in discipline, in health and in heart, such as beseems a Prussian Army,—probably longing rather, if it venture to long or wish for anything not yet commanded, to have a stroke at those Austrians again, and pay them something towards that late Kolin score.