_ BOOK XIII. FIRST SILESIAN WAR, LEAVING THE GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE ABLAZE ALL ROUND, GETS ENDED. May, 1741-July, 1742
CHAPTER VII. FRIEDRICH PURPOSES TO MEND THE KLEIN-SCHNELLENDORF FAILURE: FORTUNES OF THE BELLEISLE ARMAMENT
We shall not dwell upon the movements of the French into Germany for the purpose of overwhelming Austria, and setting up four subordinate little Sovereignties to take their orders from Louis XV. The plan was of the mad sort, not recognized by Nature at all; the diplomacy was wide, expensive, grandiose, but vain and baseless; nor did the soldiering that followed take permanent hold of men's memory. Human nature cannot afford to follow out these loud inanities; and, at a certain distance of time, is bound to forget them, as ephemera of no account in the general sum. Difficult to say what profit human nature could get out of such transaction. There was no good soldiering on the part of the French except by gleams here and there; bad soldiering for the most part, and the cause was radically bad. Let us be brief with it; try to snatch from it, huge rotten heap of old exuviae and forgotten noises and deliriums, what fractions of perennial may turn up for us, carefully forgetting the rest.
Maillebois with his 40,000, we have seen how they got to Osnabruck, and effectually stilled the war-fervor of little George II.; sent him home, in fact, to England a checkmated man, he riding out of Osnabruck by one gate, the French at the same moment marching in by the other. There lies Maillebois ever since; and will lie, cantoned over Westphalia, "not nearer than three leagues to the boundary of Hanover," for a year and more. There let Maillebois lie, till we see him called away else-wither, upon which the gallant little George, check-mate being lifted, will get into notable military activity, and attempt to draw his sword again,--though without success, owing to the laggard Dutch. Which also, as British subjects, if not otherwise, the readers of this Book will wish to see something of. Maillebois did not quite keep his stipulated distance of "three leagues from the boundary" (being often short of victual), and was otherwise no good neighbor. Among his Field-Officers, there is visible (sometimes in trouble about quarters and the like) a Marquis du Chatelet,--who, I find, is Husband or Ex-Husband to the divine Emilie, if readers care to think of that! [
Campagnes (i. 45, 193); and French Peerage-Books,? DU CHATELAT.] Other known face, or point of interest for or against, does not turn up in the Maillebois Operation in those parts.
As for the other still grander Army, Army of the Oriflamme as we have called it,--which would be Belleisle's, were not he so overwhelmed with embassying, and persuading the Powers of Germany,--this, since we last saw it, has struck into a new course, which it is essential to indicate. The major part of it (Four rear Divisions! if readers recollect) lay at Ingolstadt, its place of arms; while the Vanward Three Divisions, under Maurice Comte de Saxe, flowed onward, joining with Bavaria at Passau; down the Donau Country, to Linz and farther, terrifying Vienna itself; and driving all the Court to Presburg, with (fabulous) "MORIAMUR PRO REGE NOSTRO MARIA THERESIA," but with actual armament of Tolpatches, Pandours, Warasdins, Uscocks and the like unsightly beings of a predatory centaur nature. Which fine Hungarian Armament, and others still more ominous, have been diligently going on, while Karl Albert sat enjoying his Homagings at Linz, his Pisgah-views Vienna-ward; and asking himself, "Shall we venture forward, and capture Vienna, then?"
The question is intricate, and there are many secret biasings concerned in the solution of it. Friedrich, before Klein-Schnellendorf time, had written eagerly, had sent Schmettau with eager message, "Push forward; it is feasible, even easy: cut the matter by the root!" This, they say, was Karl Albert's own notion, had not the French overruled him;--not willing, some guess, he should get Austria, and become too independent of them all at once. Nay, it appears Karl Albert had inducements of his own towards Bohemia rather. The French have had Kur-Sachsen to manage withal; and there are interests in Bohemia of his and theirs,--clippings of Bohemia promised him as bribes, besides that "Kingdom of Moravia," to get his 21,000 set on march. "Clippings of Bohemia? Interests of Kur-Sachsen's in that Country?" asks Karl Albert with alarm: and thinks it will be safer, were he himself present there, while Saxony and France do the clippings in question! Sure enough, he did not push on. Belleisle, from the distance, strongly opined otherwise; Karl Albert himself had jealous fears about Bohmen. Friedrich's importunities and urgencies were useless: and the one chance there ever was for Karl Albert, for Belleisle and the Ruin of Austria, vanished without return.
Karl Albert has turned off, leftwards, towards his Bohemian Enterprises: French, Bavarians, Saxons, by their several routes, since the last days of October, are all on march that way. We will mark an exact date here and there, as fixed point for the reader's fancy. Poor Karl Albert, he had sat some six weeks at Linz,--about three weeks since that Homaging there (October 2d);--imaginary Sovereign of Upper Austria; looking over to Vienna and the Promised Land in general. And that fine Pisgah-view was all he ever had of it. Of Austrian or other Conquests earthly or heavenly, there came none to him in this Adventure;--mere MINUS quantities they all proved. For a few weeks more, there are, blended with awful portents, an imaginary gleam or two in other quarters; after which, nothing but black horror and disgrace, deepening downwards into utter darkness, for the poor man. Belleisle is an imaginary Sun-god; but the poor Icarus, tempted aloft in that manner into the earnest elements, and melting at once into quills and rags, is a tragic reality!--Let us to our dates:--
"OCTOBER 24th, The Bavarian Troops, who had lain at Mautern on the Donau some time, forty miles from Vienna and the Promised Land, got under way again;--not FORWARD, but sharp to left, or northward, towards the Bohemian parts. Thither all the Belleisle Armaments are now bound; and a general rallying of them is to be at Prag; for conquest of that Country, as more inviting than Austria at present. Comte de Saxe, who had lain at St. Polten, a march to southward of Mautern, he with the Vanward of the great Belleisle Army, bestirred himself at the same time; and followed steadily (Karl Albert in person was with Saxe), at a handy distance by parallel roads. To Prag may be about 200 miles. Across the Mannhartsberg Country, clear out of Austria, into Bohmen, towards Prag. At Budweis, or between that and Tabor, Towns of our old friend Zisca's, of which we shall hear farther in these Wars; Towns important by their intricate environment of rock and bog, far up among the springs of the Moldau,--there can these Bavarians, and this French Vanward of Belleisle, halt a little, till the other parties, who are likewise on march, get within distance."
For in these same days, as hinted above, the Rearward of the Belleisle Army (Four Divisions, strength not accurately given) pushes forward from Donauworth, well rested, through the Bavarian Passes, towards Bohemia and Prag: these have a longer march (say 250 miles)? to northeast; and the leader of them is one Polastron, destined unhappily to meet us on a future occasion. With them go certain other Bavarians; accompanying or preceding, as in the Vanward case. And then the Saxons (21,000 strong, a fine little Army, all that Saxony has) are, at the same time, come across the Metal Mountains (ERZGEBIRGE), in quest of those Bohemian clippings, of that Kingdom of Moravia: and march from the westward upon Prag,--Rutowsky leading them. Comte de Rutowsky, Comte de Saxe's Half-Brother, one of the Three Hundred and Fifty-four:--with whom is CHEVALIER de Saxe, a second younger ditto; and I think there is still a third, who shall go unnamed. In this grand Oriflamme Expedition, Four of the Royal-Saxon Bastards altogether." Who cost us more distinguishing than they are worth!
Chief General of these Saxons, says an Authentic Author, is Rutowsky; got from a Polish mother, I should guess: he commands in chief here;--once had a regiment under Friedrich Wilhelm, for a while; but has not much head for strategy, it may be feared. But mark that Fourth individual of the Three Hundred and Fifty-four, who has a great deal. Fourth individual, called Comte de Saxe, who is now in that French Vanward a good way to east, was (must I again remind you!) the produce of the fair Aurora von Konigsmark, Sister of the Konigsmark who vanished instantaneously from the light of day at Hanover long since, and has never reappeared more. It was in search of him that Aurora, who was indeed a shining creature (terribly insolvent all her life, whose charms even Charles XII. durst not front), came to Dresden; and,--in this Comte de Saxe, men see the result. Tall enough, restless enough; most eupeptic, brisk, with a great deal of wild faculty,--running to waste, nearly all. There, with his black arched eyebrows, black swift physically smiling eyes, stands Monseigneur le Comte, one of the strongest-bodied and most dissolute-minded men now living on our Planet. He is now turned of forty: no man has been in such adventures, has swum through such seas of transcendent eupepticity determined to have its fill. In this new Quasi-sacred French Enterprise, under the Banner of Belleisle and the Chateauroux, he has at last, after many trials, unconsciously found his culmination: and will do exploits of a wonderful nature,--very worthy of said Banner and its patrons.
"Here, then, are Three streams or Armaments pouring forward upon Prag; perhaps some 60,000 men in all:--a good deal uncertain what they are to do at Prag, except arrive simultaneously so far as possible. Belleisle, far off, has fallen sick in these critical days. Comte de Saxe cannot see his way in the matter at all: 'What are we to live upon,' asks Comte de Saxe, 'were there nothing more!'--For, simultaneously with these Three Armaments on march, there is an important Austrian one, likewise on the road for Prag: that of Grand-Duke Franz, who has left Presburg, with say 30,000 (including the Pandour element); and duly meets the Neipperg, or late Silesian Army;--well capable, now, to do a stroke upon the Three Armaments, if he be speedy? 'November 7th' it was when Grand-Duke Franz picked up Neipperg, 'at Frating' deep in Moravia (November 7th, the very day while Friedrich was getting homaged in Breslau), and turned him northwestward again. The Grand-Duke, in such strength, marches Rag-ward what he can; might be there before the French, were he swift; and is at any rate in disagreeable proximity to that Budmeis-Tabor Country, appointed as one's halting-place."
And Belleisle, in these critical days, is--consider it!--"Poor Belleisle, he has all the Election Votes ready; he has done unspeakable labors in the diplomatic way; and leaves Europe in ebullition and conflagration behind him. He has all these Armies in motion, and has got rid of 'that Moravia,'--given it to Saxony, who adds the title 'King of Moravia' to his other dignities, and has set on march those 21,000 men. 'Would he were ready with them!' Belleisle had been saying, ever since the Treaty for them,--Treaty was, September 19th. Belleisle, to expedite him, came to Dresden [what day is not said, but deep in October]; intending next for the Prag Country, there to commence General, the diplomacies being satisfactorily done. Valori ran over from Berlin to wait upon him there. Alas, the Saxons are on march, or nearly so; but the great man himself, worn down with these Herculean labors, has fallen into rheumatic fever; is in bed, out at Hubertsburg (serene Country Palace of his Moravian Polish Majesty); and cannot get the least well, to march in person with the Three Armaments, with the flood of things he has set reeling and whirling at such rate.
"The sympathies of Valori go deep at this spectacle. The Alcides, who was carrying the axis of the world, fallen down in physical rheumatism! But what can sympathies avail? The great man sees the Saxons march without him. The great man, getting no alleviation from physicians, determines, in his patriotic heroism, to surrender glory itself; writes home to Court, 'That he is lamed, disabled utterly; that they must nominate another General.' And they nominate another; nominate Broglio, the fat choleric Marshal, of Italian breed and physiognomy, whom we saw at Strasburg last year, when Friedrich was there. Broglio will quit Strasburg too soon, and come. A man fierce in fighting, skilled too in tactics; totally incompetent in strategy, or the art of LEADING armies, and managing campaigns;--defective in intelligence indeed, not wise to discern; dim of vision, violent of temper; subject to sudden cranks, a headlong, very positive, loud, dull and angry kind of man; with whose tumultuous imbecilities the great Belleisle will be sore tried by and by. 'I reckon this,' Valori says, 'the root of all our woes;' this Letter which the great Belleisle wrote home to Court. Let men mark it, therefore, as a cardinal point,--and snatch out the date, when they have opportunity upon the Archives of France. [See Valori, i. 131.]
"Monseigneur the Comte de Saxe, before quitting the Vienna Countries, had left some 10,000 French and Bavarians, posted chiefly in Linz, under a Comte de Segur, to maintain those Donau Conquests, which have cost only the trouble of marching into them. Count Khevenhuller has ceased working at the ramparts of Vienna, nothing of siege to be apprehended now, civic terror joyfully vanishing again; and busies himself collecting an Army at Vienna, with intent of looking into those same French Segurs, before long. It is probable the so-called Conquests on the Donau will not be very permanent.
"NOVEMBER 19th-21st, The Three Belleisle Armaments, Karl Albert's first, have, simultaneously enough for the case, arrived on three sides of Prag; and lie looking into it,--extremely uncertain what to do when there. To Comte de Saxe, to Schmettau, who is still here, the outlook of this grand Belleisle Army, standing shelterless, provisionless, grim winter at hand, long hundreds of miles from home or help, is in the highest degree questionable, though the others seem to make little of it: 'Fight the Grand-Duke when he comes,' say they; 'beat him, and--' 'Or suppose, he won't fight? Or suppose, we are beaten by him?' answer Saxe and Schmettau, like men of knowledge, in the same boat with men of none. (We have no strong place, or footing in this Country: what are we to do? Take Prag!' advises Comte de Saxe, with earnestness, day after day. [His Letters on it to Karl Albert and others (in Espagnac, i. 94-99).)] 'Take Prag: but how?' answer they. 'By escalade, by surprise, and sword in hand, answers he: 'Ogilvy their General has but 3,000, and is perhaps no wizard at his trade: we can do it, thus and thus, and then farther thus; and I perceive we are a lost Army if we don't!' So counsels Maurice Comte de Saxe, brilliant, fervent in his military views;--and, before it is quite too late, Schmettau and he persuade Karl Albert, persuade Rutowsky chief of the Saxons; and Count Polastron, Gaisson or whatever subaltern Counts there are, of French type, have to accede, and be saved in spite of themselves. And so,
"SATURDAY NIGHT, 25th NOVEMBER, 1741, brightest of moonshiny nights, our dispositions are all made: Several attacks, three if I remember; one of them false, under some Polastron, Gaisson, from the south side; a couple of them true, from the northwest and the southeast sides, under Maurice with his French, and Rutowsky with his Saxons, these two. And there is great marching 'on the side of the Karl-Thor (Charles-Gate),' where Rutowsky is; and by Count Maurice 'behind the Wischerad;'--and shortly after midnight the grand game begins. That French-Polastron attack, false, though with dreadful cannonade from the south, attracts poor Ogilvy with almost all his forces to that quarter; while the couple of Saxon Captains (Rutowsky not at once successful, Maurice with his French completely so) break in upon Ogilvy from rearward, on the right flank and on the left; and ruin the poor man. Military readers will find the whole detail of it well given in Espagnac. Looser account is to be had in the Book they call Mauvillon's." [
Derniere Guerre de Boheme, i. 252-264. Saxe's own Account (Letter to Chevalier de Folard) is in Espagnac, i. 89 et seqq.]
One thing I remember always: the bright moonlight; steeples of Prag towering serene in silvery silence, and on a sudden the wreaths of volcanic fire breaking out all round them. The opposition was but trifling, null in some places, poor Ogilvy being nothing of a wizard, and his garrison very small. It fell chiefly on Rutowsky; who met it with creditable vigor, till relieved by the others. Comte Maurice, too, did a shifty thing. Circling round by the outside of the Wischerad, by rural roads in the bright moonshine, he had got to the Wall at last, hollow slope and sheer wall; and was putting-to his scaling-ladders,--when, by ill luck, they proved too short! Ten feet or so; hopelessly too short. Casting his head round, Maurice notices the Gallows hard by: "There, see you, are a few short ladders: MES ENFANS, bring me these, and we will splice with rope!" Supplemented by the gallows, Maurice soon gets in, cuts down the one poor sentry; rushes to the Market-place, finds all his Brothers rushing, embraces them with "VICTOIRE!" and "You see I am eldest; bound to be foremost of you!"
"No point in all the War made a finer blaze in the French imagination, or figured better in the French gazettes, than this of the Scalade of Prag, 25th November, 1741. And surely it was important to get hold of Prag; nevertheless, intrinsically it is no great thing, but an opportune small thing, done by the Comte de Saxe, in spite of such contradiction as we saw."
It was while news of this exploit was posting towards Berlin, but not yet arrived there, that Friedrich, passing through the apartment, intimated to Hyndford, "Milord, all is divulged, our Klein-Schnellendorf mystery public as the house-tops;" and vanished with a shrug of the shoulders,--thinking doubtless to himself, "What is OUR next move to be, in consequence?" Treaty with Kur-Baiern (November 4th) he had already signed in consequence, expressly declaring for Kur-Baiern, and the French intentions towards him. This news from Prag--Prag handsomely captured, if Vienna had been foolishly neglected--put him upon a new Adventure, of which in following Chapters we shall hear more. _