_ BOOK XIII. FIRST SILESIAN WAR, LEAVING THE GENERAL EUROPEAN ONE ABLAZE ALL ROUND, GETS ENDED. May, 1741-July, 1742
CHAPTER VIII. FRIEDRICH STARTS FOR MORAVIA, ON A NEW SCHEME HE HAS
The Austrian Court had not kept Friedrich's secret of Klein-Schnellendorf, hardly even for a day. It was whispered to the Dowager Empress, or Empresses; who whispered it, or wrote it, to some other high party; by whom again as usual:--in fact, the Austrian Court, having once got their Neipperg safe to hand, took no pains to keep the secret; but had probably an interest rather in letting it filter out, to set Friedrich and his Allies at variance. At all events, in the space of a few weeks, as we have seen, the rumor of a Treaty between Austria and Friedrich was everywhere rife; Friedrich, as he had engaged, everywhere denying it, and indeed clearly perceiving that there was like to be no ground for acknowledging it. The Austrian Court, instead of "completing the Treaty before Newyear's-day," had broken the previous bargain; evidently not meaning to complete; intent rather to wait upon their Hungarian Insurrection, and the luck of War.
There is now, therefore, a new turn in the game. And for this also Friedrich has been getting the fit card ready; and is not slow to play it. Some time ago, November 4th,--properly November 1st, hardly three weeks since that of Klein-Schnellendorf,--finding the secret already out ("whispered of at Breslau, 28th October," casually testifies Hyndford), he had tightened his bands with France; had, on November 4th, formally acceded to Karl Albert's Treaty with France. [Accession agreed to, "Frankfurt, Nov. 1st," 1741; ratified "Nov. 4th."] Glatz to be his: he will not hear of wanting Glatz; nor of wanting elsewhere the proper Boundary for Schlesien, "Neisse River both banks" (which Neipperg had agreed to, in his late Sham-Bargain);--quite strict on these preliminaries.
And furthermore, Kur-Sachsen being now a Partner in that French-Bavarian Treaty,--and a highly active one (with 21,000 in the field for him), who is "King of Moravia" withal, and has some considerable northern Paring of Bohemia thrown in, by way of "Road to Moravia,"--Friedrich made, at the same time, special Treaty with Kur-Sachsen, on the points specially mutual to them; on the Boundary point, first of all. Which latter treaty is dated also November 1st, and was "ratified November 8th."
Treaty otherwise not worth reading; except perhaps as it shows us Friedrich putting, in his brief direct way, Kur-Sachsen at once into Austria's place, in regard to Ober-Schlesien. "Boundary between your Polish Majesty and me to be the River Neisse PLUS a full German mile;"--which (to Belleisle's surprise) the Polish Majesty is willing to accept; and consents, farther, Friedrich being of succinct turn, That Commissioners go directly and put down the boundary-stones, and so an end. "Let the Silesian matter stand where it stood," thinks Friedrich: "since Austria will not, will you? Put down the boundary-pillars, then!"--an interesting little glance into Friedrich's inner man. And a Prussian Boundary Commissioner, our friend Nussler the man, did duly appear;--whom perhaps we shall meet,--though no Saxon one quite did. [Busching,
Beitrage, i. 339 (? NUSSLER).] It is this boundary clause, it is Friedrich's little decision, "Put down the pillars, then," that alone can now interest any mortal in this Saxon Bargain; the clause itself, and the bargain itself, having quite broken down on the Saxon side, and proved imaginary as a covenant made in dreams. Could not be helped, in the sequel!--
Meanwhile, the preliminary diplomacies being done in this manner, Friedrich had ordered certain of his own Forces to get in motion a little; ordered Leopold, who has had endless nicety of management, since the French and Saxons came into those Bohemian Circles of his, to go upon Glatz; to lay fast hold of Glatz, for one thing. And farther eastward, Schwerin, by order, has lately gone across the Mountains; seized Troppau, Friedenthal; nay Olmutz itself, the Capital of Mahren,--in one day (December 27th), garrison of Olmutz being too weak to resist, and the works in disrepair. "In Heaven's name, what are your intentions, then?" asked the Austrians there. "Peaceable in the extreme," answered Schwerin, "if only yours are. And if they are NOT--!" There sits Schwerin ever since, busy strengthening himself, and maintains the best discipline; waiting farther orders.
"The Austrians will not complete their bargain of Klein-Schnellendorf?" thinks this young King; "Very well; we will not press them to completion. We will not ourselves complete, should they now press. We will try another method, and that without loss of time."--It was a pungent reflection with Friedrich that Karl Albert had not pushed forward on Vienna, from Linz that time, but had blindly turned off to the left, and thrown away his one chance. "Cannot one still mend it; cannot one still do something of the like?" thinks Friedrich now: "Schwerin in Olmutz; Prussian Troops cantoned in the Highlands of Silesia, or over in Bohemia itself, near the scene of action; the Saxons eastward as far as Teutschbrod, still nearer; the French triumphant at Prag, and reinforcement on the road for them: a combined movement on Vienna, done instantly and with an impetus!" That is the thing Friedrich is now bent upon; nor will he, like Karl Albert, be apt to neglect the hour of tide, which is so inexorable in such operations.
At Berlin, accordingly, he has been hurrying on his work, inspection, preparation of many kinds,--Marriage of his Brother August Wilhelm, for one business; [6th January, 1742 (in Bielfeld, ii. 55-69, exuberant account of the Ceremony, and of B.'s part in it).]--and (January 18th), after a stay of two months, is off fieldward again, on this new project. To Dresden, first of all; Saxony being an essential element; and Valori being appointed to meet him there on the French side. It is January 20th, 1742, when Friedrich arrives; due Opera festivities, "triple salute of all the guns," fail not at Dresden; but his object was not these at all. Polish Majesty is here, and certain of the warlike Bastard Brothers home from Winter-quarters, Comte de Saxe for one; Valori also, punctually as due; and little Graf von Bruhl, highest-dressed of human creatures, who is factotum in this Court.
"Your Polish Majesty, by treaty and title you are King of Moravia withal: now is the time, now or never, to become so in fact! Forward with your Saxons:" urges Friedrich: "The Austrians and their Lobkowitz are weak in that Country: at Iglau, just over the Moravian border, they have formed a Magazine; seize that, snatch it from Lobkowitz: that gives us footing and basis there. Forward with your Saxons; Valori gives us so-many French; I myself will join with 20,000: swift, steady, all at once; we can seize Moravia, who knows if not Vienna itself, and for certain drive a stroke right home into the very bowels of the Enemy!" That is Friedrich's theme from the first hour of his arrival, and during all the four-and-twenty that he stayed.
In one hour, Polish Majesty, who is fonder of tobacco and pastimes than of business, declared himself convinced;--and declared also that the time of Opera was come; whither the two Majesties had to proceed together, and suspend business for a while. Polish Majesty himself was very easily satisfied; but with the others, as Valori reports it, the argument was various, long and difficult. "Winter time; so dangerous, so precarious," answer Bruhl and Comte de Saxe: There is this danger, this uncertainty, and then that other;--which the King and Valori, with all their eloquence, confute. "Impossible, for want of victual," answers Maurice at last, driven into a corner: "Iglau, suppose we get it, will soon be eaten; then where is our provision?"--"Provision?" answers Valori: "There is M. de Sechelles, Head of our Commissariat in Prag; such a Commissary never was before." "And you consent, if I take that in hand?" urges Friedrich upon them. They are obliged to consent, on that proviso. Friedrich undertakes Sechelles: the Enterprise cannot now be refused. [
OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 170; Valori, i. 139; &c. &c.] "Alert, then; not a moment to be lost! Good-night; AU REVOIR, my noble friends!"--and to-morrow many hours before daybreak, Friedrich is off for Prag, leaving Dresden to awaken when it can.
At Prag he renews acquaintance with his old maladroit Strasburg friend, Marechal de Broglio, not with increase of admiration, as would seem; declines the demonstrations and civilities of Broglio, business being urgent: finds M. de Sechelles to be in truth the supreme of living Commissaries (ready, in words which Friedrich calls golden, "to make the impossible possible"): "Only march, then, noble Saxons: swift!"--and dashes off again, next morning, to northeastward, through Leopold's Bohemian cantonments, Glatz-ward by degrees, to be ready with his own share of the affair; no delay in him, for one. January 24th, after Konigsgratz and other Prussian posts,--January 24th, which is elsewhere so notable a day,--his route goes northeast, to Glatz, a hundred miles away, among the intricacies of the Giant Mountains, hither side of the Silesian Highlands; wild route for winter season, if the young King feared any route. From Berlin, hither and farther, he may have gone well-nigh his seven hundred miles within the week; rushing on continually (starts, at say four in the winter morning); doing endless business, of the ordering sort, as he speeds along.
Glatz, a southwestern mountainous Appendage to Silesia, abutting on Moravia and Bohemia, is a small strong Country; upon which, ever since the first Friedrich times, we have seen him fixed; claiming it too, as expenses from the Austrians, since they will not bargain. For he rises Sibyl-like: a year ago, you might have had him with his 100,000 to boot, for the one Duchy of Glogau; and now--! At Glatz or in these adjacent Bohemian parts, the Young Dessauer has been on duty, busy enough, ever since the late Siege of Neisse: Glatz Town the Young Dessauer soon got, when ordered; Town, Population, Territory, all is his,--all but the high mountain Fortress (centre of the Town of Glatzj), with its stiff-necked Austrian Garrison shut up there, which he is wearing out by hunger. We remember the little Note from Valori's waistcoat-pocket, "Don't give him Glatz, if you can possibly help it!" In his latest treaties with the French and their Allies, Friedrich has very expressly bargained for the Country (will even pay money for it); [
OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 85.] and is determined to have it, when the Austrians next take to bargaining. Of Glatz Fortress, now getting hungered out by Leopold's Prussian Detachment, I will say farther, though Friedrich heeds these circumstances little at present, that it stands on a scarped rock, girt by the grim intricate Hills; and that in the Arsenal, in dusty fabulous condition, lies a certain Drum, which readers may have heard of. Drum is not a fable, but an antique reality fallen flaccid; made, by express bequest, as is mythically said, from the skin of Zisca, above 300 years ago: altogether mythic that latter clause. Drum, Fortress, Town, Villages and Territory, all shall be Friedrich's, had hunger done its work. [Town already, after short scuffle, 14th January, 1742; Fortress, by hunger (no firing nor being fired on, in the interim), 25th April following,--when the once 2,000 of garrison, worn to about 200, pale as shadows, marched away to Brunn; "only ten of them able for duty on arriving." (Orlich, i. 174.)]
Friedrich, while at Glatz this time, gave a new Dress to the Virgin, say all the Biographers; of which the story is this. Holy Virgin stood in the main Convent of Glatz, in rather a threadbare condition, when the Prussians first approached; the Jesuits, and ardently Orthodox of both sexes, flagitating Heaven and her with their prayers, that she would vouchsafe to keep the Prussians out. In which case pious Madame Something, wife of the Austrian Commandant, vowed her a new suit of clothes. Holy Virgin did not vouchsafe; on the Contrary, here the Prussians are, and Starvation with them. "Courage, nevertheless, my new friends!" intimates Friedrich: "The Prussians are not bugaboos, as you imagined: Holy Virgin shall have a new coat, all the same!" and was at the expense of the bit of broadcloth with trimmings. He was in the way of making such investments, in his light sceptical humor; and found them answer to him. At Glatz, and through those Bohemian and Silesian Cantonments, he sets his people in motion for the Moravian Expedition; rapidly stirs up the due Prussian detachments from their Christmas rest among the Mountains; and has work enough in these regions, now here now there. Schwerin is already in Olmutz, for a month past; and towards him, or his neighborhood, the march is to be.
January 26th, Friedrich, now with considerable retinue about him, gets from Glatz to Landskron, some fifty miles Olmutz-ward; such a march as General Stille never saw,--"through the ice and through the snow, which covered that dreadful Chain of Mountains between Bohmen and Mahren: we did not arrive till very late; many of our carriages broken down, and others overturned more than once." [Stille (Anonymous, Friedrich's Old-Tutor Stille),
Campagnes du Roi de Prusse (English Translation, 12mo, London, 1763), p. 5. An intelligent, desirable little Volume,--many misprints in the English form of it.] At Landskron next day, Friedrich, as appointed, met the Chevalier de Saxe (CHEVALIER, by no means Comte, but a younger Bastard, General of the Saxon Horse); and endeavored to concert everything: Prussian rendezvous to be at Wischau, on the 5th next; thence straightway to meet the Saxons at Trebitsch (convenient for that Iglau),--if only the Saxons will keep bargain.
January 28th, past midnight, after another sore march, Friedrich arrived at Olmutz; a pretty Town,--with an excellent old Bishop, "a Graf von Lichtenstein, a little gouty man about fifty-two years of age, with a countenance open and full of candor; [Stille, p. 8.] in whose fine Palace, most courteously welcomed, the King lodged till near the day of rendezvousing. We will leave him there, and look westward a little; before going farther into the Moravian Expedition. Friedrich himself is evidently much bent on this Expedition; has set his heart on paying the Austrians for their trickery at Klein-Schnellendorf, in this handsome way, and still picking up the chance against them which Karl Albert squandered. If only the French and Saxons would go well abreast with Friedrich, and thrust home! But will they? Here is a surprising bit of news; not of good omen, when it reaches one at Olmutz!
"LINZ, 24th JANUARY, 1742 [day otherwise remarkable]. After the much barricading, and considerable defiance and bravadoing, by Comte de Segur and his 10,000, he has lost this City in a scandalous manner [not quite scandalous, but reckoned so by outside observers]; and Linz City is not now Segur's, but Khevenhuller's. To Khevenhuller's first summons M. de Segur had answered, 'I will hang on the highest gallows the next man that comes to propose such a thing!'--and within a week [Khevenhuller having seized the Donau River to rear of Linz, and blasted off the Bavarian party there], M. de Segur did himself propose it ('Free withdrawal: Not serve against you for a year'); and is this day beginning to march out of Linz." [
Campagnes des Trois Marechaux, iii. 280, &c.; Adelung, iii. A, p. 12, and p. 15 (a Paris street-song on it).] Here is an example of defending Key-Positions! If Segur's be the pattern followed, those Conquests on the Donau are like to go a fine road!--There came to Friedrich, in all privacy, during his stay in Olmutz at this Bishop's, a Diplomatic emissary from Vienna, one Pfitzner; charged with apologies, with important offers probably;--important; but not important enough. Friedrich blames himself for being too abrupt on the man; might perhaps have learned something from him by softer treatment. [
OEuvres de Frederic, ii. 109.] After three days, Pfitzner had to go his ways again, having accomplished nothing of change upon Friedrich. _